Microsoft's funny licensing terms

I have a Dell inspiron 1520 Laptop, with OEM version of Windows vista home premium (32-bit). . I decided to add up some additional memory to a year old laptop to keep it up to speed. Well the problem was, I already had 2 GB RAM, and I have 32 version, which supports only up to 3.2 GB RAM. So I had decided to upgrade my OS to 64-bit which supports way more RAM. I saw on a Microsoft web site that I can get a 64-bit version of the OS which I already own, if I am ready to pay for the shipping charges. So, I happily called customer care to inquire about the offer. I came to know that that is not applicable for the OEM versions. The OEM version owners will have to get a retail packaged version of windows Vista 64-bit, if I need 64 bit. (What the hell)... So, in essence, I will have to pay for the same operating system twice.. How nice??? It really aggravates me. While there are other operating systems which are free, for this OS, I am paying extra money to get it pre-installed in my computer, still I have to pay some money for getting the 64-bit version of the same product. Microsoft and their strict licensing terms really hurts the genuine customers. All the pirates really benefit out of these. They can install whatever version they want, but still we, the genuine owners will have to stick to their "flavor" of vista, in whatever architecture I have bought. Even If I am ready to pay more money, I will not get what I want. That's Microsoft for us..

I was a big fan of Microsoft so far for their extremely friendly os. I have been using microsoft products since they have released Windows 3.11 for workgroups. (Yes! that's true!), Now I am seriously considering other open source operating systems because of this. Seriously Now I am feeling bad for choosing Vista. VISTA doesen't really suck, It is the stupid Licensing terms which really SUCKS!!!!


So far I have tried solaris in virtual machine, and it works like a charm, I have decided to move to any LINUX distro which supports my graphics card (8600 GS)









Disclaimer: Whatever mentioned in this blog is purely my opinion about the company. Microsoft is registered trademark of microsoft corp, US., All other copyrighted words belong to the respective copyright owners.