Rome Total War for the Mac

[Banquo's Ghost]

Um, you do know that you don't need to keep buying Windows, right? I've been using the same copy of Windows XP for years. Skipping Vista entirely. If Windows 7 lives up to its beta potential, I might buy it. Might. That's one Windows purchase every five years. (And in fairness, the version of XP that I have came from a company I worked for; they had a dual-use license with Msoft, so it would be more like one Windows purchase every ten years.)

Well, you won't be surprised to find out that's news to me.

I thought the licensing for XP said you could only use it on one machine and that when it phones home for validation, it checks your hardware - if it's changed, the OS doesn't work? Are you allowed to use a company version?

[Lemur]

Banquo, it depends on what license your company has with Microsoft. Ask your IT wonk. Ours had a "dual use" license where every edition of Office and Windows could be legitimately used by the staff on their home machines as well.

XP does not check your hardware and decide whether or not you've replaced too much ram or changed your vidcard too often. At least, the corporate version doesn't. I can't speak with authority about XP Home having never used it.

Seriously, talk to your IT guy and see what's legit. You'd be surprised what's legal and available. (They may even have old, unused XP licenses. In my experience they will usually give you those if you engage in the ninja tactic known as "asking nicely.")

[Xiahou]

Banquo, it depends on what license your company has with Microsoft. Ask your IT wonk. Ours had a "dual use" license where every edition of Office and Windows could be legitimately used by the staff on their home machines as well.

XP does not check your hardware and decide whether or not you've replaced too much ram or changed your vidcard too often. At least, the corporate version doesn't. I can't speak with authority about XP Home having never used it.

Those corporate versions of XP are lovely. For the rest of the Microserfs out there, I think XP will indeed throw up if too much hardware changes and require reactivation.

For Banquo, whether he needs to buy a new copy of XP with every new Mac depends on what kind of XP license he was buying. If it was your standard, off the shelf, copy of XP- you should be fine reinstalling it on your new PC. If it was an OEM version, the license is tied to your specific hardware and can't be transferred. If you just ran out to the store and bought it, chances are it's transferrable... I think. (Read more here)

[Banquo's Ghost]

Thank you both for your advice. Much appreciated - I will see what happens when I get a new machine. If XP doesn't transfer, I'll live.

Lemur, my "company" uses Macs across the estates, so no joy there.

[Lemur]

Well, for what it's worth the OS X license is way more permissive than the Windows license, so you should be very well situated for Macs for some time to come. If you want to upgrade your "estate" Macs you can even pick up a family license that has (effectively) unlimited use.

If your version of XP was store-bought, you should be fine. Even if it does some validation stuff and does not like your new MacBook, a quick call to Microsoft should clear the issue up. Unless the license it tied to some piece of hardware you should be able to de-authorize one machine and load it onto your new one.