Activation Explained by Microsoft

[Adrian L]

For all those who are mis-led about this, there was a VERY long
discussion about this at the Office XP Launch Event I attended recently. IF
you are a small company or an individual who uses more then five
licenses of any MS product, say Office and Windows then they recommend the
usage of an Open License agreement. This new activation ONLY applies to
those that purchase software in the store, IE shrink wrapped packages. Those
using an Open, Select, or Enterprise agreement receive a different form of
the distribution media and have ONE key and NO activation for all the seats they purchased.
So even if you are a small business it make more sense to have an OLA.

[Galvin]

So you just phone MS to order a product with an OLA?

[Adrian L]

yes, you find your local Microsoft office or dealer and order products with Open Licensing Agreement

"Galvin" <ka...@mediaone.net> wrote in message news:3B25510B...@mediaone.net...

[Bill Sanderson (mvp - dts)]

http://www.microsoft.com/business/licensing/assurance/open6.asp

"Adrian L" <n...@no.com> wrote in message news:ueq4Ur08AHA.1732@tkmsftngp02...

[Cindy Kee]

What about if you are a Universal MSDN Subscriber? Do you have to worry
about this at all? What about running more than one computer on your
home-office network? We have 4 computers and we have Universal MSDN.

Cindy Kee

"Adrian L" <n...@no.com> wrote in message news:u2Ofdco8AHA.2144@tkmsftngp05...

[Galvin]

Sounds like you have to buy the equivilant of 5 copies of windows XP Pro. If XP
pro costs around 300 bucks that's $1,500 to get be free of WPA, unfortunatly I
don't have that much cash to spend, but i'll find other ways around WPA when the
time comes. Yes I could care less if I openly say here, i'll watch for the cops
:)

[Dama]

"Adrian L" <n...@no.com> wrote in news:u2Ofdco8AHA.2144@tkmsftngp05 :

> This new activation ONLY applies to
> those that purchase software in the store, IE shrink wrapped
> packages. Those using an Open, Select, or Enterprise agreement
> receive a different form of the distribution media and have ONE key
> and NO activation for all the seats they purchased.
>

what about ppl who get it pre-installed on a PC (which is how most home
users get their OS, right?) They still have to activate right?

[Adrian L]

NO, you can buy 2 copies of Win XP, 2 copies of Office XP and 1 copy of Visio 2002.or any
combination of 5 MS products. Doesn't have to be 5 copies of the same product.

"Galvin" <ka...@mediaone.net> wrote in message news:3B2BC4A6...@mediaone.net...

[Verne Buland]

I'm a little too dense to grasp the full meaning of this
thread. Perhaps my concerns have been addressed in another
thread that I can't locate.

I've heard RUMORS that if I am a home user of XP I will
only be allowed to install the program one or two times.
That if I have a crash and have to reformat, if I buy a
new hard drive, if I buy a new PC, if I wish to install XP
on a 2nd machine - I'll have to phone someone at MS and
get permission to do this. Is my basic understanding of
this correct?

>.
>

[Doug G.]

That's basically it.

--
Doug http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/activation.htm
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,53025,00.asp

"Verne Buland" <jg...@iwic.net> wrote in message news:01c101c0fef1$e09bbc50$9ae62ecf@tkmsftngxa02...

[Joe Morris]

"Verne Buland" <jg...@iwic.net> writes:

>I'm a little too dense to grasp the full meaning of this
>thread. Perhaps my concerns have been addressed in another
>thread that I can't locate.

>I've heard RUMORS that if I am a home user of XP I will
>only be allowed to install the program one or two times.
>That if I have a crash and have to reformat, if I buy a
>new hard drive, if I buy a new PC, if I wish to install XP
>on a 2nd machine - I'll have to phone someone at MS and
>get permission to do this. Is my basic understanding of
>this correct?

Almost right. The correction is that *every* time you install
the protected products you'll have to call Microsoft (or allow
the product to contact Microsoft through the Internet).

The only exception seems to be for systems built from VLA
(SELECT or EA, possibly Academic as well) distributions.

This is going to be interesting for large customers who distribute
operating system images built from their OEM vendor's distribution.
I made a formal question about this to Microsoft about two
months ago and the only answer I've received so far is that nobody
at Microsoft has an answer.

Joe Morris

[Paul Coen]

Joe Morris wrote:
> This is going to be interesting for large customers who distribute
> operating system images built from their OEM vendor's distribution.
> I made a formal question about this to Microsoft about two
> months ago and the only answer I've received so far is that nobody
> at Microsoft has an answer.

My guess is that the OEMs are going to end up shipping CD-ROMs
with their extras on it to tailor a VLA/Select stock XP edition,
at least for their business-class PCs, but that's just a guess.

[Dave W]

You're making it sound too complex. You have two reasonable alternatives: be
slaves of Microsoft or move to Linux. If you check Woody's Office Watch and
other postings, several people who have registered their versions of Office XP
have had the wonderful experience of being informed that they changed their
computer's configuration (when in fact they didn't) and now have to
reregister---and, of course, have their disks handy. One lucky fellow was
using his computer on an airplane, and, of course, he was going to carry his
disks with him. :-)

In short, AVOID XP (in all incarnations).