activation confusion on final vista release

[dcyphure]

an arguement in another forum has many stating the license agreement mentioned in ed botts microsoft report saying that after first activation, your allowed one more activation on an upgraded machine and thats it..so for those who upgrade every year or so or reinstall alot are SOL.

a sneaky change in m$ licensing terms

i dont believe that could be true but is it?

i found this part of an article mentioning this which makes more sense to me but seems all a bit confusing...on ultimate edition of vista, how many reinstalls can one make and how many upgrades can you do is what i want to know?

Something else unique about MAK’s is that the confirmation ID generated by them can be used to re-activate a machine! For instance, if you need to reinstall a client machine, you can use the confirmation ID that was given after installing with the MAK the first time you installed on that machine – so long as there have been no hardware changes. This also keeps it so that reinstalling a machine doesn’t count against your MAK total.

So, in essence, a MAK is nothing more than a retail license that can be used a pre-determined number of times on multiple machines.

Key policies to remember with VLK 2.0 MAK Activation:

MAK total policy (Each key has a pre-determined number of activations.)

No N-Policy

No expiration

Hardware tolerance: As with current retail versions of Windows, certain hardware changes will require a re-activation, and will count against MAK total.

Out-of-box grace period: 30 days

Out-of-tolerance: 30 days (For changed hardware only.)

[-I-]

well i have only 1 thing to sing... as many people get a new computer for Xmass,

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, LINUX ALL THE WAY.

Iff you buy that vista Crap, you sure to plugg and pray....

fist there 's rootkit stuf,

than there' GA crap,

than you mobo PUFF,

Here bill *SLAP*

Note: the above text is release und a completely free-off charge licence,

you may, copy change, edit, add, redistribute murge sell, and lots of other things with it as long as it is

1 > ment as a pure flamebait against the Mircosoft Coporation, or any of its products,

2 > does not contain racistial comments, or abuse of children.

3 > is creative

4 > im a mentioned / stated as initiator of this idea.

if any of there terms ar in any country found to be unlawfull the remaining wil stil stand, if more than half of these statement are unlawfull do NOT use any of this text for than all ritght are revoked.

[monallo]

That is not really a change over XP, just a rewording of the EULA to better clarify exactly what they mean. Read This As I understand their activation deal, you can reformat and reinstall so long as the hardware stays the same (anyone clarify?).

You need one copy of "Windows" per "Device", and hey, they are giving you a bonus, you can re-designate the device once for free!

If only more games were playable under Linux, I would be there. If you don't play video games all day long like me, Linux is the way to go. You won't ever have to put up with silly bull-oney (I spelled it wrong on purpose). DRM is dead, and has been since well before they tried to implement it.

[WBHoenig]

I used Ubuntu Linux as my primary OS for about three months and loved it. My only two drawbacks are Dreamweaver and Microsoft Flight Simulator.

But actually, the new EULA is not like people claim, because that number of '1' is refreshed every time you transfer it. Basically, it ensures that you cannot install it on one PC, then uninstall it from there and reinstall it on forty-seven different machines at once.

Edited October 16, 2006 by WBHoenig

[monallo]

I don't know if they keep track with the cd-key in a database how many times you have transfered it. It is reasonable to assume that they will do so with Vista and this WGA.

Off-topic:

I had a webserver running RedHat 5 and 6 back in the day. Since then I have used off-and-on Fedora Core and Gentoo (great for learning the in & out of command line Linux) in a dual-boot with Windows. The ONLY drawback to using Linux is the lack of available games that have native support on Linux. I have yet to get WINE to successfully run my favorite games (Any of the games available over Steam, and BF2). Wine is software which emulates a Windows environment under Linux for running Windows applications. A part of the problem is the availability of decent video/sound drivers.

[Spooky]

Actually no...the license clearly states its one copy per device that gets licensed then you can transfer that one time. So this is twice period for one copy - once on the original install and activated, then you can transfer it to another device and activate - thats two times per license per copy according the the license agreement.

"As I understand their activation deal, you can reformat and reinstall so long as the hardware stays the same (anyone clarify?).

So heres some questions; Since a partition is defined in the license as a device, even if the original partition still exists - when you reformat that same partition it becomes a new device because its been reformatted even tho the partiton was never removed or re-created. So if you install once the first time and activate, then later re-install and activate after a format of that same partition, thats your two times under the license. What changes on a partition everytime you reformat?

Its just not physical hardware thats considered a device in the license, a hard drive partition counts as a device also. It also puts a crimp on dual booting when you have to re-install or remove the other OS and keep Vista because more than likely your going to be using another partition to re-install by re-partitioning or formatting.

These changes are a long way from what the XP license was, even though Paul at the Win Supersite seems to think otherwise. This is just more than a 're-wording' or 'clarification' of the license, its a whole new way of control over legitimate users. Its a whole new license where its focus because of this 're-wording' or 'clarification' is no longer the same license that XP or previous OS's had. It even introduces a hidden cost (or what i like to call a 'hidden tax') and a way for MS to continue gathering revenue after the product is already sold. I think Paul got it wrong, its all right there in the license in black and white. If you just gloss over the license then you think "Hmm, Ok thats about the same, .....nothing new there...hmmm, maybe a little different but not so much so" - but if you really read it and then put the seperated parts together you see a whole new picture thats not anything like the XP license. Yeah, they 'clarified' it ok, they also added stuff in various places that when placed in context with the clarifications give us a whole different license.

If you really want to puzzle over something, If you get a chance, read the actual license and pay attention to the part about Defender, especially the part about automatically removing software it thinks is high risk.

I'm just going to sit back and wait until the first law suit. States were nuts over IE being an integrated part of windows, wait until they find out people can't upgrade their computers hardware at will without buying additional licenses.

That is not really a change over XP, just a rewording of the EULA to better clarify exactly what they mean. Read This As I understand their activation deal, you can reformat and reinstall so long as the hardware stays the same (anyone clarify?).

You need one copy of "Windows" per "Device", and hey, they are giving you a bonus, you can re-designate the device once for free!

If only more games were playable under Linux, I would be there. If you don't play video games all day long like me, Linux is the way to go. You won't ever have to put up with silly bull-oney (I spelled it wrong on purpose). DRM is dead, and has been since well before they tried to implement it.

Edited October 16, 2006 by Spooky

[dcyphure]

seems perfectly fine if they have a way to limit a copy to just 1 single pc at a time...but seems like for $400 i should beable to buy a new cpu and mobo anytime i want or reinstall vista as many times i wish just as long as its on 1 pc at a time

i've read so far maybe 10 articles on this subject, they all say something different so doubt anyone knows, i'm sure if i call tech support and tell them i had to reinstall cuz of some virus or whatever or i upgraded to a faster pc they'll allow it.

[tjhart85]

i'm sure if i call tech support and tell them i had to reinstall cuz of some virus or whatever or i upgraded to a faster pc they'll allow it.

Of course they'll allow it...................once

I know people, let me clarify KNOW PEOPLE PERSONALLY, who have been told they can't activate XP because they re-formatted too many times who now have to use illegal means to make there computer work for a licence they bought LEGIT.

This is just more of the same.

[-I-]

my only 2 drawbacks are flitsimulator (there is an open flight sim game and the MS version DOES run in cedega)

and dreamweaver ( good point, i know there is supposed to be crossover office to support stuff like DW, but i havn`t tried it....

[dcyphure]

i'm sure if i call tech support and tell them i had to reinstall cuz of some virus or whatever or i upgraded to a faster pc they'll allow it.

Of course they'll allow it...................once

I know people, let me clarify KNOW PEOPLE PERSONALLY, who have been told they can't activate XP because they re-formatted too many times who now have to use illegal means to make there computer work for a licence they bought LEGIT.

This is just more of the same.

i too have reformatted too many times and but didnt have to go to any illegal means, i just have to call tech support each time, they ask why i'm reinstalling and let me do it, i've upgraded 5 x's, formatted probably 500+ times, just as long as they know its on only 1 pc at a time, they'll let you do it regardless of what the license agreement states

[Nakatomi2010]

As often as I've done format and reloads my understanding is that you don't want to do it too often in a short time frame...

Microsoft runs servers for which contain all of the activation requests for about 180 days or some such, at the end of that time frame the older requests begin to get purged and you can re-activate online properly.

The key, in my opinion, is the frequency of dsoing it, if you install it on one machine, and another machine every other week yeah Microsoft will catch on, but I highly doubt their going to maintain a database for a 5 year span, let alone a single year, containing every activation request in and start denying people, and as such I would assume that, in theory, you could probably do an effective overhaul about once a year on average and get away with not running into trouble... Hell, I've had to activate some computers 4 times at the store I work at just to get it running right, Microsoft always lets me activate it each time.. Same day too...

[cluberti]

That used to be the case (180 days), but will be no longer with all Vista versions (they've already implemented it with OEM versions of Windows XP SP2). Microsoft will keep track of licensed copies for the forseeable future once Vista RTMs - I'm sure it's possible that at some point the database will be relegated or retired, but that's likely to be the end of extended support (10 years after RTM) at least.

[Spooky]

There are ways (all legitimate with a little hidden feature already in every version of Vista aimed at OEM mostly) to activate Vista without any bad effects and no degraded operation for the OS and without resorting to cracks or hacks. I think as a result of the draconian license for Vista you will see these ways exploited tremendously.