Microsoft releases new license terms for Windows 10: Biggest surprise?

Berton said:

I take #2 in that list ["2) You have full downgrade rights, and you are free to go back to the original version you bough."} as meaning going back to Win7 w/SP1 or Win8.1 wiping out Win10 in the process, not the meaning of the ability to dual-boot. Two Operating Systems on the same hardware requires 2 licenses.

Correct. Legally speaking, if you are abiding by the license. Technically, it will likely work.

When dual-booting, the situation is that you're only using one license at a time--so if you boot into Win7 you aren't running Win10; if you boot into Win10 you aren't running Win7, etc. I see that as similar to the retail licensing for Windows 7/8--buy the retail license you get the 32-bit & 64-bit versions, both, but only one at a time is licensed for use. Both versions are licensed, but may not be run concurrently. Not really sure how the authorization servers might deal with that, though...

At any rate, unless you're having some kind of Win10 driver-related problems, I see no reason it cannot immediately become your primary OS, rendering dual-booting just an unnecessary headache with no advantages that I can think of. Even if you start out dual-booting you'll soon find yourself spending all of your time on Win10, anyway--and then it's just a simple matter of bypassing the bootmenu and booting straight into Win10 and making use of that partition disk space...A good use for it is as a backup for your Win10 partition...That's what I did when I decided Win10 was stable enough, a few builds back...

groze said:

So am I going to have an issue with my system?

This is all on one hard drive

Partition Primary 1 Windows 7 oem changed to windows 7 retail key (so I wouldn't have to reinstall it)
Partition Primary 2 Windows 7 oem upgraded to windows 10 preview which will become windows 10 release.
Partition Logical 5 Xubuntu
Partition Logical 6 Linux Swap

Sounds good to me Groze, as long as you can keep your head on straight with all those boot options. :)

I did forgot about something when doing a triple boot, updating each operating system takes time. I just hope windows 10 doesn't see the windows 7 retail as a duplicate version. I guess when I exit the insider program I will find out.

waltc said:

When dual-booting, the situation is that you're only using one license at a time--so if you boot into Win7 you aren't running Win10;

For purposes of the EULA, "use" means "install". In fact, they explicitly define this as being installed on a partition of some sort (either physical or virtual).

You cannot have the same license installed to more than place, except as part of a backup. And you can't call dual booting a backup.

I don't want to start a war here, and I'm not pointing fingers either, but I have some problems between technically possible and legally possible.

Microsoft has put $Millions$ into Windows 10 and have allowed us to use it free (warts and all) for almost a year. Further, they have offered a free upgrade to mostly consumers (mostly being a qualifier) from genuine Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.

I am satisfied with that offer and think Microsoft has been very generous with us. I have genuine Windows 8.1 on my four active computers. I have seven genuine licenses to Windows 7 that I am free to use on any computer. I wish I could just give these keys to those who deserve it, but they're nontransferable keys, so I can't.

If one has a computer with Windows 7/8.1 on it and simply upgrades to Windows 10 on July 29, that is legally possible and is in the spirit of Microsoft's offer of the free upgrade and EULA.

If one has a computer with Windows 7/8.1 on it and bypasses Microsoft's EULA (no matter how it's accomplished) in order to use both the original OS and the upgrade to Windows 10, that is technically possible but is not in the spirit of Microsoft's offer of a free upgrade. In fact, there are some, including Microsoft, who would call it downright piracy.

That is why I made the distinction.... I didn't want to imply that it's impossible to do something, because it's not. However, if you want to be legal, then you cannot install the same license on different partitions (and since the Free Windows 10 upgrades your old license, it's still considered the same license, even if the terms are different).

Even if you have multiple keys, that's not multiple licenses.

Mystere said:

That is why I made the distinction.... I didn't want to imply that it's impossible to do something, because it's not. However, if you want to be legal, then you cannot install the same license on different partitions (and since the Free Windows 10 upgrades your old license, it's still considered the same license, even if the terms are different).

Even if you have multiple keys, that's not multiple licenses.

If you have multiple keys you would have a different license for each key and that is allowed. I think you are referring to how windows 10 changes the original key.