PeaceByJesus Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 (edited) Hi, i have a friend's old laptop on which needs 98se (for reasons others than just hardware compatibility) and i actually want to be legal in obtaining it. Previously (2004), I was told by MS that non-royalty OEM copies could be sold with a piece of essential, non -peripheral hardware, as long as it came with a COA but i read here that this has changed, at least for XP and Vista, so that OEM's can only come with a PC, to which they are forever "married to." I called MS (1-800-RU-LEGIT) about it and the first attendant thought that this (new restriction) applied to any OS, so i asked someone in sales who said as far as he knew you could still buy an OEM with any kind of essential hardware, even an audio cable. He said they would have told them if (what the above link claims) was the case. I find no clarification for this online, and know that for many this is not a big deal, but i do want to be legal (and MS itself does itself no favors by not making making getting answers easier). And yes, i hope Linux becomes more of an option for the non-geek. Thanks for helpful advice or comments on the whole scheme Edited August 4, 2008 by PeaceByJesus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eidenk Posted August 5, 2008 Share Posted August 5, 2008 Go ahead and buy your OEM 98SE without any worries IMO. I think Microsoft can't apply new licence rules on stuff they sold in the past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FishBowl Posted August 8, 2008 Share Posted August 8, 2008 (edited) Win9x normally won't get 'married' with a machine in any way. Can later be moved from a machine to the next one, as long as you can manage driver issues, know to treat devices properly in the device manager, safe mode. Never did another fresh install here, although I exchanged the main computer for a better one around 10 times already, since late 1999.Got to admit, I've ruined the system with nasty experiments several times, but as I always have my backup images...You don't even have to place the license sticker on the case, 'cause as a private person you don't have a valid system builder contract with MS. So leave the sticker where it is...BTW, you don't even have to register 9x these days. Won't bring any real benefits.Simply search the registry for "regdone" and set value to "1". Editing plain text is not illegal in itself. Edited August 8, 2008 by FishBowl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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