A Sneaky Change in Windows Licensing Terms

Friday, October 13, 2006

Microsoft Windows Vista Microsoft just released the licensing agreements for Windows Vista, and I read them carefully. Buried in the fine print is a dramatic change in licensing terms from the Windows XP versions. Think you can transfer a retail Windows license to any machine you want? Think again.

That limitation on retail licenses is a remarkable change. Previously, a retail license could be removed from one computer and reinstalled on another with no limits. Now, you get to reinstall one time and one time only.

3 Comments:

Just makes me think that much harder about going to Linux on my next production machine. I swear... man, MS is really screwing the pooch on this one.

By Bruce, at 2:52 PM
this is rediculous.
So what would this mean for those of us that tend to reinstall once every 8 months...
Does the serial number of your harddrive become part of the activation process?!

By AlRo, at 3:01 PM
I think it's connected to the motherboard, not the hard drive. So if you have a motherboard failure (for instance, my mobo will be replaced next week), you can do it. If it shits out again, go re-buy Windows. It also says you can't run the two cheapest versions of Vista in VMWare.

Bruce, make the Linux switch. It's much nicer here.

By Mackenzie, at 6:09 PM