Re:Windows 8 gets Personal Use License for anyone building t...
by talmand on Tuesday August 21, 2012 @02:37PM
(#4414063)
I think most of the time "new computer" means new motherboard. Which, if you change the motherboard for any reason then it'll likely end up in a call to Microsoft. The last time I had to do that it was a fairly painless procedure other than having to write down numbers and letters from a recorded voice.
Re:Windows 8 gets Personal Use License for anyone building t...
by rogerbinns on Tuesday August 21, 2012 @02:46PM
(#4414110)
Every time I have had to call up Microsoft I have gone through the automated process and it is pain since the voice recognition doesn't work. Then at the end it dumps me to a human operator where I have to answer questions (largely accusing me of being a thief), read out all the damn numbers again, and then eventually get a set to type in.
This is especially a problem if you end up with a faulty motherboard or similar, and so can end up doing several (re)installs trying to work out what the heck is going on. Thankfully it has been a while since I last encountered a faulty board.
The last time I paid for Windows (outside of being forced to pay for it when getting a laptop) I got the "family" pack of Windows 7 which was 3 licenses so I was able to upgrade a laptop, workstation and a virtual machine. (Of course it was also considerable effort to install because Windows 7 can't upgrade XP and Microsoft installers assume that you are a thief.) I also only started doing the upgrade because I needed to produce 64 bit Windows binaries for my open source software (I'm a Linux user). Microsoft are going to have to try a lot harder to convince me to spend money and the considerable amount of time to touch Windows 8.