Windows Licensing for Hobbyists

AtreuS said:
All this is for is to clarify what they meant originally, and as burnsey said it IS annoying to those who have small business's and bought OEM on the understanding that they were fully licensed and now find they may not be.
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My own view is that both those purchasers and Microsoft themselves are bound by the EULA that was provided to the purchaser *at the time of the contract*, and from a legal perspective it doesn't matter a rat's backside what it says on some obscure page on MS's website, which has restricted access anyway. I'm quite sure if MS ever tried to bring a case in an English court on this basis (a vanishingly small likelihood in practice, admittedly), the judge would throw their claim out so hard it would make a hole in the wall.

MS can "clarify" all they want - contract law doesn't care what you "meant", only what you said.
 
its funny how we'll pay £30 a pop for games for our pc's and consoles, buying i dont know how many over as year, but we wont pay £200 for an OS. how long as vista been now? 2 years ago for retail. it cost £135 for home premium retail. assume you use it for two years.... thats what, around £67 a year for home premium? £6 a month?

its the whole idea of one lump payment that puts people off when in reality, its probably IS the best value software anybody is likely to use....but we wont spend £6 a month to use it. Now, thats over the course of two years......what about xp? That was pirated to hell and back as you all know. Xp is 8 years old. assume you bought it retail and have been using it for 6 years..... ~£25/year? £2 a month and thats a ripoff? people pay more than that for xbox live, and i bet some of you here do as well whilst you slate windows for being a ripoff.
 
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stoofa said:
Yup - if you like to steal your software then I'd class you as a thief.
I hope you don't think I was aiming "thieving scum" only at yourself - personally I feel anybody who thieves anything is scum.
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LOL, dude you really need to stop reading the daily mail it is affecting your life totally. Perhaps a mod should change your username to "Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells". :)

Oh, and by the way the person you are replying as though he has insulted your family is not technically a thief.

The most he is guilty of is breaking the licensing conditions of software he has "purchased". He hasn't "stolen" anything. Just broken one of microsofts rules. No "crime" has been comitted. He certainly isn't a thief. And you do not have the right to call him "scum" based on his admission that he is breaching a specific section of an EULA from an international software house.

Time you had a reality check, there are far more substantial things in this world to wave your burning torch and pitchfork at. Like the Polish down the road stealing your jobs and bleedin this country cry, the elf n safety brigade banning music lessons in school and stopping fireman rescuing kittens stuck up your tree, the madness that is Europe that is interfering with you being able to buy your PINT of mild and the ability to buy your hay in bushels and demanding you only buy curved bananas with no more than 15 degrees of curvature. Your Daily Mail needs you. :p

You're not Littlejohn are you? LOL!
 
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Quite irritated by M$. The reason we build/re-build our PC's at home is not because we are "hobbyists" but to avoid the over-priced poor spec components from the likes of PB and the manufacturer that rhymes with "Bell". (Maybe not so much the latter, but they have a rep for using non standard components making upgrade difficult). Building my own PC, I can select quality components and know they have been reliably put together and bench tested. Also, most retail PC's these days don't even come with the Windows disc, just a crappy "restore" partition.

I only just bought OEM Vista to install at my last rebuild - the bitch of it is, I only upgraded from XP in anticipation of Train Sim 2 later this year only to find MS have now canned the project along with Aces Studios and Flight Sim.

I'm not planning on changing my motherboard and know that it can easily take a far more powerful quad core than the current dual core fitted. However, what happens to "home" builders if the motherboard is defective and has to be replaced? That's rebuilding because you have to, not because you want to. And even if you buy a PC from an indie builder like OCUK, what happens to your OEM licence if it goes wrong out of warranty and you have to swop out the mobo yourself? The mobo is only one part of the PC, not the whole...
 
james.miller said:
its funny how we'll pay £30 a pop for games for our pc's and consoles, buying i dont know how many over as year, but we wont pay £200 for an OS. how long as vista been now? 2 years ago for retail. it cost £135 for home premium retail. assume you use it for two years.... thats what, around £67 a year for home premium? £6 a month?

its the whole idea of one lump payment that puts people off when in reality, its probably IS the best value software anybody is likely to use....but we wont spend £6 a month to use it. Now, thats over the course of two years......what about xp? That was pirated to hell and back as you all know. Xp is 8 years old. assume you bought it retail and have been using it for 6 years..... ~£25/year? £2 a month and thats a ripoff? people pay more than that for xbox live, and i bet some of you here do as well whilst you slate windows for being a ripoff.
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I used this theory when I decided to buy a retail Vista Home Premium SP1 when it was on offer at OcUK during May 2008. This was before the free postage offer so it cost £123.66 fully inclusive. In addition to that 64-bit media cost £7.88

Since then Windows 7 has been announced and praised, but I'll be skipping that version to get value for money out of Vista. Unless Microsoft take pity and provide a free upgrade.
 
well i tell you what, windows 7 will be the first Os ive bought that hasnt come bundled with a machine. its that much better than vista that im more than willing to shell out. I think MS have come up with the goods this time around:)
 
Was there any further news on this? Have MS changed their minds at all or are we all still expected to be buying full retail copies of Windows from now on in order to stay legal?
 
Vertigo1 said:
Have MS changed their minds at all or are we all still expected to be buying full retail copies of Windows from now on in order to stay legal?
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Technically yes. Their stance was pretty simple, end users should not be buying anything other than FPP or upgrade for their own use, unless they bought a machine from an OEM.

The email I got also hinted that people that have bought OEM licences previously are ok as long as it was "in good faith", but didn't say much other than that.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
Technically yes. Their stance was pretty simple, end users should not be buying anything other than FPP or upgrade for their own use, unless they bought a machine from an OEM.

The email I got also hinted that people that have bought OEM licences previously are ok as long as it was "in good faith", but didn't say much other than that.
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So, in other words, since we sold the software at that time with that EULA we can't really do anything about it now.
 
So really what you could do is to be legal is get a friend to build the system for you, let them install the OS and that way you should be legal so to speak as it wasn't you who built the system there for your covered? loophole?

Microsoft this stinks so much. One product, one price please.
 
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