The Official OcUK Vista Licencing Questions FAQ Thread

[FatRakoon]

Becuase illegal torrent Vista will not give you access to windows update.

Illegal OEM fully paid for Vista will get you access to windows updates.

ILLEGAL AND FULLY PAID FOR?

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Anyway, unless I missed it, what versions of Vistas actually give what benefits?

I mean... I like to F&R my Pc every so often... perhaps every 3 Months or so, sometime for no better reason than to know its clear of any hidden rubbish, which lets be honest here, even the best PC cleaners in the world cannot get rid of everything.

So, where does that leave me if I should ever both with it at all

Will I be forced to either stick to just one model of motherboard or can I upgrade in the future to a newer model? What?

 

[Burnsy2023]

Indeed Anthanor has it correct.

And OzyOly, you seem to get confused by Activation Code and Product key. Product key is the code that comes with your licence and activation code is given over the phone to activate a product.

Burnsy

 

[OzyOly]

ILLEGAL AND FULLY PAID FOR?

---

Anyway, unless I missed it, what versions of Vistas actually give what benefits?

I mean... I like to F&R my Pc every so often... perhaps every 3 Months or so, sometime for no better reason than to know its clear of any hidden rubbish, which lets be honest here, even the best PC cleaners in the world cannot get rid of everything.

So, where does that leave me if I should ever both with it at all

Will I be forced to either stick to just one model of motherboard or can I upgrade in the future to a newer model? What?

Yes Illegal and full paird for, an OEM licence in which you change the motherboard and reactivate via the phone. But let's not even go there.

Retail you can change the mobo.

 

[Burnsy2023]

Will I be forced to either stick to just one model of motherboard or can I upgrade in the future to a newer model? What?

To be completely clear: With OEM you may not upgrade the motherboard. This is not the case with retail which is completely transferrable.

Burnsy

 

[OzyOly]

Indeed Anthanor has it correct.

And OzyOly, you seem to get confused by Activation Code and Product key. Product key is the code that comes with your licence and activation code is given over the phone to activate a product.

Burnsy

Editied.

 

[Macro]

I mean... I like to F&R my Pc every so often... perhaps every 3 Months or so, sometime for no better reason than to know its clear of any hidden rubbish, which lets be honest here, even the best PC cleaners in the world cannot get rid of everything.

With OEM, like retail, you can or course reformat you PC as often as you like with no problems

 

[OzyOly]

Hey Burnsy, seeing as you started this thread why don't you capy and paste what we have so far into your first post? When people look at the first post maybe the same questions won't be asked over.

I've added the FAQ to my sig anyway.

 

[hk3948]

sorry guys, ive been trauling through this thread waiting for an answer but have given up on third page. im just unclear as to ms's detection system for hardware changes, or is there none. when you do phone ms up for reactivation, do they simply ask you why you need it and rely on you telling them if you have changed some hardware are your components detected and info sent to ms so that they would kow if you had changed mobo for eg? apologies if this has been covered already

 

[JoyPadJedi]

Interesting read!

It's a shame, that although upgrading your CPU or RAM, etc. will be fine with OEM Vista, a CPU or RAM that requires a MB upgrade will plant you firmly in the brown stuff again. In essence even though you can upgrade pretty much every component, you're still restricted to components that will work with your current MB, which to most enthusiasts isn't many at all! Easy answer - enthusiasts should get Retail.

Probably the ONLY 300 quid spent on a computer that will last 6-8 years!

 

[FatRakoon]

Yes Illegal and full paird for, an OEM licence in which you change the motherboard and reactivate via the phone. But let's not even go there.

Retail you can change the mobo.

Yes, sorry... I realised what you mean...
I was looking at it as if you had meant to say

"A LEGAL and paid for.."

I see what you say now.

sorry guys, ive been trauling through this thread waiting for an answer but have given up on third page. im just unclear as to ms's detection system for hardware changes, or is there none. when you do phone ms up for reactivation, do they simply ask you why you need it and rely on you telling them if you have changed some hardware are your components detected and info sent to ms so that they would kow if you had changed mobo for eg? apologies if this has been covered already

The way the Chexum works ( Although I dont know the algorithm ) is that each bit of hardware in your PC, has a unique identifier number.. the chexum code is made up by using all the numbers for all your hardware to make up one magic number...

This magic number, when reverse-coded, will tell MS exactly what hardware you had when you activated it.

So, when activating then and now, these numbers will be different.

For example...
ABIT Motherboards Might be the number 01
The Abit Motherboard model Might be number 02
Your graphics card might be 03

Now, if this chexum is 010203 then it will tell MS that you have an ABIT Neo2 and ATI Radeon x800 graphics..

However...

IWILL Motherboards might be 02, your new Motheroard might be IWILLs version of Number 02 and then the chexum number might be 020203

So, while it looks like only the first number 01 has changed to 02, it will show MS that its a copletely different Motherboard altogether

I dont know how it works, I have not read up on it, but I guess that is pretty much a basic version of how the activation works when it comes down to your hardware.

 

[FatRakoon]

Probably the ONLY 300 quid spent on a computer that will last 6-8 years!

I have to agree...

People ( Including myself ) are happy to pay £300 for a new CPU, or a new GFX Card and so on... Even happy to sell them off to help pay another £300 for the next gen only a few months or a year down the line, and yet we are not happy to pay for the one thing that will indeed outlast any single peice of hardware that we might have?

 

[d.chatten]

At the moment i have a retail (Upgrade) version of Windows XP Home Edition, will i be able to do a fresh install on a brand new HDD with a retail (Updrade) version of Windows Vista using my (Upgrade) version of XP Home to qualify for the upgrade to Vista.

Thanks!

 

[BoomAM]

This has probably been covered already in detail, but i couldnt be bothered trawling the thread.

Lets say i hypothetically buy Home Premium 32bit for my Laptop & Home Premium 64bit for my PC. As long as i buy some hardware with it, its 'ok'.
So lets say for arguments sake a HDD? That'd be ok? In other words, the same as 'OEM' software has allways been on OCUK?

Im planning of trying Vista on my Laptop before i put it on my main PC.

 

[Rebelius]

you don't need to buy any hardware with it anymore.

 

[banja]

People ( Including myself ) are happy to pay £300 for a new CPU, or a new GFX Card and so on... Even happy to sell them off to help pay another £300 for the next gen only a few months or a year down the line, and yet we are not happy to pay for the one thing that will indeed outlast any single peice of hardware that we might have?

I believe this is to do with people's concept of value. Personally I think £300 for a GFX card is not good value; higher frames per second in whatever the new shiny FPS game that exists are not that important to me. But to many they are so, you know, they see value.

OS software does not appear to represent good value. Some will argue it does - lasts 5 years etc. But Bill Gates didn't become obscenely, outragousely, disgustingly rich by offering software at brilliant prices. Microsoft have always been about cornering markets, then setting prices at a point where people who can pay, will, at a price which is not great value because there is little competetion to motivate them to do so.

 

[Energize]

If the motherboard failed under warranty and it was replaced with a different motherboard, ie a newer socket version possibly because the older socket had been discontinued would that break the eula?

Also if the motherboard failed not under warranty and it was replaced with the same or different one would it break the eula?

 

[lordedmond]

here is one for debate

say you buy the retail version .

you then install both the 32bit and the 64 bit versions and dual boot the pc,therefor by implication you can only run one or the other not both.


are you leagal , you do not have either installed on another pc and can only use on at once

 

[FatRakoon]

If the motherboard failed under warranty and it was replaced with a different motherboard, ie a newer socket version possibly because the older socket had been discontinued would that break the eula?

Also if the motherboard failed not under warranty and it was replaced with the same or different one would it break the eula?

here is one for debate

say you buy the retail version .

you then install both the 32bit and the 64 bit versions and dual boot the pc,therefor by implication you can only run one or the other not both.


are you leagal , you do not have either installed on another pc and can only use on at once

Both valid points

I dont think that MS would argue wit hreplacing the Mobo under certain circumstances, no matter what we may thing right now.

I mean... If oyu installed an activated it today, and then in 13 Months time, you really did need to replace your Motherboard, and you could not get hold of the same model, which is very probable, then MS forcing you to buy a new copy of Vista is a little ridiculous surely. I think that they would probably let you do this.

If they dont, then it only underlines just how much of a bunch of money grabbers they are!

DUAL-BOOTING.
I think that although in theory you are 100% correct, the Activation does not allow this... If you install on one, then when you try to activate the second, it will see that its already been activated on the other one...

It wont allow you to activate the second one, whichever that one may be!

I know you have 30 days dont you, totry it out, so perhaps MS' stance on this is for you to have both and you get 30 days to decide whichone you want to keep, and then after that, or rather before the 30 days is up, you need to activate the one you want?

 

[lordedmond]

FatRakoon

i think you could activate both with a retail copy , how would MS know that you had not uninstalled the first copy?

 

[kleox64]

Will upgrade versions work on VLK editions of XP Pro?