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LIVE TODAY: Windows 8 licensing - Speak your brains, believe your eyes

The fine print explained: today at 14:00 GMT, 9.00 Eastern, 6.00 PT

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Taking a snow day today? You might want to join your fellow Reg readers in assessing what Windows 8 actually costs. We don’t mean in the sense of estimating the financial fallout of poor Q4 sales for Microsoft and the PC makers, but rather: what do you get for your money?

Putting Metro aside and forgetting the fact you must buy a brand new PC, there’s another set of considerations that – as ever – are being overlooked by a tech- and gadget-obsessed press.

That is software licensing and the upfront costs of Windows 8, especially when buying it in large numbers, along with a consideration of the fine print of the terms and conditions that Microsoft has attached to its new client.

Join Reg software editor Gavin Clarke, Microsoft licensing analyst Paul DeGroot - hosting his Microsoft licensing bootcamp next week - and readers for a Live Chat on:

  • what happens to your Windows XP downgrade rights;
  • whether you'll need to pay extra to install custom apps on a Windows RT tab;
  • what Enterprise Agreements have been added to Windows 8 Pro edition; and
  • which licence you’ll need to run on Windows 8 in Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) scenarios.

You can join the Windows 8 Live Chat on 22 Jan at 14.00 GMT, 9.00 Eastern and 6.00 Pacific; you can also sign up for a reminder in the window below. ®

SaaS data loss: The problem you didn’t know you had

Serious question

Does using a licensed copy of Windows 8 permit FACT to do a software license audit raid on your home and office?

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Re: Serious question

Microsoft were spreading "Linux violates our patents" FUD. But they never said what the patents were, which, legally and ethically, does not look good for MS.

If MS did go after Linux again (they sponsored the SCO legal attacks on Linux) then the bad PR they would get from it would be volcanic. And the Linux guys would doubtless route around the patents anyway.

But this is a good example of the insanity of software patents, software should never be patented.

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"What does Windows 8 cost?" -- Your soul and your sanity

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