operating system sharing

[Fireball JaX]

I I bought windows 7 home premium for my desktop. Am I allowed to used the same disc and product key and install it on my laptop or is this illegal. Are you restricted to one disc per computer?

[n00bz0rd2]

The standard version of Windows is usually a single license copy. So it's only 1 computer at a time.

That being said, you can technically install it again on another machine and use the same key, but obviously would be illegal.

[Mr_Flash]

one licence key per computer unless it's a volume licence key

[Brydo666]

If it's an OEM copy it'll fail to activate on another machine.

[Over Carl]

If it's an OEM copy it'll fail to activate on another machine.

Soz do you mind if I pick your head on this for a moment?

I know a dell oem in my mum's sony won't automatically activate using the serial of the dell. Do you know if it would activate if I rang up?

Also when you say it will fail to activate on another machine, do you mean on different make hardware or do you mean once it's installed it gets tied to a pc?

[Brydo666]

Soz do you mind if I pick your head on this for a moment?

I know a dell oem in my mum's sony won't automatically activate using the serial of the dell. Do you know if it would activate if I rang up?

Also when you say it will fail to activate on another machine, do you mean on different make hardware or do you mean once it's installed it gets tied to a pc?

I think if you phone it's just an automated version on the process online... if you spoke to someone they would likely say the serials already registered with another machine.

A lot of OEM discs don't prompt for a serial as it is tied with the motherboard, Dell works this way.

[Possy_99]

when you activate the first time, I believe some kind of record of your hardware will be taken - any consequent activation request on different hardware will fail.. I'm pretty sure m$ would have thought about stuff like this.

at the end of the day, 99% of home users will only be licensed to use their installations on 1 pc.. sure, you can use the disk again and again - but expect it to fail when it tries to activate..

..if you want to use the disk/serial over and over - do a search for for the latest loader ('win7 loader') in the usual places.. but then as mentioned above, it will be a pirate version, the only way you can use serials over and over again is to buy a mega-bucks volume license or run a pirate copy.

[Fireball JaX]

thanks for the info guys.