It's Official: Move Once, Then Move No More

PC World has spoken to Microsoft about the whole issue of whether or not it's possible to move a Vista license more than once.  The official word is about what you'd expect.

Some of the things in this article made me flinch.

When Windows Vista is available, consumers will be able to transfer the OS license they purchase to only one machine other than the one for which they originally buy Vista, says Shanen Boettcher, a Windows general manager at Microsoft. He says Microsoft thinks the change makes sense because "lifetimes for PCs are getting longer." Most likely, a user will not need to transfer an OS license to more than one computer during the time that OS is the latest one available, Boettcher says.

"It's a fit for what most customers do," he says. Boettcher adds that XP did not have a specific limit for the number of times the license was transferable, but that Microsoft wanted to be "specific" about transfer rights with Vista.

[Side note: Most of the PCs I own have had a lifespan of about three years, including notebooks.  I don't know if that's reflective of the experiences of most users, though.]

I'm going to drill down as far as I can to the heart of the problem.  The way I see it, there are three issues here:

1. Windows users are upset because they can't simply take a Windows license with them from computer to computer with impugnity; they want to know that they have that measure of freedom to do so if they need to.  [Devil's advocate: Windows is licensed by machine and not by user, and the vast majority of the Windows licenses sold are tied to a specific computer as a pre-load.]
2. People who tinker with their machines and re-image them are going to be punished.  [Devil's advocate: The hardware check thresholds for Vista have apparently been loosened a bit in the light of this new restriction, so people who are legitimately binding Vista to one machine with regular hardware upgrades may not have it any worse than they do now.]
3. This will not inhibit piracy in the slightest, because the pirates who want copies of Windows will get them by any means.  [Devil's advocate: We'll see how the new antipiracy measures play out in the real world -- which, admittedly, includes how broadly those restrictions will inconvenience regular users.]

One comment in the PC Today forums was both funny and telling: "Well, I was considering purchasing a copy of Vista Ultimate when it comes out but since I upgrade components in my PC as often as I change my shorts, I will now have to resort to obtaining a "free" version of the OS since it's not a fit for what I do. What a joke to have to permanently bind my $400 copy of Vista to every 2nd motherboard."

Like I was about Product Activation itself, I'm now of two minds once again.  In principle, I hate this idea.  In practice, it's manageable.  And I suspect it'll drive away another flock of people towards open-source ... although my own dalliances with Linux essentially involved trading the onus of Product Activation and the cost of the OS for a raft of other problems that were about as inhibitory towards my work habits, if not more so.

When the final version drops, I'm going to be in touch with some folks who do regular hardware upgrades, and report back on their experiences with it.  As a side note, I suspect the fellow who swaps motherboards regularly could probably work around the problem with phone activation ... but, again, he really shouldn't have to.  Folks like that may be a minority, but they're a vocal minority, and they have a tendency to get other people to jump ship with them.

Microsoft has caved on other things before.  Maybe if we put enough pressure on them and insist that the transfer option be limited to OEM copies of Vista only (i.e., preloads, not OTC editions), it would make sense.  But as it stands, this rule is making too many enemies.

[Postscript: Koroush Ghazi of www.tweakguides.com has a very nice discussion of the subject over at Paul Thurrott's SuperSite -- it's in essence a rebuttal to Paul's own piece on the issue.]