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Is it legal to sell Unattended Windows?


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Is it Legal to sell Unattended Windows CD + licenses for Windows and other software Included?

Or would you have to include all the Origional Media? I know you would have to include the Licenses and all.

-Matt

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I think it's a topic for a (very) long discussion.

I worked to a company here in Brazil a couple of years ago as a MS Official OEM Integrator (System Builder) deploying original Windows licenses, and I can tell you, it's a very good deal - but only to Microsoft ! :D

They have a 'policy' that 'transfers' all the support to the OEM :rolleyes: . It means that YOU (and not MS :D ) will have to give all your best resources to troubleshoot your clients' askings, instead of just giving them a MS phone number.

Even if you get all the licenses needed to legally sell unattended versions of Windows (what I really doubt, for each company has its own software distribution/selling policy), probably you'll find yourself being responsible for all support of all the stuff you packed together... :)

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You don't sell windows you sell the license for windows. As long as you are selling a valid windows license i dont think microsoft would care. They would care if you are selling hundreds or thousands of pc's as an OEM.

-gosh

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why would you want to sell "Unattended Windows CD + licenses" anyway :D

and have to deal with all the legal crap (Double :D ) ?

Maybe you could just sell the info on how to make an oem CD :)

just a thought :rolleyes: ...

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Microsoft cares very much when people start duplicating CD's to sell. If they catch you doing it behind their back, they will pursue legal action. Basically there are 2 ways to sell Windows licenses:

1) As a Royalty OEM. These are large systems integrators like Dell, HP, Gateway, etc that sell tens of thousands of PC's. Benefits of being a royalty OEM include: permission to duplicate Windows CD's with your own customizations, the ability to get your bios strings signed by Microsoft so your systems can use SLP instead of being activated, and permission to distribute "recovery media" (OS images) instead of an actual Windows CD.

2) As a System Builder. This is the little guy buying as few as 3 OEM copies of Windows at a time. The rules are much more strict here. The system builder MUST give the customer the original hologrammed OEM Windows CD and is prohibited from duplicating CD's to distribute to customers. They can optionally include a hard-drive based recovery system (hidden partition with OS image) but cannot make a copy of said recovery solution to removable media.

If you are interested in selling Windows, you can sell full retail product (boxed and shrink-wrapped) just like Staples, etc. do, or you can sell OEM copies as a system builder with hardware. Microsoft does not provide support for OEM copies, hence the reduced price point.

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I think mattst88 means that he just wan't to make some unattended cd's and sell them privat.

If you get a XP cd with serialnr. from someone and make the unattended inst. cd from this, then I can't see why it shold'nt be legal.

But if you use your own CD with another persons serial, I surpose it's not legal.

In all cases its not legal to copy your own cd wíth serial and sell this :-)))

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In short....

- You CANNOT create a unattended (or for that matter any modified XP CD) regardless of what version it is i.e. pro, home, oem, retail, vol, etc. for any other purpose than customising a install in your own establishment/company.

- Further, supplying the same Product Key to more than one individual is illegal

- You must supply the original CD AND C.O.A. (Certificate of Authenticity) and selling/supplying anyone with a customised CD of XP (within certain vol/SB exceptions) is illegal and Microsoft will NOT be happy bunnies.

As a extremely small freelancing OEM, I custom-make a XP CD/network install, to ease the installation of XP on the customer machine and supply the customer with the affixed C.O.A, the original (hologrammed) CD & Info document with it (along with all the usual CD's - drivers for example).

They can optionally include a hard-drive based recovery system (hidden partition with OS image) but cannot make a copy of said recovery solution to removable media

I'm not sure the legality of this, except if you're a Royalty OEM - I'm sure that is the requirement for this, no matter how hidden it is lol - but you can make a duplicate image in the "factory" so long as it is only used for replicating images on new machines and is set to re-generate the security ID's , etc.

Also, another requirement is to System Preperation (Sysprep) the machine for delivery to the customer. Failure to do this means you are NOT complying with the SB agreement. Also (I think) is preinstalling SBSI (Step-By-Step-Interactive tutorial for XP) too, but this may vary from country to country.

Don't think I've missed anything :)

Regards,

Nathan.

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I'm quite one for getting it all right - a perfectionist (or should that be... wannabe-perfectionist lol)

nothin like tootin' yer own horn lol

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