Another Vista Thread (licensing issues!!)

[Type_R]

So here I am willing to spend up to £350 on an operating system. I have two computers at home. I would ideally like to buy Ultimate Retail and use it on both my computers, which if I bought OSX on the Mac I would be more than entitled to do (£100 and OSX is yours. ie you can use it on all your comps).

Now I know MS are going on about single comp use etc, but EULA aside, is it possible to run the same Vista on both my desktop comps and if not how can I get a separate license (presumably a second license is cheaper after purchase of the first)?

 

[modo77]

Legally no, you can only install it on one pc at a time. As for extra licenses I don't think you can, but i'm sure Burnsy will know...

 

[the-void]

Would OEM or an Upgrade be more suitable for your 2nd machine?

 

[stuppy]

if I bought OSX on the Mac I would be more than entitled to do (£100 and OSX is yours. ie you can use it on all your comps).

Er no. 1 copy of OSX comes with 1 OSX licence to use one 1 Apple Computer at once. You don't pay £100 for OSX from Apple and install it on every Mac in your house. Its exactly the same principle as Retail versions of Windows. If you buy one copy of OSX and use it on 3 Macs, you are breaking the law.

 

[csmager]

1. Legally you can't, and realistically you can't. It won't activate and run on more than one PC at a time without some serious effort on the phone to microsoft to convince them that's not what you're doing.

2. Additional licenses are no cheaper.

 

[FreeStream]

Er no. 1 copy of OSX comes with 1 OSX licence to use one 1 Apple Computer at once. You don't pay £100 for OSX from Apple and install it on every Mac in your house. Its exactly the same principle as Retail versions of Windows. If you buy one copy of OSX and use it on 3 Macs, you are breaking the law.

I've done this, problem? If Apple didn't like it then they would have licensing on there purchasable systems (BTW they do have licensing on there expensive programs, Final Cut Pro etc), which they don't. Using system disks from different macs (G4 10.3 disks on a G5 - wouldn't install).

We have two PCs here, and **** me am I gonna pay MS £300+ quid to get Vista, they can **** off. While paying £50 for a single copy of a decent operating system every year is fine by me. Vista doesn't even work properly - this might be down to drivers, but MS should have sorted this, is there operating system THEY make sure it will work in THEIR market.

Esp with Ulitmate, £300 should get you atleast 5 installs

Edit: ha ha, post below, £140 for a system for 5 installs, I think that is much better than MS.

 

[Type_R]

Er no. 1 copy of OSX comes with 1 OSX licence to use one 1 Apple Computer at once. You don't pay £100 for OSX from Apple and install it on every Mac in your house. Its exactly the same principle as Retail versions of Windows. If you buy one copy of OSX and use it on 3 Macs, you are breaking the law.

Sorry your right, my bad, it actually costs £139!!!

* Family Pack Software License Agreement allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on up to a maximum of five (5) Apple-labeled computers at a time as long as those computers are located in the same household and used by persons who occupy that same household. By "household" we mean a person or persons who share the same housing unit such as a home, apartment, mobile home or condominium, but shall also extend to student members who are primary residents of that household but residing at a separate on-campus location. This license does not extend to business or commercial users.

So back to the windows issue, seems like I shall go for home premium OEM to begin with in 64bit and take it from there.

Thanks for the help.

 

[csmager]

We have two PCs here, and **** me am I gonna pay MS £300+ quid to get Vista, they can **** off. While paying £50 for a single copy of a decent operating system every year is fine by me. Vista doesn't even work properly - this might be down to drivers, but MS should have sorted this, is there operating system THEY make sure it will work in THEIR market.

Microsoft should write drivers for every single piece of hardware that exists, even though they didn't make the hardware and have little or no access to the details of how they work? Be realistic.

Microsoft make the operating system. It is up to the hardware manufacturers to make sure they have drivers for it.

No one's forcing you to buy Retail - an OEM Home Premium, which is all you're likely to need, costs £70, and it'll come with free updates for the lifetime of the product. Seems like a better deal than paying for yearly OS X updates to me.

 

[modo77]

Vista doesn't even work properly - this might be down to drivers, but MS should have sorted this, is there operating system THEY make sure it will work in THEIR market.

lol

 

[rculver9056]

Family license?

Isn't there something about a 'family license' on the Vista homepage, which I seem to recall (probably incorrectly!) is just for this purpose?

 

[csmager]

Isn't there something about a 'family license' on the Vista homepage, which I seem to recall (probably incorrectly!) is just for this purpose?

Indeed. A copy of Ultimate Retail gets you 2 reduced cost Home Premium Licenses ($50, iirc).

The $ being the sticking point - the offer is US only at the moment, haven't seen any signs of it being offered elsewhere as yet. MS just say US only.

 

[stuppy]

I've done this, problem? If Apple didn't like it then they would have licensing on there purchasable systems (BTW they do have licensing on there expensive programs, Final Cut Pro etc), which they don't. Using system disks from different macs (G4 10.3 disks on a G5 - wouldn't install).

Taken from http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/macosx.html

A. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time. This License does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one computer at a time,and you may not make the Apple Software available over a network where it could be used by multiple computers at the same time. You may make one copy of the Apple Software (excluding the Boot ROM code) in machine-readable form for backup purposes only; provided that the backup copy must include all copyright or other proprietary notices contained on the original.

Visa-Vi Cocordinately... you can only install MacOSX on one Mac at one time. You can transfer it from Mac to Mac, but only having it installed on one machine at once, is legal.

To clarify - buying one copy of MacOSX from Apple, gives you the right to Install it on *one* Apple machine at a time.

 

[Type_R]

Taken from http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/macosx.html



Visa-Vi Cocordinately... you can only install MacOSX on one Mac at one time. You can transfer it from Mac to Mac, but only having it installed on one machine at once, is legal.

To clarify - buying one copy of MacOSX from Apple, gives you the right to Install it on *one* Apple machine at a time.

However, spending only £45 more gets u a license that allows you to install to five comps...go figure

 

[FreeStream]

Taken from http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/macosx.html



Visa-Vi Cocordinately... you can only install MacOSX on one Mac at one time. You can transfer it from Mac to Mac, but only having it installed on one machine at once, is legal.

To clarify - buying one copy of MacOSX from Apple, gives you the right to Install it on *one* Apple machine at a time.

They must know people install it on multiple machines, but have they done anything to stop people doing so? No, they haven't.

Microsoft should write drivers for every single piece of hardware that exists, even though they didn't make the hardware and have little or no access to the details of how they work? Be realistic.

Microsoft make the operating system. It is up to the hardware manufacturers to make sure they have drivers for it.

No one's forcing you to buy Retail - an OEM Home Premium, which is all you're likely to need, costs £70, and it'll come with free updates for the lifetime of the product. Seems like a better deal than paying for yearly OS X updates to me.

This isn't what I meant. MS should have made the manufacturers sort their drivers before release, because no-one with a high end gfx card can play games like they do in XP, or use SLi, sound cards aswell, etc. Basically I can't use Vista even if I wanted to. I was given a RC2 disk last year, it took 4 times to get it to desktop and then it BSODed, oh thats good isn't it, really gonna make me buy £70 OEM (Oh we loose support and only one mobo?)..

No thanks... I'll still with XP.

 

[stoofa]

We have two PCs here, and **** me am I gonna pay MS £300+ quid to get Vista, they can **** off. While paying £50 for a single copy of a decent operating system every year is fine by me. Vista doesn't even work properly - this might be down to drivers, but MS should have sorted this, is there operating system THEY make sure it will work in THEIR market.

Or alternatively you could just spend £150 of two copies of OEM Vista (not Ultimate Edition) for your two computers?
Why is it that as soon as anyone mentions Vista people immediately look at the Ultimate pricing and start quoting that.
In most cases this is total over-kill for your average home user.

You're happy to pay £50 a year for an OS but not £200 to MS?
If an OS costs £200 and then you get 4 years of full support including free upgrades why exactly are you happy to pay one amount and not the other?
Maybe you would be happier to see MS move towards the "OS renting" price model they actually threatened initially with Vista?

As for it "not working" and your insistence on blaming Microsoft - do you blame them for everything?
Fall of the Roman empire, smoking gun on the grassy knoll....
Microsoft made Vista available to the public for beta testing the middle of last year.
Prior to that, any small company could get themselves beta copies of Vista just by speaking to Microsoft.
NVidia are not a small company.
They would have had access to beta builds of Vista a long time before "Joe Public" would have got to see it.
As somebody on the official beta test program I've been legally seeing beta builds for a good 18 months before release.
The likes of NVidia and Creative Labs although well within their rights to withhold release drivers until the official retail release of Vista (end of January) have got no excuse at all for not having final release drivers available.
It is certainly not Microsoft's fault that these companies and a few others haven't sorted their issues out.
Microsoft will have given these companies access to their code and helped where they could - short of writing the drivers themselves (which they certainly don't have to do) there isn't really anything else they could do.

People are just far to quick to jump down Microsoft's throat.
They do everything they can to help these companies out and still they fail to get things sorted.
If you want to moan, moan at NVidia - it's certainly not Microsoft's responsability to make sure these drivers exist.

 

[FreeStream]

Or alternatively you could just spend £150 of two copies of OEM Vista (not Ultimate Edition) for your two computers?
Why is it that as soon as anyone mentions Vista people immediately look at the Ultimate pricing and start quoting that.
In most cases this is total over-kill for your average home user.

You're happy to pay £50 a year for an OS but not £200 to MS?
If an OS costs £200 and then you get 4 years of full support including free upgrades why exactly are you happy to pay one amount and not the other?
Maybe you would be happier to see MS move towards the "OS renting" price model they actually threatened initially with Vista?

As for it "not working" and your insistence on blaming Microsoft - do you blame them for everything?
Fall of the Roman empire, smoking gun on the grassy knoll....
Microsoft made Vista available to the public for beta testing the middle of last year.
Prior to that, any small company could get themselves beta copies of Vista just by speaking to Microsoft.
NVidia are not a small company.
They would have had access to beta builds of Vista a long time before "Joe Public" would have got to see it.
As somebody on the official beta test program I've been legally seeing beta builds for a good 18 months before release.
The likes of NVidia and Creative Labs although well within their rights to withhold release drivers until the official retail release of Vista (end of January) have got no excuse at all for not having final release drivers available.
It is certainly not Microsoft's fault that these companies and a few others haven't sorted their issues out.
Microsoft will have given these companies access to their code and helped where they could - short of writing the drivers themselves (which they certainly don't have to do) there isn't really anything else they could do.

People are just far to quick to jump down Microsoft's throat.
They do everything they can to help these companies out and still they fail to get things sorted.
If you want to moan, moan at NVidia - it's certainly not Microsoft's responsability to make sure these drivers exist.

Did you read what I just put?

IF MS wants me to buy it, then I NEED drivers. No drivers (that work), me don't buy.

With OEM you get no support and only on one mobo, that means I need two versions of Vista Home Premium. £200 a pop, need two of em, thats £400.

How does the upgrade one work? Can I just pop in the XP CD? Or do I need to install XP and then install vista?

Frankly MS make enough money, trying to stop hackers getting it for free probably wastes more money cos it gets hacked anyway.

Im happy to pay £50 to Apple every year because I KNOW it will be good, I've had 10.1 to 10.4 and every single ******* time it has worked first time, never had to reinstall it because its been silly or anything.

Paying £200 for a operating system that's a bloated XP with no drivers etc is hardly going make me buy it is it?

 

[OzyOly]

Over and over again.

People ask us what can and can not be done with licencing.

We quote the legalities of it and they they argue with us that is is unfair.

They say well I have installed X on Y number of machines no problem, I hate Microsoft and blah, de blah, blah.

We point out that you won't be able to install X2 on Y number of machines any more due to newer anti-piracy laws.

They say that they will do it anyway and we can't stop them.

People like this are trying to justify stealing an OS to us so they can justify it to themselves.

 

[FreeStream]

Over and over again.

People ask us what can and can not be done with licencing.

We quote the legalities of it and they they argue with us that is is unfair.

They say well I have installed X on Y number of machines no problem, I hate Microsoft and blah, de blah, blah.

We point out that you won't be able to install X2 on Y number of machines any more due to newer anti-piracy laws.

They say that they will do it anyway and we can't stop them.

People like this are trying to justify stealing an OS to us so they can justify it to themselves.

Well its a monopoly isn't it? They know we have to buy there system, so they can charge what they want. (Come on lads linux isn't an option here is it? I've got it running in VMware and installing stuff is a pain in the rear - scripts etc )

So its only windows, if linux was an actual viable option then ultimate wouldn't be £300, like £100 instead...

 

[csmager]

Microsoft will have given these companies access to their code and helped where they could - short of writing the drivers themselves (which they certainly don't have to do) there isn't really anything else they could do.

Exactly. Microsoft allowed teams of devs from the major hardware manufacturers to set up offices in Redmond in order to get drivers written. Creative, I believe, were one of them. I would imagine nVidia too. Those two specifically really did drop the ball.

 

[OzyOly]

Well its a monopoly isn't it? They know we have to buy there system, so they can charge what they want. (Come on lads linux isn't an option here is it? I've got it running in VMware and installing stuff is a pain in the rear - scripts etc )

So its only windows, if linux was an actual viable option then ultimate wouldn't be £300, like £100 instead...

No one is forcing you to buy windows. You don't have to upgrade to XP, it isn't a legal requirement. When you buy a PC you will have an OEM OS. When you build a PC you are expected to either buy OEM or to go for open source.

Let's be clear about this, you don't have to upgrade to vista. If you don't want to pay for it don't buy it.

There are still people on win98, they weren't forced to upgrade to XP.