WinXP Upgrade: Licensing question

"Alex Nichol" wrote in message
...
WinGuy wrote:

One thing the chart at the above link doesn't seem to make clear. One
apparently can not "upgrade" an already installed retail "upgrade"
version
of XP-Home with a later newly purchased "upgrade" version of XP-Home
(basically a transfer of license). The original XP-Home retail upgrade CD
seems to be required in that case.

Retail Upgrade CDs are all the same, as are other 'types'; the setup on
them checks to see if the key is valid for that series of CDs. What
you would be doing in such a case anyway would probably just be clearing
the activation, setting out on a new one by phone, and at that point
changing the key; to cancel and then activate on the net. It hardly
comes under the head of Upgrade.


--
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8 bit)

Hiya, Alex.
Yea, what happened in that case was that the owner had an older 98 machine
with retail full 98, which died a well deserved death. Luckily, owner still
had the 98 CD. But bought another custom built computer 2nd hand that had
full version of XP-Home on it, licensed to someone else and it had severe OS
file damage & infection too. Customer wanted license in own name so
previously bought XP-Home retail upgrade before bringing it to me, thinking
it was ok because only wanted to upgrade the license itself, & had opened
package (thus no return to store due to their policy clear on the sales
ticket regardless of the license inside the MS package that says to return
it if you don't want it but which can not be read before opening the
package -- that ought to be illegal). Having wiped infections on the
original I went to apply the new retail upgrade to get the license changed
and repair OS damage, only to get disappointed. There was no real
explanation, but I then figured you just couldn't upgrade retail
anything-version of Home with a new retail upgrade version of Home. Luckily,
customer had that 98 CD so I wiped and did a clean install & used the
customer's 98 CD for eligibility (else customer was out $ for the purchase,
and probably me out for my labor too). Just another of those sad stories
where the fine print was not read (or was not readable or was not
understood) by the customer before a non returnable software purchase was
made. The customer has a bad memory of all this and is, of course, waiting
for Linspire to grow up ... no intent to purchase MS products ever again (uh
huh, I wonder how long that resolve will last!) Maybe I could have cleared
the key, but I couldn't connect without core OS repair first and SFC wasn't
doing it, so there ya go.