Microsoft: Upgraded Motherboard = New Windows Licence

[RaZoR1394]

Microsoft recently made a change to the licence agreement saying that a new motherboard is equal to a new computer, hence you need to purchase a new Windows licence.

     Here is what Microsoft has to say:

[worker201]

See all the bullshit they have to go through?  After writing one line of their EULA, they have to continually add to it every month.  Jackasses.  If they had just said "Hey, if you use this on your computer, it'll be easier", and handed out the software, we wouldn't be having these discussions.  Or this forum.  But they had to try to wring every customer for every dollar they have, and that gets tiring and legally difficult after awhile.

[Lead Head]

From what I can see its only for OEM lisences though. In June when I got my new mobo, I just called Microsoft (painful having the computer saying Did you say 5E73 blah blah 8 times over and over again) and said i got a new mobo and they gave me the lisence number to activate it. but its still BS.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Man I really hope M$'s greed eats them out of business ... unless their customers are a bunch of gutless, mindless zombies that will eat any bullshit served to them ... in that case, they will flourish as a pillar of evil sucking out the money of their brainless, carefree customers. If people would stand up and not take shit like this, well shit like this wouldn't happen.

You might disagree with me putting the blame on consumers, but truly they decide what companies win and loose by their purchases. Of course, they are in a kind of trap hampering their efforts to stay away from companies like this ... oh wait, they don't care ... bahahahh, they deserve it ... that's all I can say, fools deserve no pity.

[Aloone_Jonez]

This is stupid, so Microsoft are starting to tax computer upgrades now, well fuck that I have no intention of paying.

[davidnix71]

This isn't new, it's just being made more explicit for people who actually have to have real licenses.

It's still better then my old eMachine license. The first restore disc asked the mobo what it's number was. If the answer was 3151 then fine. Otherwise it would refuse to run.

But, if you cloned ME onto a harddrive on that mobo and then transferred the hd to another computer it didn't care. After a few reboots in it's new home ME would run.

[mobrien_12]

This has been a long time coming.

[Jack2000]

I have not spend even a buck
on software in my entire life!

[adiment]

OEM companies like Dell already do this with the Windows CDs that they come with.

[Calum]

by the way, shouldn't the licence be for your hard drive, not your motherboard? there's no way to replace the hard drive without replacing the OS in some way, but every other component can be replaced independently from the OS.

also:

Man I really hope M$'s greed eats them out of business ... unless their customers are a bunch of gutless, mindless zombies that will eat any bullshit served to them ... in that case, they will flourish as a pillar of evil sucking out the money of their brainless, carefree customers. If people would stand up and not take shit like this, well shit like this wouldn't happen.

you're on fire! *this* is one of the truest things i have seen anybody say on these forums for a very long time.

[noob]

Technically (I know people will try and corrent me on this), a Personal Computer is a the actual system, keyboard, monitor, mouse and any other stuff the user buys in a package. If you buy the base unit, you, well, have a base unit. It could be a PC, a server, a stool, a coffee table summin to stand on. It's the software that makes a system a server, or a PC. Anyway, a hdd image and an XP cd will be useable. Copy image to HDD and restore with boot cd.

[worker201]

It could be a PC, a server, a stool, a coffee table summin to stand on. It's the software that makes a system a server, or a PC.

Unless you put Windows on it, then it becomes a boat anchor.  Or a door stop.

[Lead Head]

OEM companies like Dell already do this with the Windows CDs that they come with.

Dell no longer ships Windows CDs with their computers. You have to pay an aditional $15 if you want one.

[Orethrius]

Unless you put Windows on it, then it becomes a boat anchor.  Or a door stop.

 Now now, you're wasting perfectly good cinder blocks!

[lovefist233]

this isnt really a major problem, you know when a significant hardware change happens then xp will ask for reactivation, just call the freephone number and talk to the indian on the other end, they will activate your product as many times as you like, problem solved, cost