Would you have a cite to show my error?
Wrong. Its perfectly legal to replace the motherboard in a system
when it fails and replace it with a completely different motherboard,
and restore the image to that system with the replacement motherboard.
It is certainly *legal* (under "Fair Use Doctrine" in the USA) however
software licenses fall into contract law where terms more onerous
than called for in the copyright laws may be applied and enforced.
The MS End User License Agreement for Windows XP and Vista give MS broad
discretion as to re-activations.
AND all MS OSs since XP have had a repair install that
handles that significant change to the hardware fine.
So you can do a "preservation" install which re-inventories the hardware
and installs the correct low-level drivers. Great! You could do that 10
years ago on RS/6000s with IBM AIX
.
Also keep in mind if you buy a Big Computer Company "SOHO" computer
(HPaq, Dell, Gateway, Lenovo etc) you don't get a "Windows" disk;
you get either a "restore" disk with an image of the factory load
on it or a restore partition (Host Protected Area of HDD).
In that case if you make any big changes from the system as shipped
you'll need another copy of Windows to intall/repair it with especially if
the restore routine starts off with a BIOS check (Dell for ex.) and
you replaced the motherboard with a different mfrs.
I've seen reports of system restores failing on H-Ps because a video card
had been installed and HP's version of the EULA asserted the restore
required a system hardware config "as shipped".
There was a previous different approach to that
problem that was officially supported by MS too.
Details please!
Completely wrong and the law says nothing like that anyway.
Once again, the MS EULA is in effect a (mostly 1-sided) contract between
MS and whoever is the final purchaser of the PC on which an OEM copy of
Windows is installed on.
And since you can reactivate it, you claim that MS doesnt allow that
is just plain wrong.
I have seen anecdotes to the effect that MS has refused activation after
major hardware changes such as a different motherboard; MS policy may
differ by countries, that is countries where there are more pirated copies
than legal copies, they may be more hardasses about enforcing what they
claim are their rights.
No they dont. You may well have to ring up MS if it cant be reactivated
using the automatic system but that is ALL you ever have to do and you
will get the new activation as long as you havent done that too often
in the recent past with that particular system, and even then, ALL you
have to do is convince MS that you have had a problem with a series
of different motherboards actually working for very long to get the new
activation code etc. You NEVER have to buy a new license legally.
Microsoft may well be over-reaching here - but if someone has a system
they need up and running what are they going to do - file a Consumer
Protection action ... or just sigh and give M$ their blood money (or go
out and buy a new PC)?
As M$ contines to segment the Windows product line into more and more
"packings" watch the EULA become more and more restrictive especially for
the lower end offerings (such as no RAID or SCSI, restrictions on total
system storage capacity etc etc).