Self employed - which Microsoft licence?

libertino

I do some freelance web design and have to fill in self assessment forms to pay tax (not a registered company or anything if that makes a difference). If I buy Windows or Office do I need to buy a Business licence, or can I just buy Home?

£$&*"($£&(

You don't need a Business version of Windows - that relates to additional business features rather than licencing. The home and student version of Office is apparently not for business use but I'm sure Microsoft aren't worried about one person operations.

kippen_noedel

try Open Office first, it's free, has most of the same functionality, just uses slightly different names. & you can export/save in microsoft compatible formats. If it does what you want, why bother buying a Microsoft package.

http://www.openoffice.org/

[Deleted User]

The Home and Student edition EULA does explicitly state that it can only be used for non-commercial purposes. How you feel about putting yourself and your business in that position is a decision only you can make.

Knub

I assume you mean vista?

Do you have comptuers on a domain? Do you need things like Media Centre/Hard Disk Encryption/ Do you ever use RDP?

Depends on what you need it for . If it's a standalone machine and you just run some software appz from it andn its not connected to a domain - then Windows Home Premium.

If you need options as mentioned above, go Business or Ultimate.

To cover all bases and be sure - you can go Ultimate - more costly tho.

libertino

It's not connected to a domain or anything. Home would do absolutely everything I need it to, what I need to know is if I'd be in breach of its licence by using it on a machine I carry out business on.

I suspected what anewhope said would be the case.

ABH_3

libertino wrote: »

It's not connected to a domain or anything. Home would do absolutely everything I need it to, what I need to know is if I'd be in breach of its licence by using it on a machine I carry out business on.

I suspected what anewhope said would be the case.

Surely it's not that much of an issue, when you consider the number of coroporate laptops that have been released over the last couple of years with 'home' version on them.

Are you in a particular field whereby you NEED to ensure that all your licenses match precisely? As if you're not, just grab the one that will do the job. If you're unsure just grab the one labled 'Business' but all that RDP stuff can be handled by other programs anyway, so it's not necessary to get that involved in choosing an OS is it. If you REALLY feel you've made a mistake and anyone says anything, tell them you're using linux in virtual machine for that part, and using whatever the problem is at home

[Deleted User]

libertino wrote: »

It's not connected to a domain or anything. Home would do absolutely everything I need it to, what I need to know is if I'd be in breach of its licence by using it on a machine I carry out business on.

I suspected what anewhope said would be the case.

For Windows, you can use any edition as it covered in posts above. It's only Office which has that caveat.

Knub

Yeh agreed with anewhope. Windows you cna be on a home premium and that won't cause an issue. No one is going to check that I wouldn't have thought.

Regarding office, probably need the edition for coporate environment. Especially if you are going to be claiming back tax etc.