Slashdot Mirror
Vista Licenses Limit OS Transfers, Ban VM Use
NiK0laI writes "TechWeb has posted an article regarding Vista's new license and how it allows you to only move it to another device once. How will this work for people who build their PCs? I have no intention of purchasing a new license every time I swap out motherboards. 'The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes the "licensed device," reads the license for Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, and Business. In other words, once a retail copy of Vista is installed on a PC, it can be moved to another system only once. ... Elsewhere in the license, Microsoft forbids users from installing Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium in a virtual machine. "You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system," the legal language reads. Vista Ultimate and Vista Business, however, can be installed within a VM.'"
Overly Critical Guy points out more information about changes to Vista's EULA and the new usage restrictions. "For instance, Home Basic users can't copy ISOs to their hard drives, can't run in a virtualized environment, and can only share files and printers to a maximum of 5 network devices."
Now everyone knows we only have to bother with pirating Vista Ultimate and Vista Business.
For the end-user, this is nearly a non-issue.
For developers, like me, it's going to be a matter of reading the fine print. I'm certain that there's a licensing mechanism for me to use HOME in VMWare/Virtual PC for a development environment -- it might require a unique license, or it might be as simple as me having an MSDN subscription.
The "oh n0z, no vm for teh home!" panic is a bit premature.
Seriously, WTF is this ? I can't move my liscenses to a different computer more than once ? And these restrictions on the network usage. "For instance, Home Basic users can't copy ISOs to their hard drives, can't run in a virtualized environment, and can only share files and printers to a maximum of 5 network devices." --- Granted I wouldn't buy Home Basic anyway, but this sounds more like a limited trial version to me.
Using GNU/Linux -- Windows-free zone!
Impose artificial limits, period. I'm not talking about limits on CPU usage or memory for the sake of system stability, but arbitary business decision born limits. When something starts doing this, it ceases to be an operating system.
Note the difference though between not having a feature and restricting the computer.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
What happens when the motherboard fails (bad caps anyone?) and you must replace it with a "new device". What if that one pops too? Must buy Vista again? I think not. I'd see them in court first.
And what is a VM? Can the same guys who swore under oath that they didn't know what a browser is now define what a is VM?
I have mod pts. But this just had to be said.
Who will guard the guards?
So maybe I fell asleep in that lecture in Operating systems. But how the hell are they planning on enforcing the virtualization clause? I thought the point of virtualization was to make it so the operating system didn't know that it was being emulated.
Of course the fact that they decided to insert the clause is bad-- legally, Home-centric Vista users now won't be able to virtualize their machines.
#1 Stay with Windows XP
#2 Use ReactOS when it gets a 1.0 release.
#3 Sell my non-Linux compatible system for a Linux one and run Linux instead.
#4 That $599 Mac Mini is looking pretty good despite my previous Anti-Apple rants of the past decade. This Vista Fascism may be enough to get me to switch.
#5 Buy Vista Ultimate, because all of the games and business applications and other stuff I need/want to use only run with Vista, and I cannot work with limitations.
Sadly, I think most people will opt for #5, and that is what Microsoft is counting on. That is why Microsoft cripples the uses for the lower end Vistas to force people into buying the higher end Vistas.
Anyone remember the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST/TT/Mega systems? If only they decided to port AmigaDOS/AmigaOS and TOS/GEM to the Intel platform before Windows became really really popular in the 1990's. That way there would be no OS Fascism and Microsoft would have had a good run for their money.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Are we sure this is not the OEM terms ? It's been that way forever.
The network restrictions are not new. XP has them, although it may have higher limits. Transfer restrictions, however, bother me a lot. I believe this is the first time they've appeared in retail versions of Windows.
I said back in 2002 that I would never buy a PC again, and that my next computer would be a Mac. Microsoft is making it easier and easier for me to keep to that promise.
I mean, what is Vista about these days? First, they gutted out the Monad shell and WinFS, two features that would have possibly made me wait for Vista and get a PC instead of switching to a Mac. Secondly, they add new DRM restrictions that weren't present on Windows XP. Now, you can't even run the cheaper versions of Vista in a virtual machine due to licensing issues. As a Mac user, I don't feel like installing Windows natively with Boot Camp; I'd rather use a product like Parallels so that way I can run OS X and Windows simulataneously.
I'm not trolling. I'm not anti-Windows either; I've been a Windows user up until a few months ago and liked my Windows experience. In fact, typing this in my MacBook, I miss certain Windows software, and I was looking at Vista news to see whether or not installing Vista on my computer was worthwhile. But this is my last straw with Vista. How can a company sit on their butts for 5 years, not update their operating system (other than security upgrades), and rest on their laurels with the next major version of their operating system is beyond me. Windows XP is ancient compared to OS X's and Linux's fast adoptation of new technologies, new innovative features (Expose, Spotlight or Beagle), new development tools (look at Python's and Ruby's penetration in Linux), new internet browsers (Safari, Firefox, Konqueror), etc. Five years in computing is an eternity. And after five years, all we get is a half-baked clone of OS X with more licensing restrictions, more DRM, and a higher price tag (why should I spend $399 for full-featured Windows Vista Ultimate when I can get OS X for $129 [yes, I know that $129 is subsidized by Apple, you can't run OS X on a PC legally, blah blah blah, but $129
I was looking forward to Vista until recently. Now I wish Microsoft would delay it another year so that way they can release it with all of its promised features. They also need to cut the BS restrictions with licensing as well. It looks like MS has lost me as a customer. They will continue to lose me unless they port the Windows API to OpenBSD....
Take a look at the EULA for Microsoft Flight Simulator 9 if you own it. You can only transfer license to someone else once. Latest version called FSX is coming out with activation (which amusingly has already been cracked before official release - already been distributed and some stores have accidentally sold it) and there are rumours that multiuser play is going to require a subscription.
What's new is that Microsoft seems to have convinced themselves of their own propaganda and think people will pay again and again endlessly for the same thing ala a subscription model, put up with restrictions that make the software useless in their personal circumstances, and that they'll still increase their profits because most people only do a handful of things and if they can do them will keep paying for them repeatedly.
I suspect Microsoft's going to have to deal with a rude awakening from their DRM dream in the next few years. I'll be very surprised if this tactic works. It's very much the same thing you're seeing with music and movie distributors wanting to live some economic fantasy instead of deal with the reality that some people are theives and most people won't buy things that are totally useless to them or worse actually a time wasting pain in the neck to use. In the mean time we're all in for a rough ride.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
So, to get the same basic functionality that I currently have in XP Home, I have to spend $450 for full version of Windows Ultimate or the upgrade at $275, that's a cool $1000 for every PC that I have now that I paid $400 for XP. Forcing abusive pricing on people just so they can use Remote Desktop and rattle off ISO's I think will encourage piracy on a much larger scale than what is going on currently with XP.
I won't pirate the product, but I sure as hell won't buy it either.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
We all know what piracy really does is it devalues software (by increasing supply without increasing demand - nothing at all to do with physical stealing as they would have us believe).
So to stop piracy they're going to make their software less valuable (less functional) which kinda defeats the point of preventing the piracy. Now you'll lose sales because less people will want your software because to a lot more people it's a useless piece of shit. Yep that'll teach them pirates.
Love the new MS leadership. Quick Jim, lets press the self destruct button and lets get out of here before she implodes!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
For the end-user, this is nearly a non-issue.
What about gamers? People who change hardware more than underwear and mostly run Windows?
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
I just read through the entire EULA because I just couldn't believe they had included "Home Basic users can't copy ISOs to their hard drives". Turns out I was right. As far as I can tell there is no restriction to ISO's per-se, instead the original author was attempting to infer a lack of a right of some versions to store a copy of the software [meaning, a copy of the vista DVD] on "network storage" based on the fact that this right is permitted for Ultimate. However, just because they grant a right to some versions doesn't mean you don't have that right when it isn't explicitly granted - for instance even if they only enumerated the right to backup copies for Ultimate you'd still have that right for all others, existing law generally grants it.
The translation to "can't copy [any] iso's" happened in the last step, by the comment submitter, and is as far s I can tell just a complete fabrication.
Some part of me wonders why a website full of people who swear to their grave that they'll never run a piece of software is so intent on discrediting it that they make up shit. Carry on though boys, have fun.
I would be courting game developers, big time.
Free tools, lots of give aways, maybe buy a game company.
Gaming is the only reason to go with Vista anymore.
I do know that Apple doaes have most of the major titles, but there release is late.
I would also have advertisments that are about gaming on a Mac.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Users may not care about the actual file system, but the actual features provided by a file system that uses relational databases for metadata management can be very beneficial to users. For example, Apple Spotlight is a tool used for searching files based on the metadata of the files. Although it is a database that sits on top of the file system, it is seamlessly integrated nonetheless. Spotlight makes searching very quick and very easy. WinFS was a very similar concept (it sits on top of NTFS; it doesn't outright replace any file systems), but it took a few steps futher than Spotlight did. For example, WinFS had very powerful querying features that Spotlight doesn't (currently) have.
Users can care less about the actual file system. They don't (and shouldn't) care about FAT, NTFS, UFS, HFS+, ext3, and all of the other acronyms that we file system researchers and enthusiasts throw around. However, users do benefit from new features in new file systems that makes their lives easier. Try searching for a file in Windows XP, which scans through the hard drive and is based on the file name and file metadata specified by the file system, which doesn't take in account for metadata stored inside of the file, especially if that metadata is proprietary. Now, try searching for a file in Safari. There is a huge difference between the speed and the experience.
Windows Vista would have had a file system similar to Apple's Spotlight on a much larger technical scale, but they gutted out that feature. Instead, we get Windows Indexing Services, which indexes all of the files in a database. It makes querying for files easier, but it doesn't provide the rich APIs used for storing extended metadata in files that WinFS or Apple Spotlight provides, making it only better than Windows XP in speed, not in functionality. If you forget the file name, or its time of creation, or any other OS-provided metadata, tough. WinFS and Spotlight are different. It would have been wonderful for Windows users to have advanced file searching based on the files' metadata. But it isn't happening, which is sad for 2006 and 2007, IMO.
Quick everyone, boycott Vista and buy an Xbox instead!! That'll teach Microsoft not to mess around with us!
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Personally, I'm all for anything that makes Windows:
Especially if it involves Microsoft pointing the gun at its own foot.
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
But an awful lot of home users rely on the advice of their knowledgeable friends and family members in making decisions.
I reckon it takes around two upgrade cycles for a serious shift in the market to result from geek momentum alone, once the geeks decide they've had enough and switch. First time out, the geeks start encouraging friends and family to switch the next time they buy/upgrade/install, and some will. The purchase/upgrade/installation after that, it's not just geek friends and family that use the alternative, it's a couple of the guys at work and your next-door neighbour, who know about as much about computers as you do, and if they're all happy, why not give it a go?
Microsoft already has had geeks turning against it for several years; Win2K was probably their best ever bang-for-buck OS, and a load of geeks never upgraded to XP, or at least saw it for the changed window-dressing it mostly was on the desktop, while switching to Linux for server/hosting systems.
The first generation shifters are starting to move away. My dad uses Linux. Several of my work colleagues use Linux. Several friends I know through diverse hobbies use Linux. Apple have produced a good rival system in MacOS X for people who think Linux is too scary.
Moreover, on the application front, MS Office has been stationary for years as far as Joe Average is concerned, and people are starting to realise that they don't have to pay the "Microsoft tax" if all they want to do is write the occasional letter. Firefox is gaining market share, and other browsers like Opera and the main Mac-based systems are getting their claws in with some people too. iTunes is way more popular than any other legal on-line music service. This sort of thing will lead to the second, much larger generation of shifters before too long.
Moreover, Microsoft's frankly bizarre attempts to lock down their systems seem to have reached the point that they're going to hurt significant numbers of users, not just inconvenience the geeks (until they hack the limitations out, at any rate). Media Player adding copy protection to stuff I scanned from my own CD, and not letting me back up anything I download from legal on-line services? Vista costing a fortune but locking me out if I upgrade my system twice? The constant nagging I now get on my perfectly legitimate, properly licensed Windows XP system, with "Genuine Advantage" splashed all over it? Not playing high-definition video properly without jumping through all kinds of hoops (allegedly)? These are things where average end users are going to start saying "Stuff this, it just doesn't work", and that's just going to accelerate phase two.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Most people expect a new version of an operating system to have more features, not less.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
I say all well and good because everyone here fully expects MS to eventually tank and get soundly beaten by some *nix or other. Now, taking that as a likelihood (I do), I still don't see Linux winning this round of battles. It's too hard to copy and paste files without being "root" whatever the hell that means. Don't even get me started on native mp3/xvid support.
I WANT Linux to win. I want it to win sooner rather than later. How about an OS that is actually easy to use without all the ludicrous over the top server security built in? You know, one that plays San Andreas, opens pdfs, has nice looking fonts and is easy to use because it runs EXACTLY how we expect it to. I just don't get why so many devs are wasting their time on ubuntu/redhat/mandriva/et al when clearly joe q. public is A. NOT GOING TO CHANGE, and B. KNOWS HOW TO USE WINDOWS.
Seriously, this "battle" is like a fight between a tired old midget and a young strong UFC champion. Only sadly, the UFC champion is clearly retarded and doesn't even know he's in a fight. Linux should have won nearly half a decade ago. But instead, they keep screwing with the UI, not implementing basic things "out of box" for arcane philosophical reasons, and creating more versions of software that most people will never want to use.
I hate to say this, but the next time I try Linux and the installation doesn't go pretty much as smooth as Tiny XP, and then subsequently has an identical start menu / quick launch / control panel to vanilla WinXP, well, it'll be a cold day in hell until I try Linux and get burned YET AGAIN.
And this is a pissed off rant from somebody who WANTS LINUX TO WIN. Just imagine what the average non-political FOSS advocate is thinking when he can't do something like right click copy paste a file he downloaded off some p2p app because "Linux is different, and difference is good."
No. It's not. Difference is stupid. Now, if you're talking about rock bands, then, yeah, I want some variety. But an OS should operate as expected. Period. For the bulk of the world, as expected means JUST LIKE WINDOWS.
It's embarrasing that so many obviously bright minds are so fully entrenched in such a Quixotian enterprise.
Mod me down. Or give me a drop in windows replacement. Or shut the fuck up already, and realize that Vista already won, and that SUCKS FOR EVERYONE BECAUSE OF YOUR ARROGANT AND IMMATURE IDEALS.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Can someone explain where the ISO comment came from? I can't find anything that would seem to prevent anything regarding ISOs. "ISO" doesn't appear in the document, nor does "CD." "Image" and "Media" don't appear in any related context.
Do you know that XP has most of the same legal restrictions? Yet that didn't send millions of desktop users to Linux. It's simply ignored. Corporate users who need to care more about licenses will simply buy the corporate licenses that have less of these restrictions.
Since very little here is different than XP I imagine this news won't provoke massive Linux migrations.
Developers: We can use your help.
The license says you can only transfer the software once, and with the agreement. But the person you transfer it to can also transfer it once themselved, because they are bound by an agreement between Microsoft and them, not between Microsoft and you.
MS can abuse gamers as much as they want because gamers are the very definition of a captured demographic.
Hehe, ok.
Since I've already once, I'll let you read it this time.
Where in the EULA does it specifically allow me to create an ISO image of a CD containing photgraphs I have taken and copy it onto my hard drive? If this is not expressly permitted by the EULA, does this mean you believe it's forbidden? Do you think Microsoft would tell you it was forbidden to this if they were asked? If not, where is the language written that applies to my photographs and not my legal backup? If thats not there, then where is the language explicitly forbidding the legal backup to be stored on my hard drive? If you can't find any of those, well then, you've got your answer.
Everyone has been massively mis-interpreting the license agreement, starting with the author of the original document. Instead of believing an incendiary article, let's hit each point with evidence:
Article says: "allows you to only move it to another device once"
Vista EULA says: "The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes the "licensed device.""
XP EULA says: "TRANSFER-Internal. You may move the Product to a different Workstation Computer. After the transfer, you must completely remove the Product from the former Workstation Computer."
Conclusion: iffy at best; more restrictive at worst. I believe the "internal" designation in the XP EULA was meant for corporations, who retain this right with volume licensed editions of Vista.
Article says: "Microsoft forbids users from installing Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium in a virtual machine."
Vista EULA: "Before you use the software under a license, you must assign that license to one device (physical hardware system). That device is the "licensed device." A hardware partition or blade is considered to be a separate device."
XP EULA: "You may install, use, access, display and run one copy of the Product on a single computer, such as a workstation, terminal or other device ("Workstation Computer")."
Conclusion so far: Microsoft hasn't forbidden me from installing in a virtual machine. Note that the Vista EULA says I only must "assign" my license to a device, I don't necessarily have to "install" to that physical hardware device. But let's examine the clause that gets everyone all confused:
Vista Home Basic/Home Premium EULA: "USE WITH VIRTUALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES. You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system."
Conclusion: All it's saying here is that I can't use the same copy of the software for the physical machine AND in a virtualized environment. Notice that it very clearly restricts ONLY "the software installed on the licensed device". ie, if you install Home Basic on your physical PC, you can't install the same copy in a VM. This is fair and in line with the XP EULA.
Vista Ultimate EULA: "USE WITH VIRTUALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES. You may use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system on the licensed device."
Conclusion: This is an ADDITIONAL grant of a license. If you pay the price for Ultimate, Microsoft is granting to you an additional right to run ANOTHER copy in a virtualized environment. Note again that it allows you to use "the software installed on the licensed device" in a VM.
Get over it people. The VM thing was a claim from someone who has the reading comprehension of a 5th-grader. If you want to know what your rights are, read the EULA yourself. I'm not a lawyer, I don't enjoy EULA's, and I didn't spend more than 5 minutes reading the published EULA, but I can still understand English.
As far as testing goes, if you really care about testing, get an MSDN subscription. A few hundred bucks gets you perpetual (forever) licenses to every OS Microsoft has ever made for dev & test purposes. These can be used in virtual machines, physical machines, across a network, wherever. Oh, and did I mention you can install on an unlimited number of machines an unlimited number of times? (subject to the same dev & test restrictions of course). It's a worthwhile investment if you're a software developer.
I don't come from an Adobe background, and I found that The GIMP was not just counterintuitive. It was downright infuriating. Nothing made any sense for me except for basic file operations. The next day, I went to one of the graphics guys at work to look at Photoshop, and it was beautifully easy to get the basic things that I wanted. Eventually I found GIMPshop, which helped, but it took a long time from my initial experience to lose the grudge of a horribly broken interface. The basic functionality of any program should be clear to a new user, even if it takes time to master those functions.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Ya, I read that site also, but if you lookup their reference for their claims in the actual EULA, it is NOT in the EULA.
Their main page has a lot of incorrect assumptions and mis-interpretations of the EULA, to the point that many of the laid out claims are just made up.
The ISO example is one of the more egregious.
It specifically DOES NOT SAY you cannot copy the Vista ISO for backup or to your hard drive.
What it DOES say is you can't put it on a network store (like for volume installations - and this is only for the HOME and STARTER versions that have no business being MASS installed from a network location.)
Either this Website has an axe to grind or they have no technical knowledge...
As for the other issues, there have been Network connection limitations in Windows NT since version 4.0 for the desktop version. 10 Connections, and this has not changed for the professional level version of Vista either.
The Home versions are limited to 5 'concurrent' connections. Which seems quite reasonable, because if you have a big enough family that you have 5 OTHER users in your house accessing a file or printer on your computer 'at the same time' then you probably need something other than the HOME edition.
MS even upped the Media Center Extender 'allowed' connections in Vista over XP, instead of 3 you get 5 on the first tier of Vista that has Media Center.
Why not rename your post to MS increases connection limits for MCE users?
I don't think you all grasp the cunningness of Microsoft's new strategy. It's well known that Microsoft's biggest competitor is... Microsoft themselves. Convincing people to upgrade to their latest-and-greates product has always been an uphill struggle for Microsoft. Microsoft has such a stranglehold on the market that no new product -not even their own- can break that iron grip.
But with Vista, the marketing geniuses at Microsoft have come up with a plan to finally break that viselike grip. If the problem is that Microsoft's marketshare is too big, then there's only one thing to do: convince consumers to stop buying Microsoft products. Only then will Microsoft have a fair chance at breaking into the market that Microsoft now controls.
This isn't the first time Microsoft has utilized this strategy; they tested the waters with WindowsME. However, Microsoft hedged their bets back then with the concurrent release of Windows2000. But WinME proved their tactics had merit; they created such a despicable product that consumers flocked to WindowsXP.
Now, with the imminent release of Vista, Microsoft is betting the entire company; there is no "backup" product to save the day in case the strategy flops, as was Windows2000. Microsoft has put all its eggs in the basket with Vista, and they have worked hard to make sure Vista is something nobody wants. It has only the minimum of improvments while at the same time necessitating obscenely high hardware requirements to make use of those features. Microsoft is also -as this latest development shows- injected their new flagship OS with as many painful ways to restrict the consumer in how he uses the software he has paid for. So not only is it a product nobody needs, not only is it a product nobody wants, but it is also a product that doesn't do anything well. Vista is sure to flop, costing Microsoft billions of dolllars and a significant percentage of their marketshare. Microsoft has even gotten their games division involved; all future Microsoft games will be Vista (DirectX 10) only; when Vista inevitably flops, so will all those games.
And then, when Microsoft is shattered by its own incompetance, that's when Microsoft will swoop in for the kill.*
Devious and cunning. Who says Microsoft doesn't innovate?
* My brain hurts.
I've been in 3, that I can remember, class action suits.
(1) Chevy trucks (early 90's) with the gas tank mounted outside the frame. Just like the Pintos of the 70's BOOM!
Result: Lawyers make millions, I get $1000 off the purchase of a new Chevy truck. No thanks.
(2) MS windows/office Price fixing scheme mid 90's
Result: Lawyers make millions, I get something like $20 off the purchase of more MS software. No thanks.
(3) RIAA price fixing scheme more familiar to most
Result: Lawyers make millions, I get $20 to buy more RIAA musak. No thanks.
I was NOT interested in any of these settlements because I decided I no longer wanted to their products, even for free. IMHO in class action suits, only the lawyers win.
Now imagine if MS had to fed off small claims suits from just 10% of buyers. Many corporations operate on a roughly 10% profit margin (MS is an exception to that). Think about it. Class action is merely a way to silence the voice of the complainants and appease the general public.
I'd take MS to court even if it COSTS ME $ to do it. It is a matter of principle. In case you didn't know, in my state you can include the cost of your time you've spent attempting to resolve the issue and lost wages attending court (but no attorney fees). So the only argument left is people too lazy to stand up for their fair use rights. I say F^$K em.
Also to the Best of my knowledge EULA click thrus don't hold much water (SCOTUS has yet to rule on it), especially when you cannot see what you've agreed to until you've entered into a purchase agreement (retail or wholesale). And opened software is usually non-returnable. Can you say pig in a poke?
Who will guard the guards?
I suspect it's quite possibly a product of Overly Critical Guy's imagination - one look at his comment history shows he's never particularly concerned with letting facts get in the way of a good rant at Microsoft.
Don't buy the legal fiction. Unless you're unfortunate to live in one of the few US states that implemented UCITA, EULA's are not a legally binding contract. Well, they're definitely not in my jurisidiction. Doctrine of first sales says that after sale, the copyright holder can apply no more restrictions than copyright law itself allows. This has been upheld many, many times.
Obviously a legally binding contract which is signed and filed before purchase - such as the one businesses agree to for volume licences - will be binding and apply to the use of the software. A home user going into a shop and buying a computer or a box with a piece of software on it? Once money is exchanged, that's the sale, and no additional conditions can be applied from that point on, with one exception - ongoing agreements. Microsft can apply a EULA to windows update, microsoft live, or msn messenger, as you must agree to the terms to gain access to their services, but my personal computer hard-drive? They have no jurisdiction, because making copies into the memory and hard-drive for the purpose of operation are specifically allowed in my country under copyright law - I don't need permission from microsoft to use the software, so they have no way to apply the EULA. Plus, the method of applying the EULA is most defnitely not one that forms a binding contract, it is merely a contract of adhesion and unenforceable.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
So when a customer reports a bug that shows up only on Vista Home I'm supposed to do *what* excatly.
Tell them to get lost because microsoft won't let us setup a VM to test their fault?