Windows Volume licensing

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McFry

[H]ard|Gawd
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The company I work for orders all new PC's from Dell, and as such they all come shipped with a pre-installed OEM version of Windows 7 Pro. Naturally we wipe these systems and use a disc image built from our Win 7 enterprise edition with a volume license key. I asked why are we paying the $22 or whatever it is to have Win 7 come pre-installed when we are just wiping it out anyway and installing an even better version. They said they have to, because their VLK comes with the stipulation that we are simply "upgrading" our pc's from Win 7 pro to Win 7 Enterprise. Basically they're acting like we just have an "upgrade purchase" edition of Win 7 and not the "full version" so to speak. This doesnt make any sense to me, especially since our Win 7 disc allows us to perform scratch installs without requesting a pre-existing installation of Win 7 or any media source, which is what usually happens when you only have "upgrade" editions of Windows and not the full version.

Thoughts?
 
MS licensing is a cluster f.... If they had a licensing expert tell them this, don't even worry about it. If they did not, consult an MS licensing specialist to confirm. My guess is what they told you was correct, and it's probably due to the type of VLK they purchased.
 
Windows 7 Enterprise is only sold as an upgrade to Windows XP/7 Professional or Vista Business. You cannot buy ()or build) a PC with no OEM license, then legally install Windows 7 Enterprise.

Now, do they need Enterprise over Professional? I don't know, that's another question. However, if you are buying Windows 7 Professional PC's, you can buy one license of Windows 7 Professional volume and gain "Re-imaging rights", which means you can create a single image for all of your new Windows 7 Professional computers. Legally, you cannot use an OEM disc of Windows 7, create an image, then deploy that image (even to computers it's licensed to go on). You have to buy the one copy of volume pro to gain re-imaging rights.

You have 3 options - Pay the money for Enterprise upgrades, buy 1 copy of Pro vlk and use re-imaging rights to reimage all your computers that came with Pro, or just use the default OEM image and install your software separately on each PC.
 
Ok well I guess it all adds up then. Yeah are doing everything legally, just didnt know Win7Ent was sold as an upgrade only option, and that you have to actually purchase all your builds with one OEM copy of Win7Pro to legally be able to use your Win7Ent VLK.
 
McFry said:
Ok well I guess it all adds up then. Yeah are doing everything legally, just didnt know Win7Ent was sold as an upgrade only option, and that you have to actually purchase all your builds with one OEM copy of Win7Pro to legally be able to use your Win7Ent VLK.
Click to expand...
You buy one copy of Pro VLK to gain re-imaging rights to distribute a Pro image to all PC's. You pay for Enterprise upgrades for each PC separately.

Microsoft also offers software assurance subscription services which allows you to gain access to Enterprise license for all Pro level licensed PC's.
 
MS licensing is challenging enough, but then when you try to understand their VDA and OS Virtualization licensing it all goes out the window.
 
It depends on the type of licensing. There are options that will allow you to do install on windows-less PCs, but also license that requires the pc to have windows pre-installed.
 
When I tried to install Enterprise on a laptop that didn't even have the right BIOS markers for OEM, it wouldn't even install.
 
At our organization we have a site wide license for Win7 Enterprise. When we bulk order Dells, they come pre-loaded with Win7 Pro by default then we re-image them to Win7 Ent.

We did get one batch sent with Ubuntu somehow (somebody didn't order them right), and we had no problems installing Windows Enterprise on those machines.

Now, I cannot speak for the actual legality of doing so. If I speak to 5 different people, I'll get 5 different opinions on how our Microsoft contract is supposed to be used. Some people will say upgrades only, others will say unlimited installs.
 
It might very well be that the machines came with Ubuntu but still carried the MS BIOS signature. Who knows how MS is influencing vendors. They could sell you an Ubuntu machine but still pay to MS for a license noone actually uses because differentiating between MS and non-MS machines is more hassle than just imaging a Windows OEM machine with Ubuntu.

It would be interesting to see an ACPI table dump of such an Ubuntu machine, although this would be a scandal actually noone cares about anymore. Microsoft is rightfully going down.
 
They are not going to ship Ubuntu PC's with their own motherboard, so I'm almost positive the Ubuntu machines could run a Dell Windows image. Installing Enterprise on them is not legal. Enterprise is "upgrade" only. If the machine doesn't have a Pro COA it's not a legal target for Enterprise. If that were the case, companies could order all of their PC's without OSes. That is not the intention of Enterprise nor would Microsoft ever allow that.

Rather than "talking to people" that probably don't know, why not just contact Microsoft and ask them if you need proof.
 
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