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WTF: Windows License

Submitted by ezybzy on

In Commart XGen 2008, there are cheap Windows Licenses for sale. The licenses consist of: Windows Vista Starter, Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows XP Professional/Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Ultimate, and Office 2007 Home & Student.

I am really interested in Windows Vista Ultimate license (even I used to have it license). So I ask dealer with simple question, if I want to reinstall Vista Ultimate x64 on x86 on the same machine but not now which license should I buy. Can you guess what is an answer?

The answer is I must buy 2 licenses of Windows: one of x86, and another of x64! WTF is that? I just reinstall the same OS (not the same binaries) to the same machine. I must not pay another license for the same features thing. Migration isn't easy because OS cloning may cause problems. Unlike Mac OS X Leopard, I buy one license, I can use on Core Duo machine (gets 32-bit OS), Core 2 Duo machine (gets 32/64-bit OS), G4 (gets 32-bit OS), and G5 (gets 32/64-bit). Migration is easier since I can clone OS to another machine and it will automatically detect an appropriate OS environment for each machine to get full performance.

So I choose not to buy Windows Vista Ultimate license right now. If I get a new harddrive, I may reconsider this plan but it is not worth to buy a license that will be useless in a year.