Posted on 10/13/2006 7:22:58 AM PDT by Señor Zorro
Microsoft has released licenses for the Windows Vista operating system that dramatically differ from those for Windows XP in that they limit the number of times that retail editions can be transferred to another device and ban the two least-expensive versions from running in a virtual machine.
The new licenses, which were highlighted by the Vista team on its official blog Tuesday, add new restrictions to how and where Windows can be used.
"The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes the "licensed device," reads the license for Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, and Business. In other words, once a retail copy of Vista is installed on a PC, it can be moved to another system only once.
The new policy is narrower than Windows XP's. In the same section, the license for Windows XP Home states: "You may move the Software to a different Workstation Computer. After the transfer, you must completely remove the Software from the former Workstation Computer." There is no limit to the number of times users can make this move. Windows XP Professional's license is identical.
Elsewhere in the license, Microsoft forbids users from installing Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium in a virtual machine. "You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system," the legal language reads. Vista Ultimate and Vista Business, however, can be installed within a VM.
Vista Home Basic, at $199 for a full version and $99 for an upgrade, and Vista Home Premium ($239/$159), are the two most-affordable retail editions of the operating system scheduled to appear on store shelves in January 2007.
Although the Vista team's blog did not point out these changes, it did highlight others. "Two notable changes between Windows Vista license terms and those for Windows XP are: 1) failure of a validation check results in the loss of access to specific features; and 2) an increase in our warranty period from 90 days to 1 year, which brings Windows in line with most other Microsoft products," wrote Vista program manager Nick White.
Specifically, the Vista license calls out the ramifications of a failed validation check of Vista.
"The software will from time to time validate the software, update or require download of the validation feature of the software," it reads. "If after a validation check, the software is found not to be properly licensed, the functionality of the software may be affected."
Vista's new anti-piracy technologies, collectively dubbed "Software Protection Platform," have met with skepticism by analysts and criticism by users. Under the new program, a copy of Vista that's judged to be in violation of its license, or is counterfeit, is disabled after a set period, leaving the user access only to the default Web browser, and then only for an hour at a time.
This is enough to make me think about switching back to Apple, 17 years after I swore I wouldn't own one again.
[b]For all the bluster from the mac crowd about microsoft, apple still has like 3-4% of the market and microsoft 90%.[/b][p]
More Fiats are sold than Ferrari's. I'd rather have the Ferrari, especially if it cousts about the same as the Fiat.
BTW I'm still a Win 98 user my next bos will be a iMac. Runs well and not all th cable nightmares.
Nope, nothing wrong with my memory. In fact i'll bet my laptop hasn't crashed in three years(since I got it). My 1.5 year-old homebuilt desktop hasn't even been crashed by my demo-installing 13-year old. What did you buy, a Dell?
Oh, and you actually bought a P4? You can't be that bright...
HA! Well, I'm glad apple finally woke up to the reality that they can make a killing selling and/or marketing their os independent of their hardware.
That, and that people are too afraid (or to lazy) to try and understand how their computer actually works.
Depends on your definition of "we." :D
But marketing plays a very important role, more so even than technology. The key was to see to the corporate executives that MS was what they needed. Once they had the executives, then they went after the third party software manufacturers. At that point they had a "web" of support that no other company could beat. Even though their technology was far behind that of the others.
If the technology was what actually drove the market, Novell would still be the leader. But they couldn't market space heaters to eskimos. And that's why they're going down the tubes. Heck, how often do you have to reboot a Windows system, especially a server? At work, we've got nearly 200 Windows servers, and we schedule them to restart once a week. While most don't need it, it seems that if some of them go more than 2 weeks between reboots they get flaky. My Novell NetWare 6 server gets rebooted when I need to patch it (something I haven't needed to do in a few years), but it will be going down tomorrow: The battery in the UPS has had it, and I need to swap it out. The last time that server went down was when I shut it down during an ice storm, and my home lost power for 8 days. Something I really can't blame on the software.
Mark
The Chinese are good at making copies?
Yeah, I must be a real dummy. I only bought it when it was the top of the line.
Leave it to you Redmond types to resort to ad hominem when you can't respond with rational rebuttals.
So long, troll.
I believe there is
a BIG PLAN going on here.
No one can compete
with Microsoft now.
Apple can't. Sun can't. Google
can't. Google's just a
dot com company
with no real global structure.
Apple has zero
presence in the world
of big business. Sun has no
presence except in
the server market.
But if Apple and Sun merge
and Google buys them,
that triumvirate
would be a global presence
with a foothold in
every marketplace
Microsoft gets their cash from.
Then things might get fun!
I ould like to see some good FUN in the personal computer market....M$soft just wants to squeeze us for more money....
That i didn't know,screw that. I"m not upgrading to windows vista if those programs don't work. I"m happy with XP Media Center.
That arguemen tfalls apart becuase of the gigantic price differential between the two. Not everyone can afford a ferrari. Anyone who can buy a computer has the equal option of picking a PC or a mac.
What are the windows media player 11 restrictions exactly? I remember reading them a lon gtime ago, but i'm rusty.
Don't know ,...I'm ignoring M$Soft.....as much as possible.
I was sort of on the vista bandwagon, but i didn't know about these kernel level restirctions banning programs outright. That's just bs, screw vista. I'm sticking with XP.
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