[Discuss] MS licensing and Wine (was: Discuss Digest, Vol 79, Issue 6)

[mark at buttery.org (Shirley Márquez Dúlcey)]

Correct. The only Windows licenses that come with any virtual machine
rights are full retail licenses (either one bare metal copy or one in
a VM) and enterprise licenses (various VM rights can be bought for
those). OEM and System Builder licenses (the two kinds that usually
come with computers) convey no right to run them in a VM, not even on
the computer they came with. There was also the special case of
Windows 7 Professional (OEM, System Builder, or retail), which came
with the right to run a copy of XP mode under it - in other words, a
single virtualized copy of the 32 bit version of Windows XP. (You
didn't even have to own a previous copy of XP; it downloaded when you
set up XP mode.)

OEM licenses are the ones that come through agreements with large
computer manufacturers: Dell, HP, etc. System Builder licenses are
available for smaller manufacturers to buy and pass along to
customers; that's usually what will come with a computer from a "white
box" seller. (Some stores like Micro Center refer to System Builder
copies as OEM copies on their web sites or in their stores.) The
System Builder license technically doesn't even let you use it to
build a system for yourself, though that is widely ignored by personal
builders because it is significantly cheaper than a full retail
license. Or at least it used to be; the spread is now only $10 for
Windows 10 Home but is still $60 for Professional. (The version of the
System Builder license for Windows 8 DID allow you to build a personal
system, but the Windows 7 and Windows 10 versions do not.)

It's really all a mess. Microsoft should do away with the distinction
between System Builder and retail copies and just sell both of them at
the lower price. They sell very few of the retail ones so they
wouldn't be leaving much money on the table, and it would eliminate a
bunch of confusion about what people are allowed to do with their
software.

On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 4:49 AM, Dale R. Worley <worley at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> Shirley M?rquez D?lcey <mark at buttery.org> writes:
>> The catch is licensing. The Windows license that came with your
>> computer doesn't cover running it in a virtual machine. You'll have to
>> buy a full retail license to do that legally.
>
> Interesting!  So the standard with-a-new-computer license *doesn't* have
> the "and one VM on the same hardware" provision that (I have been told)
> a "real" license does?
>
> There's also the question of how MS Word is licensed.
>
> Are there versions of Wine (or whatever it's called now) that work well?
> That is, has someone here used it and can vouch that it Just Works...
>
> Dale
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