Which Vista edition is best for schools?

[localzuk]

Nope, motherboard - as they are linked to the BIOS. Think how often people upgrade hard disks compared to motherboards... It is much more regular.

 

My source link quotes the MS OEM site as saying mobo too.

 

Direct link here - Word doc

[HodgeHi]

So what happens if the mobo manf decides to completely rewrite the bios and send out a flash update? Does that mean you need a new license. A bit of exaggeration i know :-).

 

When you bought new hardware a few years ago you had no choice but to have an OEM version of XP or whatever so surely you own a license regardless of the hardware you stick on it. You certainly paid for it.

[petectid]

I found yesterday that SCC were selling Toshiba Satellite Pro A200 with either Vista Business or XP Pro. The laptop seemed a bit under spec for Vista but what was interesting is the laptop with XP was nearly £20 more than the same laptop with Vista.

[localzuk]

So what happens if the mobo manf decides to completely rewrite the bios and send out a flash update? Does that mean you need a new license. A bit of exaggeration i know :-).

 

When you bought new hardware a few years ago you had no choice but to have an OEM version of XP or whatever so surely you own a license regardless of the hardware you stick on it. You certainly paid for it.

 

Nope, you don't own a license - you agree to be bound by the terms of the EULA in return for access to that software. You don't own anything. If the manufacturer makes changes to the bios, you will still have the serial number of the mobo on the board - and anyway, you haven't changed your mobo so you are still licensed.

[HodgeHi]

So to buy an OEM license costs money and to use an OEM license costs money. If i buy an OEM license say for a mac mini when purchasing the hardware for parallels and therefore the hardware is emulated, if i wish to move the OEM to a seperate mac mini with the same emulated hardware is this illegal? Is the OEM still attached to the mac -minis MOBO?

[john]

The simple way of understanding OEM Licencing of MS Product such as Windows is this:

 

It lives and dies with the hardware that it is first installed on.

 

So for example I had a PC with a 2GHz P4 CPU, I then changed that to a 2.4GHz Quad Core CPU a few months ago, and I had to get a new copy of Windows as thats a new PC even though my old one has been broken up into parts and no longer uses XP as it lived and died with that PC.

 

So if you have some XP OEM Stickers on some PCs that are 5 years old, and you are skipping the PCs, its tough you cannot re-use them licences as they lived and died with that PC.

 

The comments RE what are they tied to, well its the PC as a whole not one part. Its all about the way you interprit that, now there is a list of what will set off an XP's Reactivation for the licence, but its quite simple really, the heart of the PC is the CPU, Motherboard and Ram. Now change the CPU, Board and Ram you have a new PC. Change the motherboard but keep the same CPU and Ram EG in a dead mobo failure that realistically is the same PC still, change the CPU for the same make, model of CPU due to failure its still the same machine, but upgrade the CPU to a newer better model then you are into new PC grey area really. Its a bit of an iffy area TBH, but basically the key to remember is it lives and dies with the first PC it was activated on.

[FN-GM]

What about retail when i telephones MS they said they could be moved to another PC if your old one died.

[john]

Correct, Retail copies IE the full packaged boxed version of Windows EG Vista Ultimate Editon at £670 or what ever it is now, can be moved from PC to PC, so long as its only ever instaled on the maximum number of licences you have. So you could put it on a PC now, in a weeks time fully remove it from that machine and put it on another one and carry on.

 

I have that now with my Vista setup, a full retail copy of Ultimate Edition so it will move from PC to PC no new licences needed.

[FN-GM]

thought so i have got 2 Windows Server 2003 Retail licenses i found on old machines in a skip i asked the persons who skip it was if i could have the old servers he said yes. I took the panels off and used to licenses on other machines and MS activated them with no problems. The servers were nackard got damaged in a flood, the stickers were ok after i had the hair drier on them.

[john]

Retail Licences don't have chasis stickers and never have had. The licence is a paper document in the retail box with a sticker on the CD Set. If it has a sticker on the chasis then its OEM

[FN-GM]

Thats odd Microsoft Activated it for me with no problems, unless the licenses never got used because they activated right away with no phone call. 8)

 

I will pop in and ask the company on Monday

[PeterW]

It depends there is a complex set of rules that will trigger a phone activation, depends on how long it was since it was first activated ect.

[accura2000]

We had some HP nx7300 here and the hp site had more vista drivers then xp. Theres still 1 unknown device which we cant find drivers for.

 

Apeo,

 

I have 5 NX7300's that came with Vista business, now they all have XP Pro with all the drivers installed.

 

Just looking at the device manager, a brief summary is:

 

Display: Mobile Intel 945GM/GU Express Chipset Family

 

Human Interface Devices: HID-compliant device

HP Quick Launch Buttons *** Think this might be the one for you***

 

IDE ATA/ATAPI: Intel 8280 1GBM Sata AHCI Controller

 

Modem: Agere Systems HDA Modem

 

Network: 1394 Net Adapter

Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller

Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN

 

PCMCIA: Generic CardBus Controller

 

Audio: SoundMAX Intergrated Digital HD Audio

 

Hope this may help, im sure its the HP Quick Launch Buttons though. 8)