Windows 8 Gets Personal Use License For Homebuilt PCs

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Geek.com: "Microsoft has never really acknowledged or supported those among us who choose to build their own PCs. Windows licensing is usually offered in three forms: full retail product license, retail upgrade license, and OEM license. If you want to build your own machine at the moment, Microsoft expects you to buy a full retail copy of Windows. With Windows 8 that all changes and Microsoft has decided to actively support individuals who want to build their own machines or run Windows 8 as a virtual machine. That support comes in the form of a new license option called the Personal Use License for System Builder (PULSB). With PULSB, Microsoft is dumping the full retail license used in previous versions. Instead it is offering a version of Windows 8 to be installed as the main operating system on a single system meant for personal use, or in a virtual machine running on an existing PC (running any legal OS such as Windows 7, Mac OS X, or your favorite flavor of Linux)."

Comments

Wonderful? At What Cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don;t know that this is as wonderful as the post would like to suggest. It's never been a problem to purchase and use the deeply discounted OEM versions for home-built PCs. SO, my first question is what does a PULSB license cost as compared to OEM. The second question is; will we still be able to purchase OEM?

Re:Wonderful? At What Cost?

[rsmith-mac]

I have never had one of those reps refuse to help.

There is a blacklist, but it's very, very hard to get on. You basically have to be installing Windows onto different motherboards on a weekly basis. For that reason the only person I know to ever end up on that list did motherboard evaluations for a living.

More money to Microsoft

[hsa]

Oh, I can see why Microsoft would offer a new license:

- Personal -> they tie that your Windows-account, so you can't never ever sell it
- Single System -> they tie that to your PC configuration, so you can't change your GPU without upgrading to full version

.. so they are just making another confusing license and hope to gain more users for their Anytime Upgrade. I mean, you do have to upgrade your PC if you are like selling your old PC with PULSB. This way Microsoft can charge for Windows 8 twice, yay!

Re:Free (as in beer)?

[WARM3CH]

You are just making HUGE assumptions with no evidence to back them. "You're not going to convert those people to legitimate users", "why anyone would pay for a copy of Window", "people will always choose the hardware that provides tangible improvement".

Why do you think every single user out there is a pirate that would never convert? I for one used to pirate Windows, for my home machines. That included Win 3.1, 95, 98, NT 4.0, 2000 and XP. With Windows 7 I got myself a legitimate, but discounted, full version (I don't remember how much it was, $40 or something). If they offer Windows 8 for a low price, I'll buy it.

In 2010 I paid over $3000 to buy components to build my workstation/gaming machine. Paying an extra $40, i.e. round 1.3% more to get the right software added no significant burden to my budget. I have no problem to pay for a software that I use everyday single day for a couple of years as long as I don't feel it is a rip-off. Since this is ./, yes, I boot into Linux when I need to.

Re:Is it just me

[Runaway1956]

Death nails. Slapping out of the business field. Niche markets.

Sorry, but that reads to much like fanboi talk for me.

Quality product? Not exactly - why don't we revisit WinME and Vista? You are correct with the "secure hold on the desktop market", but there were a lot of questionable ethics involved there.

Your dream world of Microsoft's world dominance is really a nightmare, or at least a dystopia. Enjoy the dream though - if you can. As for me, I'll continue on with Unix-likes, no matter what the world does around me.