Ed writes:
Thanks for your excellent website and helpfulness ! I am NOT a tech person at all ! Newbie so you may already have answered this before. My AMD came with Linux and I took it out to put in Windows XP Pro about 10 years ago that was given to me by a "friend". It was a group certificate I later learned. {The Microsoft Office he gave me at the same time is in the same situation} Now it has expired, I am told, since Microsoft has claimed for years that it is not certified [or whatever terminology}. Do I need to give up and find a new copy on ebay or some such, or what other suggestion would you like to make, please, kind sir ? Genuine THNX ! Ed. PS- Newsletter is exceptional and appreciated !
{"40" gb harddrive w/22gb avail}
{384 mb Tot Phys Mem w/ 63.3 mb avail}
Well, first of all, this is some old stuff we're dealing with as it's all over a decade in age, which as far as the computer world is concerned is ancient.
What Ed is most likely referring to concerning the Windows licensing is what's called volume licensing, which exists for several Microsoft products (Windows and Office included).
Many people ran stolen Windows for years this way, and even after the hammer was laid down with WGA, those who were using stolen copies of XP where not all the licenses in the volume were used up yet were still able to use their OSes freely.
For example, let's say there was a 25-license volume of Windows XP that was bought by some corporation. Someone in the company steals the license and installs it on a bunch of PCs. He might even put together a few PCs and sell them as legally-installed XP even though it was totally illegal.
Eventually at some point all those licenses will be used up. Either the company who bought it originally will discover the theft and reclaim the licenses with Microsoft, or the more likely scenario is that the original builder kept using the same license over and over again, and after the 25th time tripped over the limit and invalidated the license completely.
If at this point you're thinking, "Who would install the same license of XP more than 25 times?", this is 10 years we're talking about here. Some people even to this day reinstall their OS once every 90 days or less because they feel it's necessary.
Ed is out of luck. His XP license was stolen, and now it's completely unusable because the volume license limit has been reached. You can't buy Windows on eBay because Microsoft doesn't allow it (and if you do see any listings there, they usually get taken down real quick). Ed will have to buy a Windows 7 license or go with Linux.
And even if Ed wanted to buy a copy of XP with a never-used license, that's getting extremely difficult to come by these days. Again, Win7 or Linux. [Edit: Yes, you can buy a copy of XP on eBay, which Ed would have to do. Cost is around $30.]
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I’ve got to disagree with two of your comments:
1) Availability of XP on ebay. Currently in excess of 4,000 listings for professional. I didn’t bother to check for the home version.
2) Microsoft won’t allow it. This was settled long ago. There are conditions under which it is allowed and those that include parts with the license are honoring the conditions. And there are sales on ebay that are legal without having to jump through Microsoft’s hoops designed to control resale of OEM products.
I’ve been on both sides of OS transactions on ebay without any problems, going back to at least DOS 6 where the issues first were raised.
You’re correct, will make a note in the article.
Buy xp or 7 for that hardware!? Nonsense. Go for Xubuntu or lLbuntu and spend money to hire computer technician.
Tho windows xp is kind of primitive but people are still using it,as it relates to software piracy , you cannot stop that, people always try to get the best for the cheapest price.I know they have some governmental organisations that are installing these pirated windows xp on hundreds of computers, as time goes by it will be even harder to install pirated software on computers.Thanks and bye.
XP is far from primitive. Its durability and usefulness 11 years later testifies to the sophistication of the OS. Anti-XP arguments hold no water.
Maybe his machine is to old for Windows 7, since what he sounds like he’s saying is he has had this machine for a bit and with originally having Linux on it…doesn’t take as much memory to run. So, that being said…he’s either going to have to go to Ebay or Microsoft to see if he can still get a download of XP. Get a Linux OS or get a new machine.
He could buy an old broken computer with a licence sticker attached to it. The sticker is the licence, the Windows disk is not the licence. He could then use a product like WinKeyFinder to change the licence number on his computer to the licence number on the sticker. He would then have a legal copy of windows, bought and paid for just like when you buy a second hand working computer. A tip is to make sure that the old broken computer with the sticker on it was running a matching version of windows to the one he has on his computer. Both OS’s to be XP pro, for example. If the new legal copy of Windows does not validate properly because of hardware differences all he has to do is ring Microsoft, quote the sticker number, and they will provide him a validation key.