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I'm disappointed!................. j/k I'm actually glad that MS is finally letting us know this information.
SourceYou can put your tinfoil hats away now.
Two weeks ahead of the global launch of Windows 10, Microsoft has finalized the terms of its license agreements for the new operating system. I've had several days to study the documents in detail, and I can report that there are no surprises, no gotchas, and no hidden subscription traps waiting to be sprung in two or three or four years.
Sorry to disappoint you, conspiracy theorists.
Microsoft has consistently said that its new "Windows as a service" model doesn't change the basic licensing terms for Windows. Based on these documents, that's still true.
I'm disappointed!................. j/k I'm actually glad that MS is finally letting us know this information.
That is a little confusing though. I thought Microsoft Office was more geared to business then the home user. I could see some issues with that.
- No Commercial Use Rights for Office products. Some Windows 10 editions will include Microsoft Office programs. As with Windows RT, those products are limited to personal and noncommercial use. Businesses need to have an Office 365 Business subscription or assign a perpetual Office license to the device.
Groze, those are the three mobile apps that come with Windows 10, not the Office Desktop Suite.
There have always been several versions of Office, which include Student, Standard, Professional, Professional Plus are just some of the different versions that have been available down through the years. Recently, Student and Standard have been combined to become Home and Student.
Office 365 2016 for non-business use includes Home, Personal and Home and Student. There are three versions for business use which include Business Essentials, Business and Business Premium.
Well at least that puts to rest the question of whether Windows 10 license will be transferable to another device if upgrading from a retail version o 7 or 8.
Yeah, I read the license carefully when upgrading, and it puts a number of things to bed.
1) If you upgrade a retail copy of Windows 7/8.x it remains a retail license, and is transferable.
2) You have full downgrade rights, and you are free to go back to the original version you bough.
3) They've done away with all the "OEM" and what not terms, and now they just say "If your software was pre-installed on the device" or "If you acquired the software from a retailer" (and they make it clear that if you get it from Microsoft directly, such as with MSDN or TechNet, Microsoft is considered the retailer).
4) As expected, you can't dual boot the same license with different versions (or run a virtual machine with the same license). If you are going to dual boot, you legally need 2 separate licenses.
I follow the spirit of the terms but have a little difficulty with 4.
Take the following scenario:-
Assume windows 7 as starting point.
Clone 7 drive - upgrade to 10.
Install both 7 and 10 drives with dual boot with bios on the same machine.
Statement 2 says I am free to return to 7 therefore I boot 7
next time I boot 10 for file transfer etc.
I can see how they can check for standard dual boot systems with 2 partitions /vm but the way I have described depends on the user following the spirit of the licence.
For this reason should you wish to keep 7 use an insider version of 10
Obviously you are not allowed to use the clone or its product key as a basis for upgrading a second system.
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
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.