The prosecution and penalty for the transfer of an OEM license.

Bree said:

...and the next time you do a clean install, activated by your digital licence? Any possible evidence then? I'm not sure MS have thought this one through...

I don't (and can't) know. However they send some sort of fingerprint based on hardware/software which (presumably) matches what is on their servers.

I mentioned genuineticket.xml before as that is the info they want when you upgrade. I guess they store this and I'd be surprised if your HWID on their server didn't link to details of original system and license.

I'm just speculating of course. Perhaps they don't store it and just throw it away or perhaps genuineticket.xml contains nothing of interest apart from a "this Windows 7 Professional install is valid" y/n flag.

As to the question, ianal but if MS allow it using their documented methods (with no tricks or fiddling) then I guess it must be OK. If they don't know that is their problem and if they do know (which I think is more likely) but don't enforce it that also is their decision.

Business/Academic users have volume agreements and most home users use the version that came pre-installed so the number involved in transferring licenses like this is, I suppose, relatively tiny anyway.

Kari said:

Determine if Windows License Type is OEM, Retail, or Volume | Windows 10 Tutorials

My license is shown as "RETAIL".

Matthew Wai said:

My license is shown as "RETAIL".

Of course it is. All upgrades are shown as RETAIL. That was the point Bree and others have been making.

You should let your heart guide you. If you think it is morally right then do it, if you don't then don't.

I think it is OK as MS would block it if they didn't want people to do it. Therefore as they don't it is implicit permission to do so. Others may disagree and say that as you know the original license was OEM you shouldn't as even though you can it is against the spirit of what you signed up to.

Take your pick - no court in any country ever is going to fine you for transferring a license through means supported by the company that grants the license.

Hi there

@Matthew Wai

I'm not sure if in China any type of license actually works -- I've been in enough cafe's in the "French quarter" of Shanghai where for a few yuan software is available to turn Retail into VL or whatever one wants !!!

Great place though --loved every minute I was there -- can't believe how much money is sloshing around there -- wish some of it would come my way. !!

Hong Kong has slightly more control but not that much more either !!.

Your own conscience must decide these matters - it's very difficult I suppose in a place like China to actually get the provenance of any western software so until the whole copyright and intellectual rights legislation is sorted out then I suppose "anything goes".

Cheers
jimbo

Superfly said:

MS should be a lot more consciencious if they want to stamp out piracy!

Why should they though?

We license it. It is their product. They can do what they want. If I want to move my OEM Windows Seven Ultimate (for which I paid €200 to upgrade from OEM Pro) install to a VM (after calling their hotline) I can. If I then want to move it to a new laptop (after calling them again) I can.

If I upgrade my MacBook bootcamp from 8 to 10 and it doesn't work as running a Windows install requires both VM and native to be licensed then I can call them and they give me a Windows 10 "retail"key that works for both installs simultaneously. That is their choice.

I've never tried to claim for things I'm not entitled to as I don't need to and while it is trivial to get a free hwid license I don't think most people do that.

In short I think it is up to MS what they do - not for us users to judge them in some way. If they want people to run pirate version that is up to them. I don't, and I've spent a lot of money not doing that, but if they don't care to get a larger user base that is up to them. Not you or me.

I'm skirting the forum "don't talk about piracy" rules here. I'm not saying you should, far from it, just it is their product and they can make their decisions as they wish.