OEM Licence

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Bitstring <#[email protected]>, from the wonderful

As far as motherboard=computer, that's not what the licensing people told me
way back when XP was released, but it is what was posted as an answer to
kurtrail's specific question.

But another thread there had it pretty muddied by saying that if the oem is
warranting the motherboard, it's not a different computer, but if it's out
of warranty, it is a new computer.

Next time I'm at a MS event, I'll corner one of the licensing people and see
if I can get an answer there. They seem to be more realistic in their
expectations in person, whereas when it's in print, they toe the line rather
rigidly.

Thanks, I'd like to hear the answer. It may be that what they mean is
something like 'if anyone =other than the original system builder=
changes the board then it's a new PC', which would be sort of
comprehensible .. although if you want to confuse them ask them exactly
which bit of the board it is .. i.e. if I actually =repaired= the
original motherboard (by swapping the Northbridge, Southbridge, LAN
controller, winbond chip, and re-flashing the BIOS) how are they going
to distinguish that from the more normally adopted approach of binning
the board and replacing it. 8>.