Microsoft defines your computer for you (OEM-style)

Posted January 30, 2007
Filed under: Microsoft |

One of the (innumerable) chief complaints about Apple and the Mac is that you are not buying a computer you can upgrade with impugnity; you’re locked in.

This has changed slightly with the Intel switch, but not enough to matter to anyone. So it comes as a little bit of a shock to me to read this Ars Technica post, about OEM versions of Vista:

OEM software is also tied to the motherboard it is first installed on.

I suppose this wouldn’t be an issue, except that (at least among the people I know) they all buy OEM (from NewEgg, etc) to save 50% (or more) and because they do that thing where they hand-roll their own slipstreamed SP with drivers, blah blah blah.

So under Vista, you can’t upgrade your mobo. I am sure this will go over so well with the upgrade ricer crowd.

If Valve released Half-Life for Mac OS X or Linux, Microsoft would be a forgotten memory.

4 Comments so far

  1. Gary on January 31, 2007

    At work, we tie the functionality of our software to the main (eth0) MAC address for the machine it’s shipped on. Of course, for hardware upgrades or spares swaps, we have a streamlined method to provide a newly-generated key file to the customer at any time.

    In your opinion, is this the same as the Mobo lock?

  2. 21cdb on January 31, 2007

    You sell proprietary software to a specific audience. I suppose it’s possible to “pirate” your software (or otherwise abuse licenses) but it’s not the same.

    My main point is that the ricer crowd now have, for all practical purposes, even less freedom than the Mac OS X crowd. If Microsoft sells you a copy of Vista, it is usable on a single computer (which is to say, motherboard). So long as you’re not running 2+ copies, you can buy a new Mac every month and put the same copy of Tiger you bought “OEM Style” (eg from CompUSA) on each Mac, in succession, so long as only 1 copy is installed at a time (ie you must wipe the HD to be in compliance; it’s not enough to leave it dormant).

  3. Gary on January 31, 2007

    If you buy a new Mac every month, it will come with an additional OEM license for OS X.

  4. 21cdb on January 31, 2007

    I mean, if you buy them without an OS (eg from a used dealer).

Leave a reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.