Vista Licensing

[D Lawton]

Were about to replace just over a 1000 laptops in our company, and we have
found one we really like spec and price wise, but the bad news is it

A) comes with Vista
B) and its Vista Home Basic

We want to install Windows XP on the laptops so they become usable and work
at a decent speed. Our experience of Vista on our many test machines so far
has been "Please wait..." and the "Please wait" some more coupled with
Explorer hangs, slow network share performance to name just a few
unexceptable annoyances, we are spending no more time trying to get Vista
running , we going to put that time in looking at getting somthing like
Ubuntu Linux on clients, since we do not like where Microsoft is going with
Windows, namely ignore the corporate user(We still want XP, there is nothing
wrong with it, its so fast and stable, and just WORKS!, should not need 4 Gig
of RAM to do some word processing at a good speed) and put nice eye candy on
for home users!, and then deny anything is wrong.
But in the mean time we need to cary on as usual while we experiemnt with
Linux, can somebody please confirm that all we need to do is buy a Windows
Vista upgrade licence from our select agreement for each laptop to satisify
licensing to put Windows XP Pro on these 1000 laptops?

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Were about to replace just over a 1000 laptops in our company, and we have
found one we really like spec and price wise, but the bad news is it

A) comes with Vista
B) and its Vista Home Basic

We want to install Windows XP on the laptops so they become usable and
work
at a decent speed. Our experience of Vista on our many test machines so
far
has been "Please wait..." and the "Please wait" some more coupled with
Explorer hangs, slow network share performance to name just a few
unexceptable annoyances, we are spending no more time trying to get Vista
running , we going to put that time in looking at getting somthing like
Ubuntu Linux on clients, since we do not like where Microsoft is going
with
Windows, namely ignore the corporate user(We still want XP, there is
nothing
wrong with it, its so fast and stable, and just WORKS!, should not need 4
Gig
of RAM to do some word processing at a good speed) and put nice eye candy
on
for home users!, and then deny anything is wrong.
But in the mean time we need to cary on as usual while we experiemnt with
Linux, can somebody please confirm that all we need to do is buy a
Windows
Vista upgrade licence from our select agreement for each laptop to
satisify
licensing to put Windows XP Pro on these 1000 laptops?

You might want to look at laptops with Vista Business installed. HP sell one
model which starts at $570..


--
Mike Hall - MVP
How to construct a good post..
http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups..
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=newswhelp&style=toc
Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

 

[Mike Brannigan]

Were about to replace just over a 1000 laptops in our company, and we have
found one we really like spec and price wise, but the bad news is it

A) comes with Vista
B) and its Vista Home Basic

We want to install Windows XP on the laptops so they become usable and
work
at a decent speed. Our experience of Vista on our many test machines so
far
has been "Please wait..." and the "Please wait" some more coupled with
Explorer hangs, slow network share performance to name just a few
unexceptable annoyances, we are spending no more time trying to get Vista
running , we going to put that time in looking at getting somthing like
Ubuntu Linux on clients, since we do not like where Microsoft is going
with
Windows, namely ignore the corporate user(We still want XP, there is
nothing
wrong with it, its so fast and stable, and just WORKS!, should not need 4
Gig
of RAM to do some word processing at a good speed) and put nice eye candy
on
for home users!, and then deny anything is wrong.
But in the mean time we need to cary on as usual while we experiemnt with
Linux, can somebody please confirm that all we need to do is buy a
Windows
Vista upgrade licence from our select agreement for each laptop to
satisify
licensing to put Windows XP Pro on these 1000 laptops?

As the machines came preinstalled with Vista Home Edition, and you wish to
bulk deploy a volume activation copy of Windows XP Professional then you
will need to work within the boundaries of the Volume License agreement.
As all Volume Licenses for the Windows OS are upgrade only licenses you will
need to purchase 1000 Windows Vista Enterprise or Business Upgrade Licenses.
You can then exercise the downgrade rights that allow you use an earlier
version of Windows under the terms of the VL licensed OS, so you can use
that to go back to Windows XP Professional. And because you are a VL
licensee for Windows desktop operating systems then you also have the right
to reimage all of those machines with your VL licensed XP Professional image
you can build and use your VL key to activate them.

If you are in any doubt about the legality or working within your licensing
agreement just talk to your Microsoft TaM or Licensing Specialist or a
Microsoft Licensing Specialist within your VL or LAR reseller that you
purchase your Select products from and under.

 

[KDE]

what a pile of crap. any company willing to shell out for 1000 laptops
would certainly be buying them already to their specs. and any anyone
really interested in licensing issues for 1000 units would surely be talking
directly to Microsoft or the OEM, not asking in public usenet group. Just
another troll adding to the "vista is garbage" debate. If this is real then
"D Lawtons" company needs to seriously reconsider who is purchasing their
assets.

 

[Peter Foldes]

Huh ??? You are of course kidding. Your knowledge on this is off completely

 

[Gordon]

Huh ??? You are of course kidding. Your knowledge on this is off
completely

Umm not really - if the company really IS buying 1000 laptops then they
should have some negotiating power with the Vendor. If they don't then they
should find one which will do them a deal.