Why is it when I search, for example, Ebay, Craigslist, and so on, for copies of Windows XP, I don’t find anything?
Don’t people ever have copies to sell?
Or is it not legal to resell this program? (Like that ever stopped anybody before…)
Or what?
Or am I just not finding what’s right in front of my nose?
Also, I noticed that at the UK Amazon.com, there is a “Windows XP Professional Upgrade for Students and Teachers” which is cheaper than the non-student version. I’m a student. Is this kind of thing available in the US? I can’t find it on the US Amazon.com…
What’s the significance of “serial code based anti-piracy scheme?” Like, when you register, it notes the serial code of the actual computer it’s being registered on?
I would like more information on this. I know that you only buy the right to use software. Are you not able to sell that right? It is bad enough that I have bought windows 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, me, xp home, xp pro and xp media. And they complain about piracy ruining their business, sheesh.
You buy the right to use the software how they permit you to use it, really. There’s software in Windows XP which detects the hardware specifics of the computer on which it has been installed and the serial code with which it was installed, then this information is sent to a Microsoft server and registrations which deviate significantly from this hardware (i.e., a new or different computer) are blocked from verifying. Without verification, a Windows XP install eventually becomes unusuable.
Sometimes, depending on what you upgrade, you’re still good to go. Recently I upgraded my motherboard, RAM and CPU and it let me. Had I also attempted to reinstall on a new Hard drive, it might have denied me the ability to register. At which point you call MS, get a special code, and a workaround for the licencing, and you’re good to go again.
My friend, OTOH, got caught out and needed to do that after simply upgrading a network and video card. I personally think he messed something else up about it, as those components should not have caused his Windows installation to need re-registering.
There are a couple of factors at play here, including:
MS is part of the eBay VeRO scheme and as such, they are able to pretty much arbitrarily pull the plug on any auction they consider to infringe their rights - I speak from experience here of trying to sell a genuine piece of MS software - I complied with all necessary rules, but they kept pulling my auction and warning me not to sell pirate copies - I complained bitterly and they apologised and told me to relist, which I did, only to have it pulled again with another warning.
In order to transfer a Licence for Windows ME and XP, you need to provide the Certificate Of Authenticity sticker and this is constructed in such a way that removing it from the computer case destroys it. I have seen COA stickers for sale on jagged rectangles of metal jigsawed out of old computer cases.
I’m pretty sure the EULA for MS products prior to Vista do allow for transfer of ownership, but I understand MS argues that they never really meant you could sell it.
Some people do try to sell unused OEM copies of windows that have not been registered. For example, if a big company buys say 20000 Dell workstations with XP, but installs their Corporate Volume licensed XP on those machines, they have 20000 unused OEM XP licenses to get rid of. Unethical people then try to resell these.
However, these OEM copies are actually keyed to the original manufacturers hardware (usually via a BIOS key) and cannot be installed on generic hardware.
You can buy a cheap generic OEM Windows license (with a trivial piece of hardware like a mouse) that MS will not transfer across hardware - it is only valid on the equipment it was originally purchased for.
Only a full retail XP install can be moved from one PC to another.
I was able to use my roommate’s WinXP disk to install on another computer. When it came to activation, it did it right away with no problem. She said she had let someone else use it a while back and they also didn’t have a problem. If it’s anything like Adobe, there’s a ‘secret’ number of activations that can be done in a ‘secret’ amount of time that doesn’t raise red flags.
Does that mean that it is only valid on the hardware that you first register that copy of Windows to? How about if you later replace enough of the components?
…But in practice, Microsoft’s attempts to prevent all of the other stuff being transferred spills over in such a way as to make the above a big pain in the arse.
It can be surprising what will and what won’t trip the activation scheme. I took an upgrade copy of WinXP that I had installed on a Dell of mine (replacing the POS known as WinMe) and installed it on my current computer when I got rid of the Dell and built myself a new computer. That was some new stuff, like the motherboard and RAM, and some stuff taken from the Dell, like the hard drives, optical drives, video card, and PCI cards. I suppose that was really only a two-component swap–the motherboard and RAM–but I would have thought that the change in motherboard would have tripped it.
For what it’s worth, the so-called Windows Genuine Advantage software started to claim that I had a pirated piece of software, which majorly pissed me off as I had to go do a system restore to uninstall the forced upgrade.
It did this to me too, on several machines; IIRC it was a known bug and all you had to do was visit an authentication page and after that it would work again (not sure how well-publicised that was though)
I don’t remember it ever being mentioned here or on Slashdot. Well, maybe that’s not that surprising, as the directions on Slashdot were mostly how to disable it.
I think there’s also a time limit beyond which reactivating it on another machine won’t trigger the flag. I’ve occasionally been able to shuffle Office licenses from machine to machine without the usual license-changing dancing. Say, from one junked old pc to a newer one without tripping the activation stupidity. Usually on anything that’s been running more than a couple of years, it’s not a problem.
My 0.016 Euro here: I was working on a computer with a hosed hard drive. Got a new hard drive. Since I would be removing the computer case, I thought, what the heck, and upgraded the motherboard, RAM, and video card, too. (I gave many TwoPiecesofEight to CompUSA that day.)
Couldn’t activate Windows XP. Called the 1-800 number that popped up and spoke with a Microsoft Representative. For the record, he was a really nice, friendly guy. He gave us a 100-digit special code to key in–it was probably a 16-digit code, but phone reception wasn’t good so we repeated a bunch of things twice. Bingo, we now have Activated Windows. No problems since.
Note: This was 1 AM in the morning, about two years ago. Does Microsoft run a swing-shift operation in Seattle? Or was I patched to an office in India or Ireland?
