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COA Licenses

Question someone asked me today.. didnt know the real answer:

They have an old Packard Bell pc that they are going to scrap, however with it they have an XP cd and the old machine has an XP COA label on it marked Packard Bell.

Would it not be legal for them to remove from the scrapped pc and use for their new pc they built ?

I had heard somewhere that some EU law says you can do this as the COA/license is yours and that if you are transferring it then that is legal.

However somewhere else i have read that MS say under no circumstances can you transfer any license between machines.

If anyone knows the true law on this and any links that would be good so i can fwd on.
 
microsoft would say that because they want you to buy new licences.. when its totally fine to move it to another system.
 
I doubt anybody would start threatening legal action over one copy of XP; however some licenses can be physically bound to particular hardware and are designed to limit upgrades upon reactivation. That is more likely to be an issue but XP's licensing is comparatively flexible versus the modern Vista one.
 
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/08/selling_oem_windows_copies_you/

The first sale in the Community of a copy of a program by the rightholder or with his consent shall exhaust the distribution right within the Community of that copy, with the exception of the right to control further rental of the program or a copy thereof. (Article 4 (c))

In English, this means that once Microsoft has sold a copy of Windows anywhere in the European Union (actually the European Economic Area, but let's not quibble over another country or three), it has no control over how that copy is subsequently distributed (with an exception only for rental).
 
woudn`t be able to use it anyway , i tried for days with my sons pc, he`s got a packard bell pc and i wanted to to get all the crap off the hard drive and do a clean install, so i used my xp disc and his coa but couldn`t get into windows beacause of admin passwords, the passwords are preconfigured on the hard drive you wipe it or get another hard drive you won`t be able to use a coa from a packard bell machine, gave up and bought him a copy of vista
 
Your best bet is to get a copy of XP home from a friend, and try installing it using the product code you got with the packard bell.

Its hit and miss if it works or not.

Although its technically legal, if it doesnt work I imagine you would have a very hard time getting another product key from microsoft. This could be a problem, as if they dont have the original disks that came with it, or, they do and they dont work (for packard bells only) then good luck :shrug:
 
What you should have done is use a "normal" XP disk on the formatted disk and then used the Packard Bell license key.
AFAIK this should work, I have done this on an Evesham machine that the owner totally trashed, (using Warez and not updating his AV or anti spyware.), (Tw@t).
 
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i did use a normal xp disc(my own) it would install windows but woudn`t let me log on just kept coming up with admin password, never. never again will i buy packard bell, i even loaded windows with my key and changed the key to my sons in windows and successfully activated it, then when i rebooted it i coudn`t get back in again it wanted the admin password again,arrgh
 
Hi,
Under normal circumstances a Pre -Installed XP os on a pc, is confined to the smae model of pc. This is particularly done with the major players so XP may not Install on another pc.
Whilst not documented very well, the Administrator Password for XP is left blank in most cases (therefore pressing returm/enter should work). Good info for those who have to logon when wanting to use "Safe Mode" fro recovery purposes.

Ian
 
I believe the bigger companies have a block of data in the bios that identifies them as the OEM. I saw something about some early Vista hacks that run a virtual bios or modifies the data in the original bios to make it appear that the motherboard is made by the OEM.
 
Did you do a low level format of the hard disk first ? I usually delete / create the partition and then a full format when I try to re-install winXP on anything.
If you STILL get a password challenge after that; there is something in the PB bios or a hidden partition.
 
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So lets look at this another way..

Say you had a pc that was scrapped because it died.
You remove the COA from the machine as the machine will never be used again.
You build a new machine and put that COA on it.
You now sell the pc with XP installed on it and only give the customer the system pre-installed, i.e no CD is given to them.

Is that legal ?

I have been told that Microsoft have threatened to take people to court for selling a PC that has another branded COA on it (i.e the COA was from another make of pc like Acer say). They also will try to claim money because you have infringed their rights or something.

Seems odd to me since if you have a COA its yours and as long as its on ONE pc at anytime it should not matter if it was the original. Imagine you purchased a MS office, sold your pc and uninstalled then installed on the new pc, they wouldnt say anything.

The question is what is legal, and what is MS "trying" to make you think is the law.

I dont believe in copy software, but if i had a COA i would consider that to be licensed to me to use on any ONE pc feel.
 
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