Microsoft Corp. yesterday unveiled a second promotional deal for Windows Vista consumer and small business users, allowing them to buy additional licenses at a 10% discount over the suggested list price and upgrade as many as five more PCs.
The new Windows Vista Additional License program targets customers who obtained Vista at retail -- either the full or upgrade version -- or preinstalled on a PC and lets them buy up to five additional identical licenses at 10% off. Users running Vista Home Premium on a new PC, for instance, are eligible only for more copies of Ultimate. Customers can't move up or down the Vista version scale.
Under the new plan, an extra license for Home Premium costs $143 (upgrade) or $215 (full versions) in the U.S. List prices for those editions are $159 and $236, respectively. Other versions are priced accordingly.
These new prices, however, are only slightly lower than those at large online retailers such as Amazon -- where Home Premium sells for $149.99 for the upgrade and $219.99 for the full version -- and are actually higher than the OEM versions sold online at discount stores like Newegg.com. At Newegg, for example, Home Premium OEM sells for $119.99.
Online retailers also currently sell sans-media Additional License Packs: a license for another PC. On Amazon.com, a Home Premium upgrade pack costs $137.99, which is $12 less than Amazon charges for a separate Premium upgrade and $5 less than Microsoft's new program. When users buy one of these packs, they use their existing Vista DVD to install the operating system on the new machine.
If the company blog that touts the program is any indication, Microsoft is just as interested in making sure users pay for every copy of Vista as in discounting extra licenses. Nick White, the Vista product manager who spelled out the plan, expended 40% of the entry on reminding customers of Vista's licensing requirements and the penalties for noncompliance.
"Windows Vista requires 1 license per device," White said. "When attempting to install and activate the same licensed copy of Windows Vista on another PC, activation won't work. When the activation fails, the user is directed to purchase additional licenses online or by phone. Remember, not properly activating Windows Vista will lead to it running in reduced functionality mode, so this new program is a handy way to avoid that situation."
After paying, customers receive additional product keys, and then use their existing Vista installation DVD to install the extra copies on their other PCs, much as they already could on a single system using Anytime Upgrade.
The additional license program -- the second promotion Microsoft has introduced for the new operating system -- is Family Discount. That offer lets buyers of Ultimate, either the upgrade or full version, purchase one or two Home Premium licenses for $49.99 each.