Legalities of selling new PC with 'upgrade' Vista license?

kent

kent

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I purchased MCE 2005 during a period of time where you could prove your purchase and receive a free upgrade to Windows Vista Premium.

I've never installed it except for a test of the double-install "clean" install method.

I'm NEVER going to use it and I've just built a spare computer out of free/cheap-after-rebate parts.

What are the legalities of selling a PC with the a copy of Vista upgrade? It doesn't say not for sale, or not for transfer or anything of the ilk. Would throwing in a Windows 95 COA do anything for me? :D
 
kent said:
I purchased MCE 2005 during a period of time where you could prove your purchase and receive a free upgrade to Windows Vista Premium.

I've never installed it except for a test of the double-install "clean" install method.

I'm NEVER going to use it and I've just built a spare computer out of free/cheap-after-rebate parts.

What are the legalities of selling a PC with the a copy of Vista upgrade? It doesn't say not for sale, or not for transfer or anything of the ilk. Would throwing in a Windows 95 COA do anything for me? :D
Click to expand...

ha ha.. install it.. sell it.. then ring up MS and see if your in the right.. :p:D:p:D. meh i dont think it really matters.. do you know how many people sell OEM Windows and Office etc without it coming with a new PC or qualifying hardware...

IMHO Microsoft get enough cash of us all... and ANY licence at all is better than NO licence.. but i doubt MS lawyers think the same... but the odds of getting caught as an obviously small-time backyard computer seller is quite minimal, I mean MS let you update on windows update with a non-legit copy of Vista SP1 ... so i think "Upgrade" keys are the least of their worries.
 
It would probably be legal if you sold the XP MCE license with it.

Selling an upgrade copy without the license it was supposed to upgrade? That's hard to defend.
 
A Vista upgrade essentially "consumes" the old MCE license, so as long as the copy of MCE is never used then I doubt it would be considered a problem.
 
Well, The Vista Upgrade does not check if you had MCE installed, nor does it ask for the MCE serial.

Point being, I'm using MCE and couldn't be happier (LOL)

As long as I gave a COA to some Microsoft OS, I'm feeling I'm in the legal -- as the two COA numbers (my MCE and soon-to-be-someone's Vista Premium are NOT tied together)

In other words, one doesn't stop working when the other is installed.

You have a good point, though.

I'm just going to sell it and not worry about it.
 
Microsoft stated they wouldn't do anything about the double Upgrade clean install.

How else are people who buy Upgrade copies truly suppose to get a clean install free of XPness.
 
legally.. probably not..

what i ended up doing was just vampiring an old Win2k license off a laptop (it had XP on it anyways)..


the other way you could go is just sell the upgrade with the PC (not installed) and leave it up to the buyer..
 
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