OEM Windows licence goes with the PC right? but what about this...

oddjob62 said:
I never claimed to have read the EULA or the OEM site. I was just stating that it's easy to see why the poster was confused by that statement.
Click to expand...
Oh I agree with you, that's what I was saying. Interpreting third hand information posted out of context on a web site can be spun, twisted, re empahsised and confused to prove just about anything.

We've still not heard about the warranty bit, was it replaced under warranty or not. If anything I tend to think if the OP had the M/B replaced under warranty he would be legaly fine altough from his description of the changes I do still think it's frigging the system a bit ;)

My point was we're debating one word out of possible hundreds in a license agreement in isolation without knowing what any of the rest of the license says.

Think we've pretty much done this one to death now :D
 
Last edited:
Okay, maybe that register link wasn't the best to give you but it seemed to sum up a lot of my research in a easy going nature.

By no means is this my only source, and I have too many to cite, but i'll try to dig some more link up for you.

Publicity aside, would you have the same stance if there wasn't a retail edition and OEM was all you could aquire?

Anyway, we could go into a lot of ethical debates about the digital divide and making software affordable (which the OEM licence does), but thats not the point. There is substancial complelling evidence to support that some of the terms of the EULA could not be enforcable within the EU and MS have to deal with that, not us.

Think of it this way. You buy a new car, you modify it to with a bigger engine from a different model and style it the way you want. Your car manufacturer says you bought the wrong model and that you can no longer drive your car as it has broken the terms of sale. Would you spend an extra £10k on a higher model so you could modify it to your wishes? Or would you cry blue murder? I know what i'd do.

Burnsy
 
well i dont agree, but there you go, as the eula is not being strictly enforced its not an issue.
If ms removed the oem version and just allowed retailers to use it
(which they should if they are serious about the eula)), i think they would lose a lot of sales, not only that but more people might be tempted to use linux possible leading to market share erosion as linux became more widely used and improved.
 
Slam62 said:
well i dont agree, but there you go, as the eula is not being strictly enforced its not an issue.
If ms removed the oem version and just allowed retailers to use it
(which they should if they are serious about the eula)), i think they would lose a lot of sales, not only that but more people might be tempted to use linux possible leading to market share erosion as linux became more widely used and improved.
Click to expand...

Whilst I don't like being open to legal attack, I do agree that without a affordable version of windows, Piracy would go through the roof and linux would have to become a viable alternative for the Joe Bloggs in the street.

MS want to squeeze as much money out of us without losing sales. Simple as.

Burnsy
 
I agree with you, apart from one thing. MS do make a cheaper version of XP available, it just comes with some limitations, if you want to no limitation version you buy it.

For 99% of people thats fine, you buy a PC with OEM XP on it, buy the upgrade version if a new version of windows comes out you want and then eventually when you buy a new PC it comes with a fresh OEM version of windows.

As a % of a PC price windows is very small, why do you not complain about the prices of all the other componants of a PC? Is £600 for a FX processor with a life for the average gamer/power user of a couple of years a much bigger rip off that a single copy of OEM XP for £50 that lasts the life of the PC?

Lets get some perspective, we're talking about £50, all the OP would have had to do (assuming it was wrong to carry the OEM version forward) would have been to buy another copy with the motherboard for £50. not much compared to the money he was prepared to spend on the upgrades.

Hardly ripping off the world is it? Do you really think £50 for an OS that lasts the life of a £350 - £2000 PC is not affordable? It's the price of a game or two! We're not talking about digital divide and third world countries here (and if we were MS has a cut down version for next door to nothing for exactly that market)

How cheap do you think XP should be? Free?

I really don't follow what you're talking about, this isn't Robin Hood vs the Bug bad Sheriff of Nottingham you know :D
 
Last edited:
£50 isn't a huge amount but what about the £250 for a retail edition?

I think the restrictions are silly. You should be able to have one concurrent licence which isn't attached to specific hardware. The current pricing scheme for OEM editions would be fine for this. But to get software that has reasonable EULA terms is expensive and for some people not affordable.

And you have to remember, not everyone can afford £2k machines. People do buy Semprons you know...

Burnsy
 
Which is why i specifically mentioned £350 machines. You really are very selective with your quotes... I can't help but notice you tend to ignore huge parts of a post that might be "inconvenient" to your reasoning... :eek:

Again you miss the point, if the full version could be (i've not checked) £250 and suits you needs and budget then fine (in reality very few people would buy the Full version they'd have an OS already and just upgrade for £70-£100). You get the added advantage of being able to tranfer it anywhere for your money. Your choice.

If that doesn't suit then buy an OEM license. Generally one comes with a PC so in the total price of a PC costs you £50. With that you can change/upgrade almost everything multiple times. If you do a massive upgrade and think you may have overstepped the line in calling it the same PC and want to be honest buy another OEM copy for £50. Then you finally buy a new machine which comes with a fresh OEM version allowing you to sell your old PC with an OS.

You seem to be conviniently trying to suggest the only version people can buy is Retail and that's why it's too expensive. The fact remains you can have XP OEM for ~£50. I just don't see that as unreasonable or too expensive for what it is.

I'm sorry but your whole argument just doesn't stand up...
 
Last edited:
The point is though that microsoft are seling a product in the vast market of the eu, i have no doubt that what you are saying is true and the eula does state what ever you say it states, i was just expressing the opinion that in reality some of its conditions may be unenforceable and not deemed as reasonable under eu law. You may even find that in order to trade in the eu, ms have to make the oem available to all.

You are convinced in your own mind which is ypur right, you really should respect other peoples opinions though.

You really should not have said the op was stealing, this is a gross exageration of the situation, i think the post quoting the eu law was probably correct and that if you buy a piece of software you are free to use it as you wish.

I think you should be able to use retail on as many machines as you wish, at the end of the day you havent bought a license, you've bought a cd with the software on it which is a tangible product.
 
No - you've bought a license to use the software. Changing the facts doesn't help you know. :D

Anyway I didn't the OP was stealing (and apologies to him if it sounded like I was), I just said I fail to see why people think stealing software is OK, which installing software on several machines as you suggest would be. In fact several times i've said i think the OP may well be fine legally, although we do still have the outstanding warranty question in the spirit of debate.

On the scale of things it really doesn't matter to anyone other than the OP, who now more or less has the information he needs to make a judgement for himself

I've got to admit, you've lost me with the whole EU law / MS EULA bit, I certainly haven't studied them both in detail and so couldn't comment. Perhaps you can link to the appropriate bits that lead you to believe that?

This really has been done to death and whilst I enjoyed a good factual exchange with Burnsey and a couple of others i'm afraid you seem to be plucking "facts" out of thin air ;)

Anyway,I don't propose to keep flogging this particular dead horse

The long and the short of it is the OP i'm sure is happy with his license now one way or another and I'm still fairly convinced £50 for a OEM copy of XP is pretty good value for money and not a rip off.

Back to BF2 for me...
 
1) why did you mention stealing at all then i still think that was an awfull thing to say in the context of the original post

2) i never said anything about installing on more than one machine, except that in my opion, the retail copy would be worth the money if you could (i know you cant)

3)i think oem on one machine is reasonable.

4)i have not bought a license, i have bought a cd it is in my hand, it is a physical item as 'burnsey' pointed out.

my 12 year old son slaughters everyone on bf2 every time :p

love you
 
Slam62 said:
1) why did you mention stealing at all then i still think that was an awfull thing to say in the context of the original post
Click to expand...

Because in the context of the post I said it we were at a stage of effectively discussing how to "get round" the EULA. My point was for some reason with software people tend to think it's OK to do a copy for a friend, etra PC at home, break the license etc. So it may have been a bit "heated" I don't follow why you feel the need to keep mentioning it when i've explained several times already?

Slam62 said:
3)i think oem on one machine is reasonable.
Click to expand...
Not following what you've been arguing about and why you said the EULA contravenes EU law etc. This has been my whole point since the start.

Slam62 said:
4)i have not bought a license, i have bought a cd it is in my hand, it is a physical item as 'burnsey' pointed out.
Click to expand...
And you are perfectly entilted to do what you like with that CD, the code on it however is licensed to you, it's a simple fact. You no more own XP than you own what's written in a book or music on a CD. If you buy Lord of the Rings it doesn't become Slam62s lord of the rings that you can then distribute, copy, claim to be yours. It still belongs to the artist/author.

Anyway.... lets just agree to differ eh...
 
Last edited:
eu law etc i was only refering to the motherboard stipulation

i never said copy anything, you seem to be assuming that because a guy wants to reinstall his paid for 'licensed' copy he is a pirate and a thief, i disagree with this assertion thats all.

i agree that we disagree but debate is healthy ;) and disagreement
 
Slam62 said:
i never said copy anything, you seem to be assuming that because a guy wants to reinstall his paid for 'licensed' copy he is a pirate and a thief, i disagree with this assertion thats all.
Click to expand...
That's not what I said at all - please stop making stuff up... If it's covered by the licence then it's legal - simple as that, if it's not and you still do whatever it is piracy. It really is very simple.

You're argument now seems have degenerated into being personal and making me out to be a bad person. I don't propose to answer your inevitable next post coming up with yet another theory or statement that has no basis in fact whatsoever.

Good grief....
 
PinkPig said:
The Amazon price for XP Home retail (full, not upgrade) is actually just £170.99.
Click to expand...
Not bad, not a bargin but not bad I suppose given that you only ever buy it once and then transfer it from machine to machine with upgrade versions for every new OS.

Given the life of the average PC though I still suspect at £50 an OEM version does the job for most people, even if you can' tranfer it to another PC and have to buy another copy.
 
Slam62 said:
4)i have not bought a license, i have bought a cd it is in my hand, it is a physical item as 'burnsey' pointed out.
Click to expand...

Actually, this is not what I was saying.:) Infact I was saying the contrary. I was pointing out that the licence is a entity in itself and that it can't stop exisiting.

When ever you buy software, you are never buying physical media (well you are but its minimal part of the cost), your buying the right to use the software under an enforcable EULA (contract stating terms of use).

I don't believe that the retail version of Windows is good value for money, and so I'm not currently licenced under that pricing scheme, although, i'm not under OEM either (MSDNAA licence from uni).

Secondly, I wa quoting the price for XP pro as i'm on a domain which is £232.99 from an online competitor stated earlier.

tmileson, i'll dig up those links for my sources when I get a moment of free time, but I think this will be my last post on this subject as there's not really much else to say apart from three things.

1. You mention about 'getting around' the EULA. I really don't see it in this light. I see the parts of the EULA that can't be enforced as items that are simply non-applicaible to people living in the EU. It may be a small subtlety, but it feels like putting it that way makes me out like i'm doing something dodgy. I'm not, I'm using my rights under law.

2. Thanks for a decent debate.

3. Please guys, its Burnsy, not Burnsey.:)

Burnsy
 
Last edited:
Just as a thought, how do Microsoft know what motherboard etc. the original OEM version of Windows was bought with?
 
wmb said:
Just as a thought, how do Microsoft know what motherboard etc. the original OEM version of Windows was bought with?
Click to expand...

Okay, may it won't be my last post.

They take a hash of information such as make, model and serial number of the MB when you activate.

Burnsy
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom