Selling computer with ms software?

cattie

I hope I've put this in the right place as it seemed the most applicable board.

I'm planning on selling a computer in the not too distant future. I plan to reformat the drive & reinstall the operating stystem in an attempt to remove my personal data from the hard drive. The computer will be sold complete with the XP installation disk that I have.

One of the things I'm wondering about is whether I would be permitted to sell the computer with microsoft software on it, say Word? I don't want to get in trouble with the biggies at MS for breaking licensing rules or that kind of stuff.

It's just that I'm probably going to Ebay the comuter & know I'll get a better price if some decent software is installed on it. I just need to know I'll be doing it all legit.

bluenoseam

i would be more worried about the personal data that "formating" the drive would leave on there, a format does not wipe out all the data, that requires secondary programs to "sandblast" the drives of your personal data. I doubt anyone would pay any extra for MS software given the fact there are free alternatives which offer exactly the same functionality.

DatabaseError

you should have no problem selling the PC with any software installed, as long as you supply the relevant keys for the software, and don't use any copies elsewhere.

dispossessed

Perfectly legal (within the EU. ) to sell a computer that includes the operating system (and the O/S disk if it came with one).

Trevor

closed

wipe free space with ccleaner after reinstalling windows to prevent recovery of your data

asc99c

There is a smaller single-purpose program from Microsoft themselves, SDelete (secure delete):
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897443.aspx

You'll need to use the command line but it's simple enough:
sdelete -z c:

where -z means clean free space.

Hammyman

cattie wrote: »

I hope I've put this in the right place as it seemed the most applicable board.

I'm planning on selling a computer in the not too distant future. I plan to reformat the drive & reinstall the operating stystem in an attempt to remove my personal data from the hard drive. The computer will be sold complete with the XP installation disk that I have.

One of the things I'm wondering about is whether I would be permitted to sell the computer with microsoft software on it, say Word? I don't want to get in trouble with the biggies at MS for breaking licensing rules or that kind of stuff.

It's just that I'm probably going to Ebay the comuter & know I'll get a better price if some decent software is installed on it. I just need to know I'll be doing it all legit.

You can only install MS Word etc on it if it has a licence and the licence is included with the computer. If there's no licence sticker with it and it wasn't bundled with the computer when you bought it AND you don't supply the original recovery discs or it doesn't have a recovery partition on the hard drive then you cannot legally sell it as having Microsoft Word or whatever on.

Also the same applies with Windows. If there is not a LEGIBLE certificate of authenticity applied to the machine you cannot legally sell it with the OS on.

And in my experience of selling 100's of laptops on Ebay, you do not get a better price for it having MS Office on as most people assume its a hookey version anyway.

googler

cattie wrote: »

I plan to reformat the drive & reinstall the operating stystem in an attempt to remove my personal data from the hard drive.

The computer will be sold complete with the XP installation disk that I have.

One of the things I'm wondering about is whether I would be permitted to sell the computer with microsoft software on it, say Word?

The software won't be on it once you've formatted the disk. Unless you plan on re-loading Office as well as Windows from your disks ..... installing Windows does not install MS Office.

JJ_Egan

Also the same applies with Windows. If there is not a LEGIBLE certificate of authenticity applied to the machine you cannot legally sell it with the OS on.

Unless the OP has original retail discs though probabilities is the usual OEM hidden partition job .
Likewise for Office .

jje

cattie

I have the original XP operating system disks to which the COE on the computer relates to, so know I have no problem there.

I do have 2 different legit editions of MS office so was thinking of installing the older one on the comuter after the format & other cleansing method needed to try to destroy my personal data is completed.

fuzzgun19

I have a PC that I bought from an independent computer shop in my town a few years ago. It didn't come with any OS, and I used a family members legit copy of an XP upgrade to go on it.

I'm thinking of selling this PC on ebay, If I formatted it/cleaned the free space, would it still sell with no OS on it?