I am a student at the university of washington, the cheapest copy of windows xp is 89 dollars. I have heard others getting it for like 10 bucks with their student discount? Am I missing something here? How are ppl getting for so cheap?
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Cheap legal copies of windows xp
- Thread starter breakfastcrew
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mkrishnan
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Microsoft and other companies engage in a process called site licensing. Say your university upgrades 800 computers from Windows 2k to XP and from Office 2000 to Office 2003. They don't buy 800 boxed copies. And they don't want to have to buy five more copies for the next five computers they get. So they sign a site license which basically covers all of their operations based on estimates of how many seats there will be. This has gone on for many years.
In more recent years, MS and others started extending site licenses so that the institutions could add home use by their people onto their license for a nominal per user fee. This was a big perk for the universities and institutions, because they got to offer $10 copies of Windows XP to their users. It was a great perk to users, because they got software on the cheap, with liberal limitations (basically, that $10 copy is no good for resale, and sometimes cannot be used after one leaves the institution, although I think in MS's case, that is not true. But at $10, who cares? 😉 ).
That's the system under which others are getting Windows XP for $10 or $15. Whether it is available to you is purely based on wether U-Dub decided to negotiate for this with MS as part of their deal to use MS products on campus.
Go to your bookstore, and ask if home use site licenses for XP are available. If they are, they're probably substantially cheaper.
If they're not, your only real recourse is to write to your IT or administration and complain about it. 🙁
EDIT: Sorry, clearly spent too much time being verbose. 😉
In more recent years, MS and others started extending site licenses so that the institutions could add home use by their people onto their license for a nominal per user fee. This was a big perk for the universities and institutions, because they got to offer $10 copies of Windows XP to their users. It was a great perk to users, because they got software on the cheap, with liberal limitations (basically, that $10 copy is no good for resale, and sometimes cannot be used after one leaves the institution, although I think in MS's case, that is not true. But at $10, who cares? 😉 ).
That's the system under which others are getting Windows XP for $10 or $15. Whether it is available to you is purely based on wether U-Dub decided to negotiate for this with MS as part of their deal to use MS products on campus.
Go to your bookstore, and ask if home use site licenses for XP are available. If they are, they're probably substantially cheaper.
If they're not, your only real recourse is to write to your IT or administration and complain about it. 🙁
EDIT: Sorry, clearly spent too much time being verbose. 😉
are there limitations to these copies? Can I say ask my friend to buy one for me so I can install it on my computer and use it till the end of days?
The thread isn't "going" anywhere, just answering your question. You were asking about "cheap, legal" Windows, and the answer is that getting a friend to buy a $10 student copy is basically just as illegal as outright pirating it, so it's a waste of $10.
The cheapest you're likely to get it legally is the student discount at your own University--if that's $89 for a full, non-upgrade copy, that's a pretty good deal, actually, and unlike those $10 site license copies, you probably don't have to delete it as soon as you graduate, so in a way it's better.
The cheapest you're likely to get it legally is the student discount at your own University--if that's $89 for a full, non-upgrade copy, that's a pretty good deal, actually, and unlike those $10 site license copies, you probably don't have to delete it as soon as you graduate, so in a way it's better.