I completly reformat and reload my system at the office every 6 months to 1 year just to get rid of all the crud that has accumlated from security updates and installations of things I decide not to use. I have been doing this with the media from our action pack. Are you saying now that I will not technically and under the terms of the license be allowed to do a clean install again. I am going to have to retain the bloat I have acumulated in my existing Windows directory? Also I have run a number of test installations and a Clean VISTA installation on the 3.4GHz systems I run takes about 20 minutes. The Windows XP upgrades have taken between 4 - 9 hours depending on I have no idea what!

You could create an image of the Vista installation using the inbuilt tools and just reimage when you need to. This takes about 10mins, on the demos I've seen.

It has to be recognised that magnetic disks are prone to failure. However the software on the PC is licensed, it has to be accepted that there is going to come a time when a bare-metal install is necessary.

Your mitigation is basically to re-install XP first then Vista. Fine but at best you just cost me an extra hour. That's assuming that the OEM even supplied recovery media, which some are not doing these days.

The bottom line is that Microsoft just made everyone's life more difficult, and that's not why we buy upgrades.

Assuming I have only the January Action pack available to me, how do I set up a Vista VM for testing using Action Pack media?

Lets face it, at £200 / year its an expensive way to have the latest O/S if your a single user like me, but look at the action pack in the way it is sold to us...to enble us to test and promote software.

Therefore if the statement "Confirmation that you should buy PCs with and OS on - naked PC installation is not a licensed option for Action Pack OSs" is fact, then each time I get a new montherboard I need a new OEM license. When I test out a dual core CPU, I need a new OEM licence etc etc. Since I am selling both desktops, laptops and servers I will need at least 10 new OEM licences a year BEORE im allowed to install the action pack.

The alternative is buy 1 desktop and 1 server OEM licence, costing around £300, but then every 3 years I can save £300 buy NOT having the action pack. (and at the end of the day I OWN the software)

hi,

I note that if you use the advanced installation option of the upgrade and re-partition the drive, and reformat using the Vista DVD, the installation completes successfully :-)

However when you try to activate Vista, it fails since it cannot find a previous version of Windows.

:-((((

Andrew

David,

My Action Pack is due for renewal at the end of January at which point my licenses for Windows XP will expire as XP is no longer included in the action pack. From what then am I supposed to upgrade? Am I supposed to complete all upgrades before 31st Jan? And what happens if I have a disk failure after 31st Jan? Am I allowed to first re-install XP from my old action pack disks even though I will no longer have a valid license for them? Or am I supposed to go out and buy copies of XP?

Hi David,

can you clarify point 3 above please, specifically 'if you previously thought you did not have to buy the OS, then this was a mis-communication from Microsoft in my opinion' ?

With the first action pack I got, I received a full version of Windows XP, not upgrade, and 2 licence keys which could be used 5 times each. Outside action pack I only have one Windows 2000 licence and one Windows 98 licence. Does point 3 mean that I should have owned an earlier version of Windows for each action pack XP licence I've used (anywhere from 5-8 pc's at any one time)

Now I have Vista upgrade do I need to own (outside action pack) a copy of Win XP/2000/whatever for each Vista licence I want to use?

As for 'Don't go doing anything rash right now.' Microsoft have put me in an impossible position, I have a couple of laptops and desktops which can only run Vista in their dreams, I can't upgrade them, yet AIUI I no longer have XP licences. If FAST swoop on me tomorrow they'll find just about every OS in here (except on the Mac) is illegal.

hi David,

Am I right to assume that with Vista the Vista DVD image is a standardised image which covers every possible type of situation (upgrade/premium/business/ultimate etc)?  From my small experiences the installation seems to rely only on the licence key to validate the features to be enabled. (if no licence key is supplied at the start of the install, the user is required to select the version "purchased" and confirm).  This is only my observation/assumption.

Last night I went through the upgrade install process, (with XP present) but chose within the upgrade to reformat the HDD and perform a bare bones install, Vista then got upset when trying to activate because it could not verify (after the reformat) that there was a qualifying product present.  Of course it did, this makes perfect sense NOW.

Since I met all legal requirements (remember the PC had XP) why could the Vista team not have exported/recorded (encrypted or otherwise) the fact (on a USB stick, the MBR or other media) that it had in fact verified that I actually had a previous qualifying version of Vista?  Then after reformat all would be ok?

This would in my opinion save a lot of the "pain" and disquiet that we currently hear about the method of upgrade currently deployed with Vista.  

Alternatively, please ask MS to issue in the next MAPS distribution a note as to the options available, ie clean/upgrade/bare-bones etc with the DVD - I think this alone would alleviate many of the problems MAPS subscribers are voicing and restore some of the broken communication lines.

Andrew

ps you are doing a great job, and we are not shooting the messenger!

> Don't go doing anything rash right now.

Me? Do something rash? Never! [Re-engages safety catch and places pistol back in desk drawer] ;-)

Hi David,

Thanks for the info and clarifications:

  2. "...It does mean that there is no need to format the hard disk - it will be a pure clean install."

IMO, it's not clean unless the disk *is* reformatted

  3. "This is NOT a change of policy - Microsoft provided OEM disks for testing, not to enable you to not buy the Windows OS ... "if you previously thought you did not have to buy the OS, then this was a mis-communication from Microsoft in my opinion"

If you can point me at any piece of information available to subscribers prior to Oct 2006 that implies that the XP OSes included with MAPS were meant to be "upgrades", i'd like to see it. And this isn't about the "OEM" disks, afaict. The restrictions on them have always been more severe, IIRC.

Here's my situation. I have several self-built systems running XP installed from  the "full" version provided with 2004 MAPS susbscription. I've just renewed, so according to the new MAPS license, I only have "upgrade" licenses. (although I have no new media or codes - only the wording on the "included software" agreement has changed. So, they *certainly* aren't legal today. So, how do I *make* them legal?  I think I have to buy a *full retail* XP home for each machine (OEM version can only legally be bough with a "full system", if I remember right). Tell me I've got this wrong...

5. "You have licenses for 10 OS -whether they are Windows XP (assuming you subscribed to the Action Pack when we shipped Windows XP) or Windows Vista"

This seems a perfectly reasonable limitation, but AFAIK it's not stated anywhere in the license, the FAQ, or anywhere else.

"I don't expect Fast to be visiting any time soon."

Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition.... ;-)

- Roddy

Thanks for the reply, David - I appreciate your help, and await your legal (b)eagles' statements with interest...

One more thing I should mention is this snippet from our MAPS renewal email:-

"Our records indicate that your Action Pack subscription is up for renewal and due to expire in 45 days. Renew NOW through this email and extend your current licenses for another year and receive four more quarterly update kits."

Now, how would YOU expect a customer to interpret the bit about "extend you current licenses"?

Regards,

- Roddy

David, whatever else comes of this thread, I'd just like to say thanks for all the effort you are putting into trying out the various permutations and getting clarifications.

David, I am also having a hard time understanding how we would have to STOP using a software license just because we renewed the action pack.  For that to work the following would have to happen in my opinion:

1. MS Would have to send us brand new discs and keys for all software every year - even if there was NO upgrade.  This is my first renewal, but every post I've read indicates that you do not get a new complete Welcome Kit every year - and why would you? It would just be a waste of resources.

2. We would have to uninstall and then reinstall all software including XP, Office, and all servers every year even if we were putting the SAME version of the software back on.  As Eric Ligman points out in his licensing video, you aren't purchasing the software, but the license.  So therefore if we were getting brand new licenses every year then even if the software was the exact same, the expiration of the keys would require an uninstall/reinstall.

3. My Action Pack expired Dec 31 and I "renewed" during December and was charged. BUT, I don't have my action pack yet.  Since the January kit will have Vista, and not XP, and my computer is running the XP Pro from last year's action pack the logic Eric Ligman is posting would mean that from Dec 31st until the time I get my Action Pack I have no legal right to use the Windows XP on my computer and would thus have to stop using my computer; or else revert my computer back to it's OEM XP Media Center if I wanted to keep using it.

I know this reiterates a lot of what others have said, but Microsoft really needs to understand the confusion that has been created.  Hopefully it's resolved before my action pack shows up.  Putting the people who sell your software and solutions for it in such a gray area legally is NOT a very good thing to do.

Yesterday I attended the Small Business Specialist event held at the offices here. I spent the day standing

After some initial disillusionment with the January Action Pack shipment, reality has set in and I've

[moderated heavly]

Isn’t the whole point of the action pack software to help oem system builders prepare to sell / support / design and build PCs? To assist in small IT companies sell M$ software? You shouldn’t need to an attorney to read these complicated agreements. If you give me ten licenses, and tell me not to sell them, I’ll use up to ten internally if I want, period.

I think all of you are missing the big picture. If you’ve been following the industry over the last five years, you should have seen a massive movement by large corporations to get into the “services” industry, e.g., best buy’s geek squad, etc.

It has been over four years since the last major release of Office or Windows and twelve years since

Hi David, thanks for digging into this Gordian knot - I wondered if there was any more official news coming out?

On a side note, do you know what OS'es are "qualifying" WRT the Vista business upgrade in the action pack. Eric Ligman's blog is suggesting  that XP/Vista "Home" versions don't qualify you to use a Vista business upgrade.

http://blogs.msdn.com/mssmallbiz/archive/2007/02/03/no-windows-xp-home-is-not-a-qualifying-desktop-operating-system-for-the-windows-vista-business-upgrade-or-upgrade-sa-through-volume-licensing.aspx

If that's right, it can only be used to upgrade from XP Pro... You can probably guess the rest!

Thanks,

 Roddy

[last updated 13th Feb 2007 - 10:00 am] Inside Microsoft we have been toiling very hard to provide solutions