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The Vista license “loophole” that isn’t

Time: 11:52 EST/16:52 GMT | News Source: ZDNet | Posted By: Kenneth van Surksum

Software licensing is often hard to understand. But that’s no excuse for so-called Windows experts to deliberately publish sensational stories that turn the facts upside-down.

I’m talking about the fuss that Scott Dunn and Brian Livingston kicked up in yesterday’s version of the Windows Secrets newsletter, in which Dunn breathlessly proclaimed the existence of an “upgrade hack” in Windows Vista that “allows end users to purchase the ‘upgrade edition’ and install it on any PC — with no need to purchase the more expensive ‘full edition.’”

The story sucked in Computerworld’s Eric Lai as well, who parroted the newsletter’s argument that Microsoft is “[giving] its tacit blessing for consumers to exploit a technical loophole that allows them to upgrade to Vista with Service Pack 1, even if they don’t own the necessary prior editions of Windows.”