Licensing: two instances of Windows XP on one machine?

I am a software developer and I want to have two separate instances of
Windows XP Pro on the same machine but on two different bootable hard
drives. Does a normal single license allow me to do this? Will I run into
problems when I try to activate the 2nd instance? Anyone know for sure?

Thanks

You must purchase a second license for Windows XP if
you wish to install Windows XP on a second drive.

You are only permitted to install one (1) copy of Windows XP
on one (1) computer using the Product Key (license). Additional
installations on the same PC require their own unique Product Key.

Please read your End-User License Agreement by going
to Start > Run and type: WINVER , and hit enter. Then
click on "End-User License Agreement".

If you already have a retail copy of Windows XP, you can obtain
additional licenses for another computer or laptop by visiting the
following Microsoft Web site:
http://shop.microsoft.com/special/wal/walinfo.asp

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Rick" wrote:

| I am a software developer and I want to have two separate instances of
| Windows XP Pro on the same machine but on two different bootable hard
| drives. Does a normal single license allow me to do this? Will I run into
| problems when I try to activate the 2nd instance? Anyone know for sure?
|
| Thanks

OK, thanks. That's what I suspected.

"Carey Frisch [MVP]" <cnfrisch@nospamgmail.com> wrote in message
news:O8M73td8FHA.472@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> You must purchase a second license for Windows XP if
> you wish to install Windows XP on a second drive.
>
> You are only permitted to install one (1) copy of Windows XP
> on one (1) computer using the Product Key (license). Additional
> installations on the same PC require their own unique Product Key.
>
> Please read your End-User License Agreement by going
> to Start > Run and type: WINVER , and hit enter. Then
> click on "End-User License Agreement".
>
> If you already have a retail copy of Windows XP, you can obtain
> additional licenses for another computer or laptop by visiting the
> following Microsoft Web site:
> http://shop.microsoft.com/special/wal/walinfo.asp
>
> --
> Carey Frisch
> Microsoft MVP
> Windows - Shell/User
> Microsoft Community Newsgroups
> news://msnews.microsoft.com/
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Rick" wrote:
>
> | I am a software developer and I want to have two separate instances of
> | Windows XP Pro on the same machine but on two different bootable hard
> | drives. Does a normal single license allow me to do this? Will I run
> into
> | problems when I try to activate the 2nd instance? Anyone know for sure?
> |
> | Thanks
>

"Rick" wrote:
> I am a software developer and I want to have two separate instances
> of Windows XP Pro on the same machine but on two different bootable
> hard drives. Does a normal single license allow me to do this? Will I
> run into problems when I try to activate the 2nd instance? Anyone know
> for sure?


Just make a clone of the 1st copy - the clone will run in the same PC
as if it were the the 1st copy. As a matter of fact, the clone won't even
know it's a clone, and neither will Microsoft. You can dual-boot between
them, and since the 2 systems will be on separate drives, you don't even
have to involve dual-booting and the extra entries in the 2 boot.ini files -
just change the HD boot order in the BIOS, and the HD that you put at the
head of the list will boot. This will be a technical violation of Microsoft's
EULA, but no intelligent person, including Microsoft, believes that anyone
would buy a 2nd license for such usage or that a proscription against
such usage is even enforceable.

As with all clones of Win2K/NT/XP, don't let the clone see the "parent"
OS when you start it up for the 1st time - it would set pointers to files in
the "parent" that you wouldn't know about until you removed the "parent"
at a later date, and you subsequently found that some files were "missing"
from the clone. But after you start the clone in isolation from its "parent",
the clone may subsequently be started in the presence of its "parent" OS
and the "parent" partition will merely be seen as another Local Disk with
an accessible file structure. Note that the "parent" may be started with the
newly-made clone visible to it, and no such pointers will be set. It's just that
the *clone* must have its 1st startup isolated from its "parent" OS.

*TimDaniels*

"Rick" wrote:
>I am a software developer and I want to have two separate instances
> of Windows XP Pro on the same machine but on two different bootable
> hard drives. Does a normal single license allow me to do this? Will I run
> into problems when I try to activate the 2nd instance? Anyone know for
> sure?


If it has been more than 120 days (i.e. 4 months) since the last
activation, it will all go automatically with no questions asked. If it
has been less that 120 days since your copy was last installed, you
will have to call Microsoft and explain to the drone that your 1st
installation "got corrupted" and he will allow activation of your new
installation. If your old installation continues to exist, the drone has
no way of knowing. Apparently, Microsoft doesn't want to keep install-
ation records for more than 4 months, and it realizes that installations
*do* get corrupted, and hard drives *do* fail, and people *do* change
motherboards from time to time, and Microsoft's purpose is to thwart
pirates who make hundreds or thousands of copies of a single
installation CD.

*TimDaniels*

If you cannot provide an honest response to a question,
please do not post at all. Your suggestions are all fraudulent
and blantantly violate the End User License Agreement.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User


"Timothy Daniels" irresponsibly wrote:

> If it has been more than 120 days (i.e. 4 months) since the last
> activation, it will all go automatically with no questions asked. If it
> has been less that 120 days since your copy was last installed, you
> will have to call Microsoft and explain to the drone that your 1st
> installation "got corrupted" and he will allow activation of your new
> installation. If your old installation continues to exist, the drone has
> no way of knowing. Apparently, Microsoft doesn't want to keep install-
> ation records for more than 4 months, and it realizes that installations
> *do* get corrupted, and hard drives *do* fail, and people *do* change
> motherboards from time to time, and Microsoft's purpose is to thwart
> pirates who make hundreds or thousands of copies of a single
> installation CD.
>
> *TimDaniels*

Tim's absolutely correct. I understand the position the MVPs have to take
since they speak for MS and must, as a matter of policy, provide a strict
interpretation of the EULA. But it's possible to be totally correct *and*
totally absurd at the same time.

The idea that having essentially cloned your XP partition to another HD, or
even the same HD, would require yet another license is TOTALLY ABSURD.
Think about this for 2 nanoseconds and you realize that based on such a
strict interpretation of the EULA, even making a BACKUP COPY of the
partition is *technically* a violation! Or, using the strictest
interpretation, is MS claiming that in order not to violate the terms of the
EULA a copy of the partition must otherwise be inoperable, such as imaged,
compressed, etc.?

Make all the damn copies/clones of the XP partition you want and need.
Heck, a HD change doesn't even affect activation, and for good reason, MS
support would be bombarded w/ calls. Good grief, you can only have one
instance booted at any given time, and only one user can be sitting at the
keyboard at any given time, the idea that ANY of this would require
additional licensing or is somehow shortchanging MS in any way is
preposterous.

Heck, I'm pissed off enough already that I have to have two licenses of XP,
one for my laptop, which I only use on the road, and the other on my desktop
(in which case, the laptop remains dormant). Seems entirely appropriate at
these OS prices that the typical consumer should be allowed at least ONE
extra license for such circumstances. But to think the activation/licensing
process could reach the point that merely copying/cloning to the same or
additional HD would be a violation, plzzzzzzz, let's get real. No court,
judge or juror would ever convict you, no matter WHAT the EULA says.

As they say at Nike, just do it

Jim




"Timothy Daniels" <TDaniels@NoSpamDot.com> wrote in message
news:BJudnXd3a6ha7RreRVn-pQ@comcast.com...
> "Rick" wrote:
> >I am a software developer and I want to have two separate instances
> > of Windows XP Pro on the same machine but on two different bootable
> > hard drives. Does a normal single license allow me to do this? Will I
run
> > into problems when I try to activate the 2nd instance? Anyone know for
> > sure?
>
>
> If it has been more than 120 days (i.e. 4 months) since the last
> activation, it will all go automatically with no questions asked. If it
> has been less that 120 days since your copy was last installed, you
> will have to call Microsoft and explain to the drone that your 1st
> installation "got corrupted" and he will allow activation of your new
> installation. If your old installation continues to exist, the drone has
> no way of knowing. Apparently, Microsoft doesn't want to keep install-
> ation records for more than 4 months, and it realizes that installations
> *do* get corrupted, and hard drives *do* fail, and people *do* change
> motherboards from time to time, and Microsoft's purpose is to thwart
> pirates who make hundreds or thousands of copies of a single
> installation CD.
>
> *TimDaniels*

My response was *entirely* truthful and honest, and I posted
in the interest of accuracy. That you adhere to absurdity in
name of "honesty" is your own perversion of the term. Reality
is reality, and the EULA in some of its facets is simply unreal.

*TimDaniels*


"Carey Frisch [MVP]" pissed and fumed:
> If you cannot provide an honest response to a question,
> please do not post at all. Your suggestions are all fraudulent
> and blantantly violate the End User License Agreement.
>
> --
> Carey Frisch
> Microsoft MVP
> Windows XP - Shell/User
>
>
> "Timothy Daniels" irresponsibly wrote:
>
>> If it has been more than 120 days (i.e. 4 months) since the last
>> activation, it will all go automatically with no questions asked. If it
>> has been less that 120 days since your copy was last installed, you
>> will have to call Microsoft and explain to the drone that your 1st
>> installation "got corrupted" and he will allow activation of your new
>> installation. If your old installation continues to exist, the drone has
>> no way of knowing. Apparently, Microsoft doesn't want to keep install-
>> ation records for more than 4 months, and it realizes that installations
>> *do* get corrupted, and hard drives *do* fail, and people *do* change
>> motherboards from time to time, and Microsoft's purpose is to thwart
>> pirates who make hundreds or thousands of copies of a single
>> installation CD.
>>
>> *TimDaniels*
>

"Jim" <null@null.com> wrote:
> Tim's absolutely correct. I understand the position the MVPs
> have to take since they speak for MS and must, as a matter
> of policy, provide a strict interpretation of the EULA....

Carey Frisch is a maverick, a loose cannon among MVPs,
some of which have posted in these very Microsoft newsgroups
that prohibition of clones for use *in the same PC* is a bit much.
Simply ignore her.

*TimDaniels*

It's obvious you have no regard for licensing
agreements...how hypocritical and sad.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/