The Horror of the Vista EULA pt1

Discussion in 'Software' started by Fergal1982, May 29, 2007.

  1. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    Alright guys. I may be the first of us to fall foul of the EULA nightmare.

    As I said Here, one of the disks on my array has failed. So, in preparation for raising an RMA with the supplier, I've removed the knackered drive.

    Today, however, I get a notice from Vista stating that a hardware change has caused vista to no longer be authenticated, and that I would have to authenticate in two days or it will stop working.

    So I tried to authenticate, and got an error stating that the license key was used.

    Now it may be the case that you can call MS (Theres an option for it on the list) and explain the situation to them. But at the end of the day, even if thats the case, it looks like we're going to have to do it EVERY time. :rolleyes:

    Oh the joys
     
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  2. Kitkatninja
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    Kitkatninja aka me, myself & I Moderator

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    Us corporate users have to deal with Volume Activation 2. So far at work we only have 3 laptops with Vista, but it's already taken up 10 of our licences (due to HDD error's, re-installation, etc), we've rung up MS and all they say is "Just ring them back up when you run out of licences and we'll deal with it then". We're going to have to set up a KMS server, but that's not the point.

    Oh the joy's of MS activation...

    -Ken
     
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  3. nugget
    Honorary Member

    nugget Junior toady

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    I haven't read the EULA in fine detail but is there anywhere that mentions that you have to reactivate after only 1 piece of changed hardware? :dry

    At least with XP it was up to 7 pieces.
     
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  4. zebulebu

    zebulebu Terabyte Poster

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    Not strictly true.

    M$ never officially released the algorithm for the amount of pieces of hardware you had to change before reactivation kicked in, but try changing the HDD and the mobo on a copy of XP and see how quickly the PA nag dialog pops up after reboot :biggrin

    Besides, if you replaced seven pieces of hardware in a PC wouldn't it, to all intents and purposes BE a new PC?

    HDD
    RAM
    GPU
    CPU
    MoBo
    Soundcard
    NIC

    Surely that would be like Trigger's broom:

    "I've had this broom for 20 years - it's never let me down. It's only had 17 new heads and 14 new handles"...

    Anyhoo - lest i ramble so far off the track I get lost, back to the Vista EULA. As I understand it, whilst its full of the usual legalese bollocks, its actually a lot clearer than past EULAs - for instance, the nonsensical bit which seemed to indicate to some people for some reason that you could transfer Windows XP to as many machines as you liked as many times as you liked has been replaced with a statement which now says, firmly, that you can transfer each copy of Vista precisely ONCE due to a major hardware upgrade.

    Of course, that doesn't explain in the slightest why you had to go through revalidation after a disk replacement - although it does seem to me that the HDD is basically the absolute definitive 'guts' of a system. Hell, I've moved XP onto three different Dell systems in the past without it throwing a paddy simply by taking the HDD out and dumping it in a new, identical box (relax, it was in a test environment using an Action Pack license)

    So long as they're not getting uppity with you when you go through the revalidation process, I can't see an issue with it - in my experience its always been the case that if online validation fails, provided you ring up and they don't see that the license you're revalidating has already been activated... oooooh, let's see.... 837 times then they will reactivate it for you without any problem.

    If you're in a corporate environment, that could be a pain but, if you're regularly replacing failed HDDs or MoBos, I'd suggest that you're either using REALLY crap components, or that you've got a big enough user base to look at a KMS server anyway
     
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  5. BosonMichael
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    BosonMichael Yottabyte Poster

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    Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! :thumbleft

    Oh... and QFT. 8)
     
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  6. Fergal1982

    Fergal1982 Petabyte Poster

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    Well I called their automated verification system last night. Failed. Passed through to an agent, and didnt actually have any problems. He asked the usual questions (did it come with the machine or did you buy a copy, how many other machines is this license installed on, etc), then gave me the verification key.

    That said, Im likely going to have to go through this all over again when i get the replacement drive.
     
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  7. ManicMonkey

    ManicMonkey Kilobyte Poster

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    noob question.. kms server??
    im guessing its an alternative to having to ring up microsoft but whats involved in it.
     
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