Over in this thread I dithered about buying a Mac Mini. I have since placed an order.
The new computer is to replace a failed Windows machine. I’ll sometimes have a need to run Windows on the Mac, either in a VM or natively in Boot Camp. Can I reuse my Windows license for this? The sticker on the back of the PC describes the license as “Windows 7 Home Prem OEM Software”, and has the product key printed on it. I won’t be using it on the PC again, so the license is currently dormant for want of a better word.
Also, if I can reuse the license, is there somewhere I can legitimately download a Windows 7 .ISO file for the purposes of installation? I have the original Windows DVD, but the Mac Mini doesn’t have an optical drive, and while I could rip the DVD on another computer I’d rather just download an ISO from MS if possible.
What you’re proposing to do is probably not permitted by the licence terms. Microsoft’s Windows 7 OEM licences are usually tied to the specific computer you purchased it for. (If in doubt, read the licence itself.) Whether or not this is legally enforceable in your jurisdiction is another matter. Even if it is unenforceable, Microsoft may have implemented technical measures to make it difficult or impossible to use the OS on another machine. (For example, when you first used the OS, it may have “phoned home” and reported its licence key and your hardware configuration to Microsoft. When you install it on the VM, it will try to do the same thing, and since the hardware no longer matches the licence key, it may cripple or disable the OS.)
Out of interest, when you say “cripple or disable the OS” you mean the Windows install, right? Not the host OSX?
I’ll have a Google for the licence terms - I can’t look them up on the PC in question because it has shuffled off this mortal coil.
If I can’t reuse it that’s fine… I’ll just have to pay for a standalone copy of Windows. New territory for me since up to now I’ve only used Windows with the computers it was supplied on.
Yes, I mean that the OS might self-cripple. It might tell you that it’s being used in violation of its licence, and refuse to start, or it may issue you with annoying nag screens, or refuse to provide certain functionality such as system updates. (Then again, it might work perfectly for some time, or forever.) It can’t and won’t harm the VM “hardware” itself or the host machine it’s running on.
Thanks, Turble. I see that Parallels also supports Windows 10. Whether or not Visual Studio will work seamlessly under the Technical Preview I doubt, but it’s worth trying, and in fact I’d be curious to try Windows 10 anyway. I’d kind of forgotten about that option to be honest.
Windows is very forgiving about licenses. It will most likely just ask you to call an automated line, punch in some numbers, and type back into the activation screen what the phone says. For the most egregious violations (if you re-use that same license several times over in a short timespan), you’ll get a human who only asks you “How many computers is this license currently installed on?” You say “One”, and they give you an activation code. Done.
The OEM license is technically not supposed to be re-used. But Microsoft doesn’t actually give a damn if you’re just a random home user. They’d rather have you use that than another OS. Most people’s alternative isn’t “I’ll buy a real copy, then”, but to just pirate it anyway.
The PC isn’t functional, but I don’t think it’s the disk at fault. I’d considered pulling the HD out and putting it in a USB enclosure. It’s not a priority though, because all the information on it is either backed up elsewhere or easily re-downloadable.
OEM licenses cost a fraction of of the price of a retail license. The trade-off is that the license is limited to a single physical device. This is enforced through the activation process; if you try to activate a machine (virtual or physical, makes no difference) with that license key, it will fail as an invalid license.
However, you can use Windows 7 (and later) ~30 days without activating it (you can reset that counter twice with a special command, for a total of 90 days without activating). Support for non-activated installations limited to security updates only (no stability fixes, no fixes, really, for anything not deemed by Microsoft to be a security hole). At the end of that period, the OS (in normal mode) will refuse to do anything other than run the activation tool.
The activation tool is, in most instances, easily appeased through the phone call process. This works (and is sometimes required) for both retail and OEM licenses of various sorts. All they know is how much of your hardware has changed, and if it passes a certain threshold, it’ll require a new activation.
Because of the modularity of computers, something like changing the motherboard or a few components at the same time will trigger this re-activation check. Swapping an OEM license from one machine to the other does the same thing, but is usually likewise trivial to get around.
