Just bought XPS M1530 - XP or Vista?? - Page 2

It sounds like your talking about XP's online licensing validation, not anything particular to OEM discs. There's no way that Dell burns unique installation discs based on the hardware config of each system they ship. These discs are mass produced by the thousands. So it might be possible for them to restrict the OEM discs to their particular brand of computer (or even a specific model), but not to individual HW configs. The authentication you're talking about is a Windows XP thing, not an OEM thing. Now, having said that, I've never actually had a problem with the authentication. I'll be curious to see how it goes. If I don't have an Internet connection on my laptop, there's no way to authenticate, and an Internet connection is not a requirement for XP But even if I have to revalidate, it shouldn't be a problem because I won't be installing on multiple systems - just a different system.

I don't doubt that you believe this, but it absolutely cannot be. The problem here is that there's no way to define "the one machine" that software must stay on. For example, what if I went out and bought a new hard drive for my laptop? Surely I don't have to buy a new copy of Windows. What if I also bought a new graphics card? There is still no way that the license could possibly prevent you from reinstalling (I know it might detect the change and make you call the number, but my point is that there's no legal justification for Microsoft refusing to reactivate your license based solely on you changing hardware). And what if the motherboard died and I had that replaced too? And replaced my CD drive with a Blue Ray drive? You see where this is going. How do you draw the line between upgrading your current machine and buying a new one? Although I personally think the online licensing validation is a huge hassle, I have to admit that it is legally justifiable SOLELY to prevent reinstalling one copy of Windows on multiple machines. However, there is absolutely no legal justification for Microsoft selling software with the condition that it cannot be installed on updated HW configurations, as long as each copy is only installed on one machine at a time.

It might also be legally justifiable for an OEM license to restrict use to the particular brand (or possible specific model) of computer that you got the OEM software with. I guess the legal theory here would be that you're (presumably) paying some sort of discount relative to the retail price in exchange for buying it bundled with the computer. But for various reasons, I think such a contractual restriction could face legal challenges. For one thing, users who pay for OEM software (and we all do - Dell isn't giving it away, the cost is included in the total price) have absolutely no choice - it is forced upon us. So from an anti-trust and fair trade practice perspective, it is hard to justify how this is permissible unless you assume that the user can recoup the cost by selling the software or using it on a different machine. But this argument aside, it is a rather large step further for an OEM license to say that the software becomes utterly useless if you upgrade your hardware (which, as I've already explained, is practically indistinguishable from buying a whole new system).

Exactly. That's my point. There is no difference between transferring "to a new system" and reinstalling on a "upgraded system" because there's no way to distinguish between the two. So even if a licensing agreement is worded such a fashion, it is completely unenforceable.

Appreciate the Workstation 2008 hint. I've been out of the game for about 3 years, and I had not even heard of it (I've been in law school, after several years as a computer engineer). I'm going to look into that!