Upgrade Your Computer Often? Don't Buy Vista...

Why?  Well let me tell you a little story first.

I upgrade my personal PC quite often.  Every few months I may add a little something like more memory, an upgraded video card, sound card, DVD writer.  Every 12 to 18 months I'll replace something more significant like the CPU or motherboard.

It's these last two items that are going to cause a problem.  It's also these last two items that PC enthusiasts will change often enough that they will be required to purchase a brand new copy of Vista.

WHAT!?

According to an article posted today on CNet News.com titled "Microsoft limits Vista transfers", Microsoft is making changes to the licensing terms when you purchase a copy of Vista that would require, and FORCE you to purchase a new copy of Vista if you attempt to transfer your copy of Vista to more than 1 PC.

So follow along here...

1. In January 2007, I purchase or build a new PC and buy a shiny new copy of Vista Home Premium for about $200CDN.
2. In January 2008, I upgrade my motherboard and CPU, and reinstall my purchased copy of Vista. 
   So far so good!
3. In January 2009, I convert this PC to be a server on my home network.  I uninstall Vista on that machine.
4. I then purchase or build a new PC and try to install my purchased copy of Vista.

Whammo!

I've been running the same version of Windows XP Pro that I received at the Microsoft PDC 2001 conference.  That copy has served me well over these last 5 years.  I've gone through 3 or 4 different systems with it already.  If I was using Vista, I'd have to shell out another $200 for the privilege.

That would put me at a total purchased OS cost of $400 which is about the same as a new copy of Windows XP Pro.  So maybe things will equal out?  I just don't like the idea of finding out late one night that I need to go out and purchase a new copy of Vista when I'm in the middle of a reinstall.

What complicates matters further is that if I continue to use Microsoft Virtual PC to have a virtual test environment set up to test applications I'm building, and I need to install Vista one it, that will count as my 1 transfer!  That'll basically mean I wont be able to use a Virtual PC version of Vista for testing.

Microsoft had better change that.

[2006.10.29 - Update]

Saw this on bit-tech.net:

"Should you change the hard drive and another piece of hardware - for example for a major upgrade such as a motherboard change that requires a re-installation - Microsoft will allow you to re-activate up to 10 times. You will not, however, be able to have more than one machine activated concurrently."

That sounds more reasonable for my desktop PC, but doesn't solve my problem with Virtual PC.  I expect MS will make some kind of allowance for VPC users to be able to do something like this... but I've not seen or heard anything yet.