In article om,
writes

Tom Scales wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

Noel Paton wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
The pc is a Compaq Deskpro EP/SB Series, 350Mhz Pentium 2.

I do have a copy of Windows98(SE), but it is an OEM from a Dell
machine. So that would make it even more difficult to put on the
Compaq.

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Not only more difficult - but also illegal!

If the computer is mine, and the software(OS) is mine, then it is
*not*
illegal.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.


Uh, yes it is. Read your license agreement. The Dell OEM OS stays
with the
Dell machine and is not transferable

I don't have to. I know enough to know what is enforceable and what
isn't as far as the law is concerned.

Just because Dell's license agreement says something, doesn't make it
illegal.

If you were to buy a new car, and wanted the wheels from your first put
on your new one, would it be illegal just because the old car's
paperwork said the wheels are not to be used on any other vehicle?

It may invalidate the warrantee, but that is a different issue.

***Dell's goal obviously is to inconvenience the consumer who buys
another brand of pc. That is the reason for difficulty in installing
the Dell version of Windows on a Gateway, Compaq, ect. But I've never
had a problem putting the same OS on another one of my Dell PCs.
Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.



I hesitate to join in this slanging match. However.

You have bought a licence, which has certain conditions attached to it.
Those conditions are enforceable at law under most jurisdictions.

If you buy the freehold on a house, you are almost certain to buy it
with covenants attached. These may say, for arguments sake, that you
cannot erect an advertising hoarding on the land. The covenant will
certainly say that as a condition of sale that these restrictions will
apply to all heirs, successors and other purchasers. If you then build a
hoarding and one of the heirs or successors of the person or company who
originally sold the house and land and imposed the covenant cares to go
to law they will win, unless the covenant can be shown to be grossly
unreasonable.

In the same way Microsoft will have imposed certain conditions on Dell,
over and above those conditions in a retail licence, in granting them a
licence to sell PC's with Windows installed. In exchange the licence
would have been considerably cheaper than the cost of a retail licence,
and Dell will have passed some of that saving onto yourself when you
bought the Dell machine. The licence will require Dell to impose the
conditions on the purchaser of the PC. At law these conditions are
enforceable.

Whether Microsoft or Dell would actually come after you is another
matter, it would depend upon them finding out and whether you were worth
suing. So it might be better to keep schtoom as to what you do in the
privacy of your own home. If I were you and I was in business, then I
would look over my shoulder, from time to time.
--
Nicholas David Richards -

"Où sont les neiges d'antan?"