Vista OEM Is Non Transferable

I was looking at Vista pricing at New Egg. The OEM version is $119 while the retail is $153 at SamsClub. One of the Reviews on New Egg mentioned the OEM limitation, so I googled it. This is what I found.

In November, Microsoft revised the retail license terms for Vista so that customers may uninstall the operating system from one machine and install it on another as many times as they want.

OEM versions of Windows are tied to the original computer it was installed on. Microsoft does not allow users to transfer OEM copies from one computer to another, even if the original one crashes and dies.

http://www.computerworld.hu/hirek_hir.php?id=43248

I know it will probably be a while before most of us upgrade, but I wanted to make sure everyone was aware of this limitation. I've heard that hardware crashes could be as simple as the hard drive or mobo. I don't know if it's that bad, but it's not worth taking the chance.

I guess one nice thing about my job is I have a subscription to MSDN. We get most Microsoft products covered in it.

We also sometimes get site licenses from the University as well. Faculty/Staff/Students also get some products for a small fee.

Vista is going to be a real pain in my ass though. Just manually upgrading my labs with 30 machines will not be fun. I am not even worrying about the other 70+ staff and faculty computers just yet.

I am still not sure what software will run or not. Oh man...... I am so sick of this 🙂

Paladin wrote:
I guess one nice thing about my job is I have a subscription to MSDN. We get most Microsoft products covered in it.

We also sometimes get site licenses from the University as well. Faculty/Staff/Students also get some products for a small fee.

Vista is going to be a real pain in my ass though. Just manually upgrading my labs with 30 machines will not be fun. I am not even worrying about the other 70+ staff and faculty computers just yet.

I am still not sure what software will run or not. Oh man...... I am so sick of this 🙂

That is where Ghost and having all the same machine in your labs comes in. Also helps when one of the machines gets arsed up, just ghost it. I used to be able to do all my labs in a matter of minutes.

And the stupidity continues.

"Ars Technica is reporting that upgrade versions of Windows Vista Home Basic, Premium, and Starter Edition cannot be installed on a PC unless Windows XP or Windows 2000 is already installed. This is a change from previous versions of Windows, which only required a valid license key. This change has the potential to make disaster recovery very tedious. The article says: 'For its part, Microsoft seems to be confident that the Vista repair process should be sufficient to solve any problems with the OS, since otherwise the only option for disaster recovery in the absence of backups would be to wipe a machine, install XP, and then upgrade to Vista. This will certainly make disaster recovery a more irritating experience.'"

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070128-8717.html

So, not only will you need to make sure you buy the retail version, now you must take a long hard look at the full version over the upgrade version due to the amount of time it will take to apply the upgrade. Oh man.... Could they make this any more freaking complicated? When are these companies going to learn that the average joe doesn't do complicated.

Found this the other day.

MaximumPC wrote:By Will Smith, MaximumPC

1. Vista Requires a Fairly Powerful Machine

This probably won’t be a problem for most MaximumPC readers, but many folks who don’t play games will find their machines challenged by Vista’s system requirements. That Dell laptop Aunt Edna bought for $500 last year is going to struggle with this OS. While a simple RAM upgrade will probably get the machine running, it almost certainly won’t be sufficient to enable Vista’s bells and whistles.

For once, Microsoft’s published minimum requirements for a new OS are reasonably accurate. The recommended system has a 1GHz or faster CPU with 1GB of RAM and a 128MB Pixel Shader 2.0-compliant graphics card, which is a fairly realistic minimum spec to get a decent experience with Vista. At MaximumPC, we aren’t going to bother installing Vista on anything slower than 2GHz; we’d rather have a fast XP install than a slow Vista machine. In short, if your machine isn’t up to snuff, take the next couple of months to get it there before installing the new OS.

2. Application Incompatibilities

Even as we speak, there are literally dozens of applications that don’t work properly with Vista. And we’re not talking about garage-developed apps but high-profile programs such as iTunes, disc-burning apps, and pretty much anything that has to do with DVD ripping or viewing. And virtually any Java-based app that bundles the Java runtime automatically kicks the desktop back to Vista’s Basic mode, obviating the performance benefits you get from running Aero.

3. Vista is Crazy Expensive

Vista is the most expensive consumer operating system we’ve ever seen. Let’s take a look at the pricing. Home Basic, which doesn’t include the fancy Aero Glass interface, costs a whopping $200 for a full version. Home Premium costs $40 more, and Ultimate costs an astounding $400. Why spend that much today on a less-polished product when you can wait a few months and have a much better experience for the same money?

The good news is that Ultimate has a bunch of features that the majority of power users won’t need; the Premium version should include everything most people will require for home use – at least if you don’t run Group Policies on your home domain.

Naturally, in Home Basic and Home Premium, there are plenty of ads for Windows Anytime Upgrade, which will let you upgrade your “inferior” version of Windows to the obscenely overpriced (and unnecessary) Ultimate version.

4. No Hardware Audio

During development, Microsoft removed a couple of crucial gaming-audio-related features from Vista, including DirectSound 3D (hundreds of games use DS3D to deliver positional 5.2 audio) and support for hardware-accelerated 3D sound. This isn’t a problem for new games going forward, as most developers have embraced the alternative OpenAL technology, which will continue to work with Vista. It is, however, a problem for legacy DS3D games, such as Call of Duty 2 and Max Payne. When you run a DirectSound 3D game on Vista, it won’t give you the option to enable 3D sound or features that require hardware acceleration, such as EAX.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy solution. Creative will release its Alchemy application, a workaround to a problem that shouldn’t exist in the first place. Alchemy is basically a wrapper program – it intercepts DirectSound 3D functions and converts them to OpenAL functions using a custom DLL. Alchemy works OK, but we’d much rather have a less-kludgy solution from Microsoft. Hopefully, they’ll hear our cries and include hardware support with Vista’s first service pack.

5. Vista Doesn’t Work with a Lot of Bleeding-Edge Hardware

The BIOS on the laptop you bought in March doesn’t work with Vista. Nor does your high-end USB microphone. And you can kiss that joystick-port-based Thrustmaster flight stick goodbye, too. With any new operating system, it’s safe to assume there are going to be some compatibility problems. However, we experience more issues with our hardware just plain not working during the Vista run-up than we did with any Microsoft OS since Windows 2000.

The lesson here? Make sure your hardware is actually compatible with Vista before you purchase it. You can check by using the Vista Upgrade Advisor WindowsVistaUpgradeAdvisor.

6. Vista Doesn’t Work Well with Some Games

We’ve already talked about the excision of 3D sound from the operating system, but there’s a larger problem. It turns out that many online games that use PunkBuster to limit cheating require Administrator access in order to work properly. The problem is that neither the game, nor PunkBuster, nor Vista actually tells you that. You just get kicked from the server every time you try to join a game. The solution is relatively simple: All you have to do is set the offending game to always run as Administrator in its Properties window, but the entire process needs to be more user –friendly. Please get to work on this, Microsoft.

7. Vista Includes Consumer-Unfriendly DRM

On the DRM front, we’re pretty much convinced that Microsoft hasn’t actually integrated anything more insidious than Windows Media Player 11 into Vista, at least not for current standard-definition content. (Blu-ray and HD-DVD content are protected in a similar manner as on XP and will require a full HDCP path for hi-def playback.) But the fundamental underpinnings to completely lock down the video-rendering pipeline to prevent ripping of next-gen content are present in the OS.

That’s not the least of it. Because of content-protection concerns, Vista won’t support CableCard for the vast majority of users. CableCard, in theory, allows users to access high-def content from their cable or satellite providers, without being tied to the device supplied by the TV provider. The thought was that CableCard would let you view HDTV on your PC without resorting to and over-the-air signal. Unfortunately, for CableCard’s protected video path to work, your machine must be certified, and only large OEM manufacturers like Dell and HP will be eligible for certification. Pretty awesome, right?

The fundamental problem is that for certain key low-level operations, such as video rendering, Vista has been designed to give third parties – the content providers – veto rights over crucial aspects of your system. Do you trust a company like Sony, which infected millions of PCs with a malicious rootkit, with low-level access to your rig?

8. Poor Driver Support

The big vendors like ATI and Nvidia should have drivers ready for Vista’s launch (although there weren’t any GeForce 8800 drivers at the corporate launch on November 30), but expect really big problems to arise with all that other hardware attached to your system. It’s going to be tough to find drivers for older hardware, and we’ve even encountered problems getting drivers for brand-new gear. Sure, your mouse and keyboard will work, but will you have access to the cool sensitivity-changing and macro software that goes with it? Even if your hardware is supported, are the drivers fully baked?

If the Vista launch follows the timeline of past Windows launches, drivers will be scarce for the first few months while vendors slowly certify their products to run on the new OS.

9. Vista is Kind of Annoying

User Account Control is part of Microsoft’s fix to prevent malware applications from taking advantage of Administrator privileges on infected PCs to install more malware. Every time an installer runs on your Vista PC, a prompt will ask for your permission to install the software in question. That’s a great idea, but we think the implementation is pretty poor.

The problem is the frequency of prompts. They come up so often that people will quickly learn to auto-click them, thus risking malware infections. Even worse, instead of forcing you to take any action that would require thought, the prompts don’t even ask you to reenter your password (by default); all you have to do is click a button and the app will install itself. UAC is the PC equivalent of taking your shoes off in the airport security line. It makes you feel as though something’s being done to protect you, but ultimately it doesn’t do much to improve security. This isn’t likely to change, but it should.

10. You Can Wait

You should be asking yourself if you need Vista today. The only people who should answer yes are the folks who already have a DirectX 10 videocard and are anxiously awaiting their Crysis preorders. For everyone else, it certainly won’t hurt to wait for the bugs to be worked out, the drivers to be released, and your machine to be in optimum condition to handle the new OS. Indeed, it can only help.

Bubbaspanky wrote:
That is where Ghost and having all the same machine in your labs comes in. Also helps when one of the machines gets arsed up, just ghost it. I used to be able to do all my labs in a matter of minutes.

Yes I have been using GHOST for many years now. I freaking LOVE that program, it has saved my ass more than once. 😉
I am still old school, preferring the DOS ghost 2003 program. They just stopped making that now. Pisses me off it was the most reliable backup out there. I now have been using Ghost 9/10 more and more, which works, but I am unsure its reliability since it back up while the OS is running. I still use Ghost 2003 DOS for my servers and for my personal computers once in awhile even if I use Ghost 9/10.

I use ghost now by pulling one of the computers that is running and ghost that to another that is having a problem etc... I then use a program called SID changer to set a new SID that is needed for NT based computers registry. I know you can ghost from a server and change the SID that way but I never got around to doing it that way. 😉

Problem is this has limitations. I have two labs, each has different hardware. Even with two images and ghosting it I have a lot of manual set up to do afterward. Logging on as the new user etc..
Set permissions, move icons, run each program and let it do its default startup crap.... I have not found a way around that stuff. Every time I log on as a new user a lot of the software HAS to do that.

Vista actually has some really cool tools for this from what little I read. It supposedly has different layers so you can image the software part and save this image. You then install the OS on whatever hardware then suck in the software side. This will be nice if it works.

They tout DX10 as the be all, end all in gaming, then they drop D3D Hardware Audio? So EAX no longer works? Ummm, WTGDFS?

Wow..... Just wow......

Please, for the love of all things good, release Mac OSX for white label boxes...... 🙁

Vista is kind of a win win or lose lose at this point. No compromising. For instance, I've been running Vista on my work PC (Dell Optiplex GX620) since it was in Alpha form with no issues whatsoever. Period. No driver issues, or performance issues. Matter of fact, it runs better than XP on this system. Then there is the home PC. Granted i have some issue with it locking up with BF games but, Vista does not like it at all. I've installed Alpha, Beta's, releases and the final one that hits shelves tomorrow. On all versions, it will not properly pick up my PCI-E bus. Because of this I cannot install my video drivers. Asus also hasn't ever updated drivers for my mobo i think "ever". We'll see if they finally do in a couple weeks.

This is the time for a Linux Distro or even Apple to step up and provide a true alternative. If some other OS could run all my games and apps well, I'd move in that direction for sure and abandon MS.

As it stands right now, XP has worked very well for me so I have no intention of upgrading until absolutely necessary.

I am going to second Sarge on that one. When it becomes nescessary for me to upgrade, which I don't see happening anytime soon, I will look around before biting the bullet.

Sarge wrote:
This is the time for a Linux Distro or even Apple to step up and provide a true alternative. If some other OS could run all my games and apps well, I'd move in that direction for sure and abandon MS.

As it stands right now, XP has worked very well for me so I have no intention of upgrading until absolutely necessary.

Apple is a joke when it comes to this. I like Apple and some of the things they have done. Utilizing Unix based code in the OS was cool. Too bad the front interface still is a "one mouse menu's always at the top ugly piece of crap" 🙂

Seriously Apple is very greedy. They will only allow stuff to run on their hardware which you have to buy from them. They are control freaks. Good for them money and control wise, bad for them user wise. I understand that because of the limited hardware that this is why MAC users say they have less problems and crashes, though I rarely crash in XP and Vista is supposed to be even better.

If they would ever allow 3rd party competition and come out with a version I can put on my PC hardware "maybe" I would consider it. I love building my own systems and would never buy an Apple desktop that is basically non upgradeable. Laptops are fine as you "usually" do not game on them and if the software is there for what you want then that is cool. They are not as upgradeable anyway.

With that said I will say that Apple does a lot of thing right though. Including a bunch of software right out of the box as they do is very cool.

Linux is a much better option but they cannot get their s&^t together either. There are way too many distros each with their own drivers and ways of doing things. Also there is a lack of 3rd party hardware support for a whole bunch of devices.

I won't be upgrading at home for awhile or at least until I am sure all my stuff will work with Vista, games especially. Besides I am lazy 😉

MS is a total pain in the ass at times, no doubt but it is where the market is and that simply will not change overnight if ever.

Update.... I Just read that if you use your XP install to load an upgrade only version of Vista, it will turn the XP key off. So, if you ever wanted to go back, tough nugget. If you wanted to put it on an old system, tough nugget.

Wow.....

Atomm wrote:
Update.... I Just read that if you use your XP install to load an upgrade only version of Vista, it will turn the XP key off. So, if you ever wanted to go back, tough nugget. If you wanted to put it on an old system, tough nugget.

Wow.....

WOW. Couple all this stuff we're hearing with the possible release of another OS in 2 years, I'm thinking I might just give Vista a pass entirely. I'm fairly happy with XP, at least until programs come along that I need that are Vista-only.

I'm not upgrading anytime soon, anyway. Why would I?

Exactly. I have seen lots of very compelling reasons to not upgrade (if you can call it that) and very few saying that I should.

I just read that someone has been able to build a VB compiler in Linux which puts them one step closer to being able to run stuff that is now Windows only. It's not the holy grail, but it is a step in the right direction.

To be honest, I'd dual boot Linux and XP before going to Vista. If I ever get another Laptop, then it's going to be a MacBook dual to XP.

Atomm wrote:
To be honest, I'd dual boot Linux and XP before going to Vista. If I ever get another Laptop, then it's going to be a MacBook dual to XP.

I have like the apple laptops much better for years... but I will tell you the apple hardware was way too much money and in the past few years they started really cutting back on the quality. I just couldn't justify it.