Wix XP Licence Transfer

replytohere2004

I bought a second hand computer with Windows XP Pro installed(no cd),
and a Windows XP Pro sticker licence on the side with the product key.
I think the computer is ex-corporate.

Am I now the owner of this licence, as I have the sticker?

The computer has now died and I am going to sell the parts.(Buying a new pc myself)
Can I sell the licence as well?

What if the person I sell it to phones to activate/register and MS tell them it
has already been registered? Does the fact that they have the sticker mean anything?
Would they issue them with a new product key?

If so, as it was org on a Dell machine(and has the Dell logo written on the sticker)
does it have to be transferred to a Dell computer?

thanks in advance!

Infini

Not necessarily the OS can be installed on another machine, but if you don't have the CD its almost impossible to sell. Besides if its XP pro you might as well keep that and transfer it to a machine with XP home instead.

lynchie

If it had a dell sticker on it, then its an OEM license which are non transferable afaik. Check MS website for details.

Capt'n Midnight

AFAIK The only way an OEM license could be transferred to different hardware that that which it was supplied with is to have upgraded it in the software advantage scheme, within the first 90 days. Since it's XP that's extremely unlikley and the company who upgraded would have had to remove the sticker.

As to selling the license, you'd have to use microsofts definition of what hardware the license is bound to - if anyone ever finds anything other than very generic terms for this I'd like to know. If they mean all the supplied hardware then you'd loose the license if you changed the mouse, people claim it refers to the CPU, but resellers will sell it without CPU.

cormie

I bought a new laptop and it came with XP Home.

I already had XP pro on my old one and wanted to use that on the new one.

I installed XP pro on the new one and used the "Telephone" option to activate it. It's a simple process that only takes about 5 minutes to complete. So I was using the same XP PRO on 2 computers at the same time. If I had tried to activate it online, I don't think it would have worked.

I then installed the XP Home edition I got with the new laptop, on the old laptop. When installing XP Home, it didn't ask me for product key and didn't go through the keyboard options etc. It usually does this on XP pro. Once installed, I tried to activate it and it said the code I entered was invalid so I went to change product key. When I went to this option I noticed the product key entered in the text boxes was different to the key on my new laptop sticker. So I entered the key on the sticker and clicked change. I got a new code with that for activation, used that and it worked.

So I was able to install XP pro on my new laptop and put Home on my old and had 2 of the same XP pros running on different computers at one stage.


I don't think this answers your question though!

The XP home edition that came with my new laptop and is now on my old one is the laptop manufacturers version, it has their logo on the cd etc.

If you don't contact Microsoft's activation server for 120 days then the slate is wiped clean and you can install XP on another machine if you wish. But if you need to reinstall it on the original machine you need to wait for another 120 days (you're meant to remove it from the original machine, lol).

Usually the devices that qualify for OEM distribution, excluding a new machine, are a hard disk or motherboard.

Capt'n Midnight

Karsini wrote:

Usually the devices that qualify for OEM distribution, excluding a new machine, are a hard disk or motherboard.

I'll believe that when I see a specific reference to that in the Microsoft EULA or on the Microsoft site. At one stage many PC's came with microsoft mice that a little green cert of auth type sticker on them, nothing official from M$ that l have seen indicates that the OEM isn't bound to the microsoft HW..
The ELUA indicates devices / ports.