Techies in Microsoft licence reading bombshell
Motherboard = PC, says Redmond
Posted in Operating Systems, 17th February 2006 12:20 GMT
Free whitepaper – The top 5 server monitoring battles
Tech blogs are fizzing with rage at the 'revelation' that Microsoft small print says a new Windows OEM licence must be purchased if a motherboard is changed or upgraded.
The software behemoth is quoted as saying that the 'heart and soul' of a PC lies therein, and so changing it - other than in the case of a failure - amounts to creating a new machine. Other licence types do not face such restrictions.
Comments about the newly-uncovered atrocity are typically less than complimentary towards Redmond:
“They are trully [sic] evil,” fumes one.
Several others go for the succinct and to-the-point: “F**k Micro$oft.”
For Microsoft's part, it claims this has always been the case. And this document seems to corroborate the assertion.
Customers reading their license agreements? Whatever next.®

Analyst Keynote: The Register Agile Data Center Summit
Market Primer: ERP Systems
Analyst Keynote: The Register Agile Data Center Summit
10 Strategies for Choosing a Midmarket ERP Solution
Office 2010 fights Google with SharePoint bloat
Ubuntu's Karmic Koala bares fangs at Windows 7
Change your views: OS X tags exploited
Microsoft 'Dallas' muscles Google data crusade