31 Jul
2012
31 Jul
'12
10:21 a.m.
On Tue, 31 Jul 2012, Scott Quinn wrote:
<snip>
It gets worse, actually. Some of these "refurbishers" take in /all/
computers, including those which are non-pc and older PCs that cannot run
modern versions of Microsoft Windows. Microsoft then requires as part of
their "license" that they destroy/scrap all equipment which can't handle
Windows 7 or newer (they won't allow them to reinstall older versions of
Microsoft Windows on the PCs).
I found out about this last year when I confronted one of these "nonprofit
refurbishers". From what I gathered, their business model is a racket and
they are actually making money from selling electronics scrap. In effect
they are no different from a scrap dealer, except that they are tax
exempt.
...and yes, they were destroying non-PC gear and older PCs alike. Anything
As long as you
have the certificate of authenticity for copies of
MS-DOS, you can continue to ship product using that operating system.
You would think so, wouldn't you, but as I said before Microsoft is
being very creative. The software that you're talking about is unused,
possibly retail or possibly OEM, but in any case the license has not
been attached so it can be used on any device (for OEM, provided that
the equipment is new). You would think that an OEM license, since it is
attached permanently to the hardware, would transfer with the hardware,
right? You would think that presenting the certificate of authenticity
or other evidence that the hardware was licensed would be enough to show
a license, right? Not so fast. from a C64 or Apple II, VAX, to IBM 5150s or even old
P200s (I still use
many P200/Socket 7 type systems, which is why I even began
checking into
what they were doing with these old computers). Basically, if it wasn't a
late generation P4 or newer that could handle Windows 7, it was scrap.