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About LinkBacksIt is, you can choose what to update. But when you get a name something like Ml1234567 what is it for.Originally Posted by Bob Crabtree
It is, you can choose what to update. But when you get a name something like Ml1234567 what is it for.
OEM is not for me either. I upgrade a lot! The Home Premium looks ok. Pity about the high cost though. I know it is not a lot spread over a few years of use but it is a lot for a bit of software! Be it an OS.
A Microsoft spy!!
So you WANT Ultimate, rather than need? Unfortunately if you want the premium content you have to pay the premium price.
I know it sounds harsh, but that's what it comes down to. If the Retail Ultimate doesn't sell then Microsoft may consider dropping the price.
That said, can you not use the Anytime upgrade to add the media center capabilities? If so why not buy Home Premium now, then upgrade when you can afford it?
I'm not saying I can't afford it mate.
I'm saying it's a lot and as the prices are in the UK WON'T be buying it. If the price dropped a bit I WOULD buy it.
As it is I may get it from the US at a reasonable(ish) price
<chuckle> But you gotta admit people are increasingly being tracked from computer programs to governments.
Damn it's easy to get off topic......sorry guys.
Fair enough - I do think the usual trick whereby stuff is so much more expensive in the UK than the US is off, but it's been happening for years because they can get away with it. I've made my decision already and will be buying OEM Ultimate - I'm not a major hardware upgrader and I fully expect that the machine I'm building for Vista will stay mostly the same for a good 2 or 3 of years. If I decide in that time to upgrade the motherboard I'll swallow the cost of another OEM license.
You don't know that, of course.
Until, that is, you click on the button that MS provides with each update to tell you more.
Or hadn't you noticed that?
OkayMy turn
I have been running Vista now for what, 2 months - and yesterday finally got rid of XP "for good".
I am running an Enterprise edition with a legitmate key.
Yesterday I did a huge system upgrade - new mainboard, graphics, memory and PSU.
Of course with this much change, I would expect to re-activate.
I then plugged it in to my main workstation area, installed mouse and bluetooth module - the usual stuff which strings off USB.
The system was all running perfectly after having been re-activated.
This morning, though, I realised I didn't have my UPS plugged in (Management USB lead), so I decided to plug it in and get on with it
... so I plug this in and it toddles off and installs the driver. I then rebooted and Windows tells me I have to re-activate it!
Shocking.
I feel that Microsoft are going to be get bitten in the butt and it's just going to antagonise the paid for legal users and doing nothing at all than to provoke the pirates.
Now on to the retail/OEM pricing.
I think that Vista OEM is cheap - it's worth every penny.
And to clarify - and I think very few people know this hugely significant fact - there are two types of OEM versions.
One comes bundled with an SI (Dell, Evesham, MESH, HP) and this is hard-coded and locked to the key components of that system (BIOS Lock)
The other is, in effect, a "retail" OEM which we can pick up from SCAN etc.
Importantly, unlike the hard-coded version, this can be re-activated multiple times.
So you are safe to change components.
You'll need to re-activate it but you can do this, even though it's a bit of a chore because you'll have to make a phone call to Microsoft support.
You tell the operator that you have changed a component and that this is the only system that OS it is running on.
So nothing to fear there.
I think that retail Vista is way too steep - but Microsoft OSs have never been big sellers in retail.
And, if you look at the average price of high-end components, Ultimate seems to fit in somewhere.
Also if you look back at the 95, 98, and XP launches, the prices at retail were huge and some might argue that, with inflation taken into account, Vista is no more expensive.
Of course, this doesn't mean the price difference with the US is fair - it's not and needs to be addressed.
I would love to see the family pricing deal for Vista come over here and not be restricted to the USA and Canada - and I think Microsoft is doing itself (and us outside north America) no favours if it doesn't extend the deal everywhere else in the world.
Actually, I suspect it will come, and if it does I will no doubt pick it up and use it on all my systems at home.
I do, of course, have some niggles with Vista and I'll post those one day soon
Last edited by Bob Crabtree; 22-01-2007 at 02:16 PM.
I'll be shifting to Vista Ultimate on OEM just as soon as SCAN start posting it out.
Why?
Well, I've been runnig Vista RC 2 for the last few months and the upsides of it far and away beat the downsides.
I've always run OEM software (the only exception being stuff that doesn't come in an OEM version) and that includes XP, both straight XP and MCE XP.
Sure, revalidating/activating can be a pain in the bum, especially when the telephone support people aren't helpful but I've always got by in the past.
What makes me think that Vista will be any different? tbh, I'm not actually expecting it to be any different in terms of validation/activation but I sure don;t epect to NOT be able to activate at any stage during my ownership of the license.
Of course, this is all purely a personal opinion based on my usage of Vista... The thing for me is that I'm prepared to pay the asking price for an OEM version and, just like my decision to buy a PS3, I very likely wouldn't buy it at standard retail prices.
Don't forget that for a lot of people, they never buy an OS, it just comes with their PC, and even those of us who buy an OS, how many of us have the same original disk we bought and then just sit there installing off a slipstreamed updated boot disk or constantly hit Windows Update after a fresh install?
(No, Hex, you Linux boys don't count..)
The point is, an OS lasts a damn sight longer than most any other component in your PC, so in terms of product life, it's actually very good value for money, especially if you buy OEM.
I have read though that Microsoft are going to be stricter with Re-Activating an OEM Version this time. If you change the Motherboard they will not re-activate unless the old one was faulty etc!!
Unfortunately people are not posting from experience they are posting from interpretation of the EULA
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't MCE in the Home Premium version of Vista? The only extras you get with Ultimate are the "business" type features... BitLocker etc etc.
Sort of.
The business version doesn't have the MC stuff but has RD etc.
Ultimate has the lot and Home Basic is pretty much just an OS so that expensive lump of tech does something when you push the 'on' button.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvist...s/default.mspx
According to this you certainly get the MCE capability with Home Premium, so perhaps another way to save a bit of cash for the likes of Kempez etc?
As DR says, the OEM is exceptional value. The retail ain't cheap, but then Windows retail never has been.
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