Acer Windows Vista Licence - Rip-off?

gjchester

mxxx wrote: »

1. Send the machine to them and they will reimage my hard drive at the cost of £71.50
2. Purchase a new licence for Vista and download the drivers from the Acer website.

Minor point but a FULL RETAIL licence for a Microsoft OS CAN be moved from PC to PC, it's only OEM that cannot as others have said.

The OEM licence will have been discounted to ACER on the conditon it lives and dies with the motherboard. Acer will get a discount of course but a OEM licence is usually around half of a full licence cost.

[Deleted User]

mxxx wrote: »

It may be of interest to some of you to know that while digging around this evening I have discovered a solution too, its not for the faint hearted and I imagine has some potential grey areas regarding legality but considering Microsoft state their reason as "The original system builder did not manufacture this new PC, and therefore cannot be expected to support it" I see no reason why I cant do the "supporting" myself.

Essentially this OEM licencing system is called SLIC and consists of a digital signature placed in the BIOS of the motherboard by the manufacturer. The OEM vendor (Acer in this case) then modified the install cd with an XML formatted 'OEM' certificate and a generic OEM pre-activation key. When the OS gets installed the OEM certificate gets validated against the SLIC signature in the BIOS and the software gets activated without having to contact Microsoft.

These OEM certificates and pre-activation keys can be found on various websites around the net (helpful if you loose your restore discs) and can even be applied to a PC after installing windows if you dont want to modify your windows install CD.
The tricky bit is the BIOS signature, however this can be done by either downloading a BIOS for you motherboard or by dumping the existing one to a file, then using a HEX editor to patch in the appropriate SLIC signature (again these can be found online). Then just reflash the BIOS with this new custom edited one, et voila, an OEM activated OS with a non OEM motherboard.

I dont recommend attempting this but I just wanted to share that I had found this was possible.

You could have saved yourself the effort by speaking direct to Microsoft Activation and explaining the situation, the usual process would be to de-activate the original product key and issue a new one to facilitate the repair.

robmar0se

Interesting debate - I have never changed a laptop mainboard with a generic - I always use like for like, and never a problem with coa/activation - having said that I don't think I have done this with Acer.

On Desktops I have frequently on XP used the existing OEM COA, changed the mainboard with often a totally different one (where all other compoents are the same) - never a problem with the COA being rejected and sometimes needing to speak to Microsoft to get it activated - they have never failed to oblige.

I believe it may have something to do with Acer more than MS, maybe their BIOS statement holds some water - I don't like Acers, and I still don't after reading this.

tombruton87

firstly I don't believe your an IT technician, well if you are your not a very good one. As you would have known of this problem, pretty much every pre bought pc is tied to its mobo, if you know way ur doing you can flash the info to it if you have been bright enough to keep the original mobo,

you can also use certain software to make a similar thing to a hp hdd tattoo to do it

Mr_Toad

robmar0se wrote: »

Interesting debate - I have never changed a laptop mainboard with a generic - I always use like for like, and never a problem with coa/activation - having said that I don't think I have done this with Acer.

On Desktops I have frequently on XP used the existing OEM COA, changed the mainboard with often a totally different one (where all other compoents are the same) - never a problem with the COA being rejected and sometimes needing to speak to Microsoft to get it activated - they have never failed to oblige.

I believe it may have something to do with Acer more than MS, maybe their BIOS statement holds some water - I don't like Acers, and I still don't after reading this.

I don't think this type of OEM licence was used with XP, only Vista and Windows 7 but I have to admit I'm not sure.

Acer aren't the only ones. HP, Dell, Sony and Toshiba use SLIC - System Licence Internal Code.

Google for SLIC and SLP - System locked Pre-installation

It's seen as a win win deal. Manufaturers get factory pre-activated PCs which cuts down user activation problems and thus the burden of support and MS get a system that locks the licence to the mobo virtually enforcing the OEM Licensing conditions by preventing the transfer of licences to other PCs.

robmar0se

masonn wrote: »

I don't think this type of OEM licence was used with XP, only Vista and Windows 7 but I have to admit I'm not sure.

Acer aren't the only ones. HP, Dell, Sony and Toshiba use SLIC - System Licence Internal Code.

Google for SLIC and SLP - System locked Pre-installation

It's seen as a win win deal. Manufaturers get factory pre-activated PCs which cuts down user activation problems and thus the burden of support and MS get a system that locks the licence to the mobo virtually enforcing the OEM Licensing conditions by preventing the transfer of licences to other PCs.

I believe that you are correct for SLP 2.0. The original SLP was readily bypassed. Possibly the reason why on XP machines it hasn't really been a problem - it will be on SLP 2.0 (introduced with Vista) but again can be be bypassed with Linux (by that I mean using Linux to obtain the code)

InDebtToEverydayLiving

Terms and Conditions of OEM licencing are broken if you do not use the official recovery discs on the machine which is exactly why when a motherboard is changed for a different one, Acer can pull their support.

Reason being, there are terms and conditions Acer have to meet in order to provide you with a licenced version of Windows whereas using a generic installation media and using Acer's OEM key even though can and 'technically' 'should' work, it shouldn't even be happening because the terms and conditions of the external Windows installation OEM or Retail are different. Simply not licenced if you install this way.

If this is for your own home use you can get away with it but certainly shouldn't be practiced in a commercial environment.

robmar0se

InDebtToEverydayLiving wrote: »

Terms and Conditions of OEM licencing are broken if you do not use the official recovery discs on the machine which is exactly why when a motherboard is changed for a different one, Acer can pull their support.

I don't believe that is true - 2 reasons (i) quite often when original disks aren't provided there is a routine to create yr own - I suppose these could be called "official"; (ii) most repair shops have access to all versions of the OS, and will use whatever is available - however I don't think that most repair shops would recommend changing a laptop board for a "generic" as in this case.

mxxx

tombruton87 wrote: »

firstly I don't believe your an IT technician, well if you are your not a very good one. As you would have known of this problem, pretty much every pre bought pc is tied to its mobo, if you know way ur doing you can flash the info to it if you have been bright enough to keep the original mobo,

you can also use certain software to make a similar thing to a hp hdd tattoo to do it

Why do you feel the need to deride me? I am an IT technician and a very good one at that, its just that most of my experience is in the corporate world where things like this dont crop up. Any honest/decent IT technician will admit that they don't know everything, the world of IT is so diverse and intricate its not possible to know everything, but this is why we ask questions and research things we dont know, to learn.
I was trying to make a small bit of money on the side but obviously if I have to spend out on another Windows licence that will negate any profits (The PC is probably worth less than £100 and i've already spent £35 on a new motherboard). I will have to just stick with a free OS or use my old retail XP licence that im no longer using.

This is a PC not a laptop by the way, just to clear up any confusion people are having about using a generic motherboard. Also this practice isnt carried out with 'pretty much every pre bough pc', as i've said before i've had plenty of experience with previous OEM licences working without the original motherboard. It does make sense that the licence is only legitimately allowed to be used with the original motherboard although Microsofts own licencing agreement for OEM software actually specifies that the licence is tied to the 'system' it doesnt specify the motherboard specifically so its a grey area as to what point it becomes a different system. It makes sense that they would tie it to the motherboard and I think I can now safely call this a valuable learning experience.
Thanks for all the help and advice guys

guitaristanime

tombruton87 wrote: »

firstly I don't believe your an IT technician, well if you are your not a very good one. As you would have known of this problem, pretty much every pre bought pc is tied to its mobo, if you know way ur doing you can flash the info to it if you have been bright enough to keep the original mobo,

you can also use certain software to make a similar thing to a hp hdd tattoo to do it

Pls be nice to all MoneySavers. There's no such thing as a stupid question, and even if you disagree courtesy helps.

Your comment comes across as being slightly offensive, not sure why you feel the need to be harsh towards a poster who is asking a genuine question. At the end of the day I doubt he or anyone else here cares if you 'believe' that he is an IT Technician or not.

If the original mobo was swapped out, it was obviously dead. So why would you assume that you could read the ROM on it? Also HP don't 'tattoo' HDDs they 'tattoo' motherboards, which they do on every board that comes in for repair/replacement -at a cost.