Legal questions about activation files in XP home/pro

[simpleinventor]

I bought 2 HP computers, one with XP Pro installed and the other with
XP Home. The one with XP Pro came with the actual XP Pro cd. The other
one only had a restore disc. If I were to back up the activation file
(*.dbl) from the XP Home computer, reformat the drive, install XP Pro
on the once-Home computer and use the Home activation file on that
computer, would that, a) work b) be legal?

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

a) No.
b) No.

OEM versions of Windows XP are non-transferable
to a different computer. Please read your Windows XP
End-User License Agreement by going to Start > Run
and type in: WINVER , and hit enter.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

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:

| I bought 2 HP computers, one with XP Pro installed and the other with
| XP Home. The one with XP Pro came with the actual XP Pro cd. The other
| one only had a restore disc. If I were to back up the activation file
| (*.dbl) from the XP Home computer, reformat the drive, install XP Pro
| on the once-Home computer and use the Home activation file on that
| computer, would that, a) work b) be legal?

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I bought 2 HP computers, one with XP Pro installed and the other with
XP Home. The one with XP Pro came with the actual XP Pro cd. The other
one only had a restore disc. If I were to back up the activation file
(*.dbl) from the XP Home computer, reformat the drive, install XP Pro
on the once-Home computer and use the Home activation file on that
computer, would that,

a) work
No.


b) be legal?

No.

By your own admission, you'll have an OEM licenses for WinXP on the
computers. An OEM version must be sold with a non-peripheral piece of
hardware (normally a motherboard or hard rive, if not an entire PC) and
is _permanently_ bound to the first PC on which it's installed. An OEM
license, once installed, is not legitimately transferable to another
computer under _any_ circumstances.


--

Bruce Chambers

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