Please install the flash player
Nathan Davis08 November 2006, 4:51 AM
Another bastard clause of the Vista EULA has hit the spotlight. Microsoft has significantly tightened the restrictions on the sale of OEM copies of Vista -- say goodbye to the days of I'd like to buy a hard drive and an OEM copy of Windows, thanks.
The tech community has breathed a collective sigh of relief this week as Microsoft announced it was
backflipping on a nasty clause in its EULA that prevented users from reinstalling Vista more than once on a new or modified PC.
However don't settle down for a bedtime story just yet: Microsoft hasn't done the full circus trick. The relaxed rules around transferring Vista to new PCs only apply if you purchase the expensive full retail edition of Vista -- which, frankly, few people will.
Sure, if you do bite the bullet and buy the boxed version at Harvey Norman, you'll be free to upgrade your machine or install Vista on another machine as many times as you like.
You won't be forced to plead with some out-sourced help-desk jockey to convince them that you just upgraded your CPU and video card.
Unfortunately OEM copies won't get the same liberties. These installations of Vista will still be restricted to only one transferal or one major upgrade to your machine.
This marks the death of the popular once-off 'I'll take one hard drive and an OEM copy of Windows with that, thanks' flavour of OS-sundae.
Microsoft has also tightened up the specific rules around what hardware an OEM copy of Windows can be sold with.
Straight from the horse's mouth -- "spokesperson" at Microsoft Australia:
"OEM versions of Windows Vista must be distributed to end-users with a fully assembled computer system and must be pre-installed."
Dang!
To make the matter even more complex, Microsoft says that even with a "transfer to a new PC as many times as you like" retail edition, you will only be allowed to transfer your licence for Vista to someone else once.
Whether Microsoft can handle this on a technical level remains to be seen.
Unless Microsoft uses privacy-invading details like passport IDs being used on a Windows installation to detect piracy, it's hard to see how it could tell if you've installed Vista on someone else's machine rather than a new one of your own.
Speed benchmarks: top secret
Also landing in the EULA spotlight is the discovery that benchmark results under Vista have, essentially, been lined up for a firing squad.
More specifically, the license demands any benchmarks that involve performance results from the .NET 3.0 Framework must adhere to standards set by Microsoft before being disclosed.
What is most disturbing here is that Microsoft has pointed to a webpage in the EULA, here, to define exactly what these standards are. Microsoft can effectively change this to whatever it pleases, whenever. Feel the joy of the independent media being manipulated by lawyers and their grubby licences!
At the time of writing, this popular clause had an average rating of 1.57 out of 9.
Of course, all of the above is possibly moot. Whether an EULA is worth more than half a grain of salt in Australia is questionable.