Don’t Loan Your XP Install Disk To Your Friends
- 1
- Add a Comment
This may be a really stupid question, but I have a family friend who recently bought a six-year-old Compaq computer running Windows 98. Her father is currently updating it to be Windows 2000, but once she found out I still had my Windows XP restore/install discs she asked if I could update her to Windows XP. I just want to know, though - is this legal? Or will I be chased down by guys in black jackets and charged? (lol worst case scenario). I just want to know if it’s okay sharing the discs with a friend or not?
Well, this isn’t a bad question, per se, but I think you already know the answer, somehow. The answer is that Windows XP and just about every other non-Open Source operating system is licensed for you to install on a single computer only.
Even Apple has this restriction and, theoretically, if you want to upgrade both your desktop and laptop from, say, Panther to Tiger, you’d need to buy two copies of the OS.
Realistically, though, I know of few people who…
One Comment
Tanya
October 27th, 2006
at 10:22am
hi dave i just read your page for the first time. i am in no way computer savy but im having a serious problem right now so im asking you if you can help. when i try to load my aol it stops at the “updating locations 100%” phase and then i get a thing saying aol shuthown unexpectedly but doesnt know why. i have taken aol off my computer and reloaded it trying to fix it, called aol, had someone here in ky where i live look at it but ive gooten no results in fixing the problem. this guy i had look at it said he thinks its not reading my modem which is on com3. is this possible and my aol dialer still read it and load? can i move my modem to another com such as 1 or 2? if so how do i do that?