Licensing craziness.

[Guest]

Doing an install for a site that's a bit bigger than the ones I normally
tackle, and decided that a corporate (Open) licence would be the sensible way
to go. At the moment the only licensing requirement is XP Pro, as they're
retaining the the rest of their infrastructure.

However on questioning Grey Matter (our UK licensing agents) they said:

You can only buy upgrades on Volume Licensing Schemes so if you need a
clean install you would have to buy full boxed copies unless you are registered
with Microsoft as a Systems builder and then you could buy OEM copies.

I'm not an expert on these things, I generally stick to OEM copies for small
sites. But... What is the point in there being a volume license if you have
to buy OEM (or other) licences first?

Are they talking nonsense, or is that actually the situation?

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Volume License agreements—including Academic, Government, and Public Sector,
never cover the initial full Windows Client operating system license. Volume License
agreements cover only Windows Client upgrade licenses. Windows upgrades are designed
to upgrade previously acquired qualifying desktop operating system licenses.
See the PUR for more information on qualifying underlying licenses.

Microsoft Volume Licensing FAQ
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/resources/faq.mspx

Microsoft Product Use Rights
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/resources/downloads/default.mspx#ES

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

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:

| Doing an install for a site that's a bit bigger than the ones I normally
| tackle, and decided that a corporate (Open) licence would be the sensible way
| to go. At the moment the only licensing requirement is XP Pro, as they're
| retaining the the rest of their infrastructure.
|
| However on questioning Grey Matter (our UK licensing agents) they said:
|
| > You can only buy upgrades on Volume Licensing Schemes so if you need a
| > clean install you would have to buy full boxed copies unless you are registered
| > with Microsoft as a Systems builder and then you could buy OEM copies.
|
| I'm not an expert on these things, I generally stick to OEM copies for small
| sites. But... What is the point in there being a volume license if you have
| to buy OEM (or other) licences first?
|
| Are they talking nonsense, or is that actually the situation?

 

[Guest]

I take it that includes the Open License category.

Also wondered if Windows 98 would count as a qualifying product?

 

[Darrell Gorter[MSFT]]

Hello Ian,
Even Windows 95 counts to meet that requirement.
Volume License does not mean that you need to do a upgrade, you still can
do a clean install with Volume Licensing.
This just means that you need to have product for each of the machines that
meets the compliance for upgrades.
This just means that the machines you are installing to had a copy of
Windows on them before and you still own that license.
Thanks,
Darrell Gorter[MSFT]

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
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[Guest]

In fact all of the machines do have Windows on them, though I have no idea
whether the client still has documentation to prove ownership of these
licences. Would proof of licence-ownership be required in order to buy or use
the volume licence?

They've been running Win98 mainly for reasons of software-compatibility with
the specialist apps they use, and have decided to upgrade the OS as
XP-compatible versions have now become available.