Reactivating Vista after Mobo Change

[Splash]

I'm not happy with that comparison - was XP Pro aimed at home users? What's it equivilent now? Certainly not 'home premium' now is it? Surely it has to be Vista Business versus XP Pro? You can't upgrade from XP Pro to any home edition of Vista AFAIK - it's clean install time.

I'm still reckoning a jaunt to the USA on a plane is cheaper than paying UK retail frankly.

I used XP Pro as there was no retail release of MCE, which would obviously be the closest to Home Premium, but your point is taken. XP Pro Retail is £246.75 inc VAT at Scan, Vista Business is £234.52, so my point stands.

And you're right, you can only upgrade SP Pro to Business or Ultimate, but I suspect this is largely down to the feature-sets of Business and Ultimate being matched to those of Pro - would you be happy if you had an XP Pro machine that you used to RDP onto, or had on a domain and tried to upgrade to a version that didn't support those any longer?

[Nox]

do we even know for sure its tied to the motherboard now? That I could handle, its if i wanted to upgrade my cpu later, or add a sound card or diff gfx card/more hds which erm, well I meddle so I do switch stuff around a lot...

Nox

[DecomposingStar]

Enough with the analogies. If Microsoft feel people are taking the mick with OEM licenses by not using the product within the terms of the license they'd be quite within their rights to stop selling OEM licenses through retail partners, insisting that only registered system builders can obtain them. I suppose my point is that if you want to buy OEM and violate one of the major terms of this license then by all means do it. Just don't come crying if they refuse to activate it for you, and don't come crying when you can only buy the next Windows OS (which will clearly come with some form of "must have" like DX10, let's be honest) in boxed retail form, and they charge £500 for it.

EDIT - and if you're annoyed at the quality of the Foxconn product why not take it up with them? I dunno about you, but if I'm speccing a new machine I will sure as hell do my research first... Just because the motherboard that you chose to buy isn't the all singing, all dancing product you expected doesn't entitle you (in my eyes at least) to break the license and deny Microsoft another sale. But that's my opinion, and you clealy aren't interested in anyone with a similar one.

Alot of initial reviews said the motherboard was great, trust me i did my research... And seeing as the board was more expensive than the P5B i didn't think it was unreasonable.

Yeah, i won't come crying if they don't reactivate it, nor will i come gloating if they do. If they decide to take the OEM off the shelves, so be it. But right now, as it stands, there is an OEM version, and the only actually difference between the OEM and the Retail, is the OEM is bit-specific (32bit or 64bit), there's no support, and they make it a bit harder to reinstall it after a mobo change.

[Splash]

do we even know for sure its tied to the motherboard now? That I could handle, its if i wanted to upgrade my cpu later, or add a sound card or diff gfx card/more hds which erm, well I meddle so I do switch stuff around a lot...

Nox

Buy a Retail license then, or risk it not activating if you have performed Major Hardware Changes. Whether it's worth the risk is for you to decide.

Alot of initial reviews said the motherboard was great, trust me i did my research... And seeing as the board was more expensive than the P5B i didn't think it was unreasonable.

Yeah, i won't come crying if they don't reactivate it, nor will i come gloating if they do. If they decide to take the OEM off the shelves, so be it. But right now, as it stands, there is an OEM version, and the only actually difference between the OEM and the Retail, is the OEM is bit-specific (32bit or 64bit), there's no support, and they make it a bit harder to reinstall it after a mobo change.

Not true - the major difference between OEM and Retail is the difference in the license. Only the Retail Ultimate come with both 32 and 64 bit in the box.

[DecomposingStar]

Buy a Retail license then, or risk it not activating if you have performed Major Hardware Changes. Whether it's worth the risk is for you to decide.



Not true - the major difference between OEM and Retail is the difference in the license. Only the Retail Ultimate come with both 32 and 64 bit in the box.

I'm pretty sure you choose what bit on installation.

[Salazaar]

I wonder if Microsoft, or anyone else (I've never heard of a court ruling on this) have defined exactly what a single PC is...?

As I understand it, the terms of the OEM agreement limit Vista to being non-transferably installed on one PC. Which is, I suppose, fair. Either accept it or don't use the software.

Microsoft have apparently chosen to identify your PC by the motherboard, but does changing the motherboard actually make it a different PC? Changing it won't (broadly speaking) affect what the PC does any more than upgrading the memory or fitting a faster CPU or GPU.

You could even say that it's the OS that makes the machine, without which it would just be a bunch of interconnected paperweights. I certainly hold the information contained on my PC to be far more important than the component parts that allow me to access it.

I've owned my PC for very many years now, it's been upgraded and fiddled with on a fairly regular basis and it's more than fair to say that it's an entirely different machine to the one it started out as. But I could not possibly tell you at what stage(s) this transformation took place, or indeed if it's actually a different PC from 'That PC Which I Built'.

I don't really know why MS charge so much more for the retail versions, I don't for one minute imagine that the value of the retail sales (as large as it may be) actually comes close to the value of the large scale OEM (Dell etc.) and the bulk licensing sector. Other than maybe to cover the cost of tech support to tech-illiterate families who have no idea of the complexity of the product they just bought, or maybe just because the market will actually support such a fantastic price for the latest shiny must-have OS to which no one else can offer an alternative.

Anyway, I'll be buying my OEM copy, I'll upgrade bits and pieces and when it comes to reactivation I'll be on the phone reminding them that's it's actually the same PC that I've had for years and thus the one for which I originally bought the license so please be so kind as to reactivate it.

[nimbu]

I can confirm the licence is tied to the MB. Had an email reply from MS confirming it when we were performing some upgrades of our server.

[Splash]

You have a server running Vista? o_0

[Splash]

I'm pretty sure you choose what bit on installation.

Nuh-uh - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...ons/64bit.mspx

Read the bit at the bottom

if you bought Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, or Business as a retail, packaged product, and you would like a DVD of 64-bit software media to install on your PC, please choose your language:


Note: 64-bit media is included in the box with Windows Vista Ultimate.

You only get the 32 bit in the retail packages of everything but Ultimate, you have to order the 64bit version from Microsoft.

[Nox]

Buy a Retail license then, or risk it not activating if you have performed Major Hardware Changes. Whether it's worth the risk is for you to decide.

Its very annoying - vista will only be installed on 'one pc' but I do use it for testing other components in too when they break in friends machines... grrr, guess it will have to be retail, or stick with XP, £100 i'd pay to upgrade to vista, not so sure of £350 though... or even £250 for the upgrade. Very annoying but not a lot I can do

Nox

[this_is_gav]

I think we all fully understand the situation, so enough of the metaphors.

After reading all this i can't see why reactivating is a problem. I'm buying a new mobo because i'm annoyed at Foxconn for false advertising, and selling total crap. If MS want money, in a FAIR world, Foxconn should be buying my new OEM copy of Vista. But i honestly can't see that happening, can you? In which case i will reactivate my copy of Vista, i'll tell a little white lie, or even smash my motherboard to pieces so they reactivate it for me. No-one gets hurt, no-one is out of pocket, except me of course.

totally agree.

You're agreeing with yourself?

And yeah, I'm out of pocket as I stuck to the agreement and bought the correct license for me...

[Clunk]

And yeah, I'm out of pocket as I stuck to the agreement and bought the correct license for me...

At least you know for next time

[DanceswithUnix]

I'm sure when XP first came out, MS said they were doing this on a sort of points system. They keep track of what components are in the box, and you are allowed to change 3 components in 3 months.

That seems a fair system to me. My PC does slowly evolve, as the world around it changes. If my system changed a lot, then I could probably afford retail

I'm sure when details of Vista licensing first got leaked and people kick up such a storm on it, MS declared that they are just putting in writing what they had been already doing with XP.

Thing is, with a motherboard change there is so much integrated on there these days that you are almost guaranteed to hit 3 major components changed (eg bios, ethernet, sound). That forces a phone call to Microsoft, and then they can decide whether you are playing fair.

[nimbu]

You have a server running Vista? o_0

Nope SBS 2003.

We needed to reinstall the OS because of this cack sourcing program we have to use. So I thought it would be the ideal time to do some hardware upgrades.

I mailed MS with a list of planned HW changes and they replied back letting me know that it was ok as long as i was no upgrading thing MB as they feel that the OEM licence is tied to the MB.

Would whip the email out but in my haste i forgot to backup my own exchange box when i did the reformat.......

Nims

[DecomposingStar]

I just had to reactivate windows vista... I didn't even change any hardware...

Anyway, the way to do it is do a search (in the start menu) for "SLUI 4" and thats the program you use.

[starbuck]

At the end of the day, it's microsoft's software so they can charge what they want for it and set their own conditions.

I'm not saying I agree with them doing it this way. We all know the OEM licensing rules and if we buy an OEM version, we can't turn round and say we didn't know.

If you then break the terms of the license by doing a full upgrade(ie mobo, cpu, gpu etc) and then argue as to why you should be able to reactivate it, who are you trying to convince more? The people who read the threads or yourself?

I'm not aiming this at anyone in particular but it sometimes feels that the same thing is said over and over again by both sides.

At the end of the day, it is up to you and you alone as to which version you buy and how you use it. You also have to be able to take the consequences of those decisions you make.

Thing is, I can partly understand(not necessarily agree but understand) why microsoft charge as they do. We think nothing of spending hundreds on 1 piece of hardware that we will probably change within 2 years but then are the first to complain when the whole system your pc runs on, the part of the computer that is probably used more than anything else is at a higher price than other software.

What we need to remember is that windows is not just another piece of software, it is an operating system. As an OS is the basis on which all computers run, it will cost more than another piece of software that only deals with typing a letter or letting you blast the hell out of someone on the other side of the world.

We all want the latest and greatest hardware in our pc's and are prepared to pay for it, we need to view an OS in the same way.