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Microsoft OEM Windows Licensing

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by pkiefer

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It has come to my attention (via a Microsoft Seminar) that if you purchase an OEM license of Windows with a PC purchase, that you cannot legally "ghost" an image of the same OS to that machine. They state that this violates the End User License Agreement (EULA).

I have reviewed the EULA and do not see this restriction. Also, I have contacted Microsoft for documentation on this issue and all I have received is a Powerpoint slide and a statement that this is a violation of the license agreement. I have also discussed this issue with our OEM and they are not aware of this issue.

Does anybody have any experience with this particular topic?

Thanks

3 replies

by beermonster

I am based in the UK and currently involved in a win2k rollout to a chain of high street shops, that will number some 6000+ workstations by the end of the year. we buy in the compaq machines with an oem professional license, and put our own build onover the top. The issue of licensing was raised early in the day, as I too had come across talk of the restrictions on a techie site. The rationale was that the hardware manufacturer was obtaining a tailored version of the OS at a reduced rate, and thus replacing it with a different (albeit to my mind identical) copy duly incurred an extra licensing cost. The company I contract to contacted microsoft directly about this matter, and were told that no such restrictions applied (and received confirmation of that in writing)- IE there was no extra cost. Although i would urge you to contact MS directly, rest assured we would not be pogressing with our rollout as is unless we were sure of the situation.

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