http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/wi...ing-terms.aspx

"I'm very pleased to let you know you this morning (or afternoon, or
evening, depending on where you are when you read this) that the Windows
division has revised the retail license terms for Windows Vista in a
significant way.
Namely, the terms regarding license-to-device assignment of the retail
product (including Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate) now read
as follows:

You may uninstall the software and install it on another device for your
use. You may not do so to share this license between devices.
You can find the newly-revised retail license terms here, as I'm sure you'll
want to read them for yourself.

Our intention behind the original terms was genuinely geared toward
combating piracy; however, it's become clear to us that those original terms
were perceived as adversely affecting an important group of customers: PC
and hardware enthusiasts. You who comprise the enthusiast market are vital
to us for several reasons, not least of all because of the support you've
provided us throughout the development of Windows Vista. We respect the
time and expense you go to in customizing, building and rebuilding your
hardware and we heard you that the previous terms were seen as an impediment
to that -- it's for that reason we've made this change. I hope that this
change provides the flexibility you need, and gives you more reason to be
excited about the upcoming retail release of our new operating system."

Now, if they come out with a family license, that will be even better news!
--
Terri Stratton
Microsoft Featured Community
http://thetabletpc.net
Windows MVP - Tablet PC
http://writepc.com - a site for UMPCs

****! Now I have one less thing to complain about!

Actually, this is awesome! I had just simply decided that I wasn't even
going to try Vista even though it looks like it will be pretty cool. I
was just going to go with XP and Linux on my desktop but now it will
probably be Vista and Linux.

With a 1.4 GHz Pentium M and a cheap Intel video chip, I don't know if my
tablet could really handle Vista. I'm certainly not gonna try until I get
a new desktop and mess with it there. I may get quickly addicted and want
it on my tablet as well.

Could someone explain what difficulty this solves? Lots of people seem
excited but I don't know what they are excited about.

"Grant Robertson" <BOGUS@BOGUS.com> wrote in message
news:uZamEKt$GHA.1196@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Actually, this is awesome!

Previously, the wording for Vista EULA implied that the license could only
be transferred once, then a new license would need to be purchased. Not
quite as important for Tablets, but many of us have other machines and
upgrade frequently. A couple of new pieces of hardware could have possibly
required a new license.

Now, it's clear that the license can be reused as long as it isn't being
used simultaneously on more than one computer.
--
Terri Stratton
Microsoft Featured Community
http://thetabletpc.net
Windows MVP - Tablet PC
http://writepc.com - a site for UMPCs
"Mickey Segal" <not_monitored@example.com> wrote in message
news:ep1DvTu$GHA.4808@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Could someone explain what difficulty this solves? Lots of people seem
> excited but I don't know what they are excited about.
>
> "Grant Robertson" <BOGUS@BOGUS.com> wrote in message
> news:uZamEKt$GHA.1196@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> Actually, this is awesome!
>
>

I should have added that RETAIL licenses can be moved. OEMs are tied to the
machine on which they are first installed.
--
Terri Stratton
Microsoft Featured Community
http://thetabletpc.net
Windows MVP - Tablet PC
http://writepc.com - a site for UMPCs
"Mickey Segal" <not_monitored@example.com> wrote in message
news:ep1DvTu$GHA.4808@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Could someone explain what difficulty this solves? Lots of people seem
> excited but I don't know what they are excited about.
>
> "Grant Robertson" <BOGUS@BOGUS.com> wrote in message
> news:uZamEKt$GHA.1196@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> Actually, this is awesome!
>
>

In article <ep1DvTu$GHA.4808@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl>,
not_monitored@example.com says...
> Could someone explain what difficulty this solves? Lots of people seem
> excited but I don't know what they are excited about.

The license agreement they were going to use said you could only
uninstall it from an old machine and reinstall it on a new machine ONCE.
Many have found Windows Activation to be very picky about hardware. I
upgraded the hard drive in my laptop and Windows XP asked me to
reactivate. It reactivated just fine but that would have counted as my
one time to move Vista from one machine to another. For those of us who
upgrade often this would have been a disaster. We would have had to buy
yet another full retail copy of Windows for every other major upgrade we
did. Some people replace their motherboards more often that once a year.
The old licensing plan would have cost people an extra $289 (or whatever
the full retail version will cost) every other time they did that.

Rather than preventing piracy it would have just encouraged even more
people to do it as a rebellion against what they would have considered
highway robbery. And those would have been the some of the smartest
computer people and best able to figure out how to do it. Not only are
those people some of the most knowledgeable but they are the ones all
their friends go to for computer help. Once those people had pirated
versions of Vista don't you think they would have shared it with their
friends?

All in all, it was a bad plan for users and a bad plan for Microsoft as
well. It is good that they dropped it.

In article <26A6B985-77F4-4350-9BD2-4B076111EA4A@microsoft.com>,
terri@no.spam.mvps.org says...
> OEMs are tied to the
> machine on which they are first installed.


That is true. (Not that I would doubt you.) But I think it is important
for people to know that this has always been the case. As cynical as I am
about Microsoft, I agree that this is only fair. An OEM license usually
only costs the consumer about 35 - 50 bucks on top of the cost of the
hardware depending on the volume of sales of the manufacturer. Most
people who buy brand name computers keep them for 3-5 years. That's a
pretty good price for that long of a use. So it is fair to say you can
only use an OEM license on the one computer.

P.S. For those who don't know: OEM stands for Original Equipment
Manufacturer. The license can only be sold with new hardware and it has
to stay with whatever hardware you bought it with. While it is legal to
sell it with a hard drive, technically, if you move the hard drive to a
different computer then the license has to go too.

That may be true theoretically, but since the PID is created using a
logarithm of various components of a computer, saying that the license moves
with the hard drive would almost always require reactivation, even as an OEM
license and could possibly raise activation issues. Unless the computers
were identical in other respects, the logarithm would be different.

That's why I said that it's tied to the computer to which it's first
installed.

Now that that's said, although I've often had to reactivate XP, I've never
been refused, but then, my licenses are all retail. I don't have any real
life experience with OEM versions, although I've never seen a report in any
of the newsgroups I cover that showed that a new activation had been
refused.
--
Terri Stratton
Microsoft Featured Community
http://thetabletpc.net
Windows MVP - Tablet PC
http://writepc.com - a site for UMPCs
"Grant Robertson" <BOGUS@BOGUS.com> wrote in message
news:Ov0dhhw$GHA.204@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> In article <26A6B985-77F4-4350-9BD2-4B076111EA4A@microsoft.com>,
> terri@no.spam.mvps.org says...
>> OEMs are tied to the
>> machine on which they are first installed.
>
>
> That is true. (Not that I would doubt you.) But I think it is important
> for people to know that this has always been the case. As cynical as I am
> about Microsoft, I agree that this is only fair. An OEM license usually
> only costs the consumer about 35 - 50 bucks on top of the cost of the
> hardware depending on the volume of sales of the manufacturer. Most
> people who buy brand name computers keep them for 3-5 years. That's a
> pretty good price for that long of a use. So it is fair to say you can
> only use an OEM license on the one computer.
>
> P.S. For those who don't know: OEM stands for Original Equipment
> Manufacturer. The license can only be sold with new hardware and it has
> to stay with whatever hardware you bought it with. While it is legal to
> sell it with a hard drive, technically, if you move the hard drive to a
> different computer then the license has to go too.

In article <05A86F0D-084F-4EA3-B009-FF7AE1D418B0@microsoft.com>,
terri@no.spam.mvps.org says...
> Now that that's said, although I've often had to reactivate XP, I've never
> been refused, but then, my licenses are all retail. I don't have any real
> life experience with OEM versions, although I've never seen a report in any
> of the newsgroups I cover that showed that a new activation had been
> refused.

I was going to talk about reactivation but didn't have the energy last
night. I have never had any trouble reactivating an OEM license.
Sometimes you have to call in but as long as you explain that you have
moved the hardware and license together in order to comply with the
license they have been happy to give you a new number. It's not as if I
have had this come up a lot but it is really pretty easy to comply with
the OEM licensing rules. Of course, their behavior may change at any
time. But I don't expect it will.

I just didn't want people to misinterpret what you had said about the OEM
rules and think they were new or onerous in any way. I just wanted to
make sure people knew the OEM rules were the same as they have always
been and nothing to fret about.

That is about the most logical licensing option conceivable for home &
ultimate editions...i live on my own & even still would like this option as I
have a mediacenter PC & a tablet notebook that are ultimate-ready...and
likelihood is that another pc will be added to home network in the next year!

I can only imagine the potential qty. of licenses that home network needs of
a a technophilic family of 5 might require!

Peter

"terri" wrote:

>
.....
> Now, if they come out with a family license, that will be even better news!
> --