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Windows 8 Gets Personal Use License For Homebuilt PCs

Posted by timothy on from the putting-it-all-together dept.

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)."

20 of 330 comments (clear)

  1. Is it just me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or is Microsoft really desperate to get windows 8 to work?

    1. Re:Is it just me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or is Microsoft really desperate to get windows 8 to work?

      Why does it have to be a desperation move? Maybe Microsoft is looking to try to capitalize on revenue opportunities from people who either wouldn't consider Windows because of the full retail price or people who don't purchase additional copies because of the price. Desperation move or not, it's a great benefit to people who still need Windows and don't buy OEM systems.

    2. Re:Is it just me by Runaway1956 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    3. Re:Is it just me by IntlHarvester · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I can't see how this really matters. The price of Win8 is low already primarily for the reason they want you to adopt it. The reason they accept a lower price to increase adoption is that they feel they'll be making up the difference in that 30% they are going to be charging for their software store.

      It doesn't even require any nefarious motives, MS simply finally woke up and realized their was a huge disparity between their retail prices and the far lower volume prices. If Dell is only paying $30 a copy, why were they even trying to get $300 from joe home builder? It was stupid and they finally figured it out.

      Not to mention that Microsoft's old price sheet literally dates back to the 1980s and OS/2. People used to pay $300 for Windows NT Workstation and install it on their $2500 PC, pretty good deal compared to Unix, eh? But it's 2012 now and nobody is paying that kind of money to install an OS on their $400 laptop.

      --
      Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
  2. Wonderful? At What Cost? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Wonderful? At What Cost? by cbope · · Score: 5, Informative

      I hate responding to AC's, but purchase of the OEM license has always been tied to some piece(s) of hardware purchased at the same time. I know there are lots of "workarounds" and these have been pretty liberally sold to home builders even without hardware, but the fact is it was/is a requirement for OEM Windows licenses.

      I could care less about being able to purchase OEM anymore. The real question: Is the PULSB license transferable to new hardware, unlike OEM? This is why I would buy the retail licenses, they can be transferred to a new PC... OEM cannot and MS can deny your activation on new hardware if they suspect you are copying it.

    2. Re:Wonderful? At What Cost? by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Legality of the license aside (never bothered to read it, honestly), Microsoft has always been really good about letting you activate an OEM license on new hardware. The internet activation will generally fail after the first time, but the phone system works well - and if they do wind up making you talk to a real person, I have never had one of those reps refuse to help.

      --
      "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
    3. Re:Wonderful? At What Cost? by rsmith-mac · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:Wonderful? At What Cost? by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Informative

      It was never legit. The license forbids it.

      German court decisions are about as valid in the USA as martian court decisions. In the US reselling licenses is not been held up as legal.

  3. Re:Microsoft finally gets it by fridaynightsmoke · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hey! Here's an idea -- MS could bless WINE and sell each of the Linux users a license to run a full-on win32/64 library. Yeah!

    Silly AC, only a religious organisation could bless wine. It'd have to be Apple...

    --
    This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
  4. Re:Prices? by Missing.Matter · · Score: 4, Informative

    TFA is a secondary source. Here is a link to the primary source, with text from the actual licenses:

    http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-radically-overhauls-license-agreements-for-windows-8-7000002866/

  5. More money to Microsoft by hsa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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!

  6. Priced to reduce piracy. by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The issue has always been with a lot of piracy. The fallacy is the company is competing with free, that isn't the case, the problem is the company is competing with easier to get. Microsoft with its different licenses where the rates that people are willing to pay they are technically not support to pay. Even the guys who do not want a pirated copy but an original would get the OEM off eBay (something we really shouldn't be doing)... However if we can get a good price for the OS a lot of us will be willing to get the fully legit version.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  7. Re:first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's why the ladies don't call you back the next day.

  8. Re:What's the difference.. by rsmith-mac · · Score: 5, Informative

    Retail: This license is portable; users can upgrade/replace their hardware and take their copy of Windows with them. Furthermore Microsoft provides support, and you can even use a retail version to perform an upgrade (though MS sells cheaper upgrade editions for that). For those reasons however it's the most expensive (i.e. full price) version.

    OEM/System Builder: The license is non-portable and becomes locked to the motherboard. Microsoft does not provide any support (that's the OEM's job), and OEM copies can only be used to do a fresh install. Because of this it's cheaper than retail.

  9. Re:Free (as in beer)? by WARM3CH · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  10. Re:first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    doesn't matter, had sex.

  11. Re:What's the difference.. by Applekid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's their loss. When you make it painful to stay legal and compliant, they just drive people to piracy anyway. If your $130 OEM copy isn't legal you might as well pay $0.

    They should just go back to the "good" old days and just charge a flat price and be done with it. Incidentally, those were the monopoly days, too, so obviously something was going well for Microsoft with that plan.

    --
    More Twoson than Cupertino
  12. Re:first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    doesn't matter, hand sex.

    FTFY

  13. Re:first by screwdriver · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This isn't reddit folks.