I am trying to solve a bit of a debate I've been having with some co-workers about a problem that came up the other day. 95% of our business is other business and longterm repeat customers so this was a bit of a gray area among us as its been uncommon so far, being residential and all...
Anyway, lets say you have a laptop from a major manufacturer. It did not come with an OS disk, or a restore disk and instead has a hidden 'restore' partition (not uncommon these days). It had XP Home, and the key is still on the bottom of the laptop. The hard drive has crashed, and is unable to restore or create restore disks. The manufacturer has discontinued making and selling copies of said restore disk.
Is it legal to use an XP Home OEM disk we have lying around here and their key. On a personal level I have no problem with it. Their OS, their key, their computer.. but As a tech I followed our company policy which basically is to only use that which is provided by with the computer, the customer, or the manufacturer and didnt go this route.
I've been looking under terms of agreement and liscensing rules for a bit now and I cant really see anything clear on this. Yes the computer came with the OS but can the manufacturer not have some sort of special liscensing agreement with microsoft to basically say that you have to use their install?
And, if none of this were possible would the only route be to buy a new OS?
For the record, after several slow failed tries, it was saved by the trusty freezer-trick. we were able to get a restore disk made before it died again. but we were left talking about whether it was technically legal to do the OEM install.
long winded, i know. sorry
Anyway, lets say you have a laptop from a major manufacturer. It did not come with an OS disk, or a restore disk and instead has a hidden 'restore' partition (not uncommon these days). It had XP Home, and the key is still on the bottom of the laptop. The hard drive has crashed, and is unable to restore or create restore disks. The manufacturer has discontinued making and selling copies of said restore disk.
Is it legal to use an XP Home OEM disk we have lying around here and their key. On a personal level I have no problem with it. Their OS, their key, their computer.. but As a tech I followed our company policy which basically is to only use that which is provided by with the computer, the customer, or the manufacturer and didnt go this route.
I've been looking under terms of agreement and liscensing rules for a bit now and I cant really see anything clear on this. Yes the computer came with the OS but can the manufacturer not have some sort of special liscensing agreement with microsoft to basically say that you have to use their install?
And, if none of this were possible would the only route be to buy a new OS?
For the record, after several slow failed tries, it was saved by the trusty freezer-trick. we were able to get a restore disk made before it died again. but we were left talking about whether it was technically legal to do the OEM install.
long winded, i know. sorry