Vista’s EULA not so user friendly

One of Vista’s quirks is seemingly becoming the End User License Agreement (EULA) that must be accepted to install Microsoft’s new OS; we’ve all seen the screen that must be accepted to continue installation, but what lies beneath the hundreds of lines of text will certainly surprise you.

Microsoft claims that most users who run Vista under virtualization software are businesses which would be benefited more by Vista Business or Ultimate Vista; with this, Vista Home and Home Premium can not be installed in virtual machines. Users who do install on a virtual machine will not be allowed to play DRM content.

Windows Defender, the antivirus and spyware protection that comes pre-loaded with Vista, may uninstall programs without your permissions if they are found to be potentially high unwanted software. I suggest changing the default setting on this one; this way, you can judge which software should be removed. Most likely, Vista will try to rid your computer of peer-to-peer software and torrent clients unless otherwise disabled. Vista’s EULA clearly states: “By using this software, it is possible that you will also remove or disable software that is not potentially unwanted software.”

Vista holds the right to periodically check the authenticity of the software without the user’s knowledge; not a big deal when everything is legal, but could possibly raise trouble in some legal machines when changes to hardware are detected. 

There’s no love, in Vista, for us techies who decide to change our machine around sporadically. Vista’s software license is attached to your specific machine; If you bought a computer with Vista pre-loaded, you may only used vista legally on that machine. I’ve been complaining about this since XP; where I would change out a hard drive or upgrade a video card only to see — Windows has detected a significant change of hardware on this machine and must be reactivated within 3 days to continue operation.

Windows Vista, by design, downgrades picture quality of HD-DVDs when played on most monitors. Microsoft had to pay to obtain the licenses from 3rd parties to enable HD-DVD and Blu-ray playback, otherwise known as “premium” content. You paid for this when you purchased your copy of Vista; yet, when played on or through certain devices, Vista conducts 30 checks per second to guarantee the security of the media is not being penetrated. This check is known to sap much of your computer’s processing power. 

Aside from the shocking limitations, more common restrictions are set; such as the ability to create only one backup copy and don’t even think about working around any technical restraints by any means. 

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