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Bart Leetch
07-25-2003, 4:25 PM
What is required to install this OS in 2 home computers. Do I need special permission from Microsoft or will I need to pay more?

Bobby Hatfield
07-25-2003, 5:01 PM
What is required to install this OS in 2 home computers. Do I need special permission from Microsoft or will I need to pay more?

Bart I hope I don't have to buy another copy, am planning on buying another used computer and using same OS on it too. No more than I know about computers I just hope I can install it.

Kevin Gerstenecker
07-25-2003, 5:02 PM
XP Home Edition is available on CD ROM, and that is all you need to install it. If you purchase the software, you can install in on your home machine. As far as the law goes, I'm no lawyer, but I know LOTS of people who have shared sofware for many operating systems..........from Windows 3.1 to current systems. To be legal, you should probably be the original purchaser of the software.............but if you have the serial number assigned to the disk, you can load the program on any computer, any number of times. Now we all know your not SUPPOSED to do this, but a LOT of people do. No, that doesn't make it right, or legal, but it's just the way it is. Not that I have ever done this, which I haven't........Really, I haven't, never had the need to, but I know it has been done, MANY times. Not sure if this answers your question Bart, but I thought I would throw this in anyway............... :)

Jackie Outten
07-25-2003, 5:10 PM
What is required to install this OS in 2 home computers. Do I need special permission from Microsoft or will I need to pay more?

Bart,

I don't use Windows XP but it is my understanding that it can only be used on one computer. You have to have an activation code for the software to work on your computer. This is also supposed to prevent software piracy. I think if you want to put XP on another computer you will have to purchase another copy.

Jackie Outten

RJ Schuff
07-25-2003, 5:22 PM
Yup, only on 1 computer at a time. It even gets messy if you do a significant upgrade, you may have to re-activate the computer. It is a fairly painless process.

I happen to like XP a lot. It is very stable, no blue screens of death. But since I would have to purchase a single copy for each of my work computers, I have choosen to stay with Win2000, also very stable.

Sooner or later the product cycle of Win2000 will expire and then no more updates.

RJ

Bobby Hatfield
07-25-2003, 5:26 PM
Bart I hope I don't have to buy another copy, am planning on buying another used computer and using same OS on it too. No more than I know about computers I just hope I can install it.


Anyone bought a used computer from these computer supply places like Tiger Direct or Surplus Computers, the price looks good and some have OS installed, so how could they do that, you know they didn't buy a new OS and install it. It must have had it installed already when they got it, think you could get updates from MS without having problems.

Jackie Outten
07-25-2003, 6:17 PM
Anyone bought a used computer from these computer supply places like Tiger Direct or Surplus Computers, the price looks good and some have OS installed, so how could they do that, you know they didn't buy a new OS and install it. It must have had it installed already when they got it, think you could get updates from MS without having problems.

Bobby,

I am not sure how they can get away with that. I know when we sell a computer we must put a licensed copy of the operating system on it and give the cd to the customer. I helped a woman recently who was sold a used machine with Windows ME on it. The person who sold it to her was a computer business and they did not give her a windows CD.(this gets to be a real problem if you have to format the hard drive--no cd to install OS). Anyway she contacted the man who sold it to her, he told her no way. I told her to call Microsoft and explain what happened. They contacted him and told him to make it right or they would go after him. In the end she got her CD.

Hope this helps.

Jackie Outten

Kevin Gerstenecker
07-25-2003, 9:58 PM
...........and Jackie and RJ are correct. You must use a seperate, licensed copy for each application. I guess Bill Gates deserves the extra money from his product................like he needs it! :D I wonder if Bill is a Woodworker? He could have ALL the coolest stuff! :)

Jason Roehl
07-25-2003, 10:22 PM
...........and Jackie and RJ are correct. You must use a seperate, licensed copy for each application. I guess Bill Gates deserves the extra money from his product................like he needs it! :D I wonder if Bill is a Woodworker? He could have ALL the coolest stuff! :)

He could...but then he might start thinking up "improvements" for woodworking tools. We'd possibly have a whole slew of sawstop-esque features...................... :rolleyes:

Jim Becker
07-25-2003, 11:15 PM
What is required to install this OS in 2 home computers. Do I need special permission from Microsoft or will I need to pay more?

Each license of XP you purchase can only be installed on one machine...and you can't even reinstall it on a "new" machine (and sometimes after changing a major component) without re-authenticating it. XP will stop working in 30 days if you don't authenticate it with Microsoft. This is in addition to entering the unique installation key during the load onto your machine.

So the answer to your question is...you need to pay more. Double, actually.

BTW, be sure you check that your computers are capable of supporting XP before you buy it. It will not run well on older machines and really wants a minimum of 128mb of RAM and a Pentium III processor to be "happy".