If you're on an Windows XP or Vista box and live in the U.S...

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Thu, 24 Mar 2011 18:59:16 -0400, Nick Sabalausky <a at a.a> wrote:

> "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:op.vsvckfcpeav7ka at steve-laptop...
>> On Thu, 24 Mar 2011 18:02:05 -0400, Jonathan M Davis  
>> <jmdavisProg at gmx.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Given that the other posts list XP with having 23:00 on the day before
>>> rather
>>> than at 00:00 for the dates in the middle, it looks like XP has the  
>>> same
>>> behavior as XP. However, it looks like whatever time zone you have your
>>> computer in (if it's really the same as New York, it would Eastern
>>> Daylight
>>> Time at the moment) is not actually EST/EDT proper (either that or the
>>> two
>>> other posts with XP are on SP3 while you're on SP2 and changes were  
>>> made
>>> in
>>> SP3 which affect the Windows functions being called). Glancing at the
>>> list of
>>> Windows time zones though, I don't see any cities which would currently
>>> would
>>> be in normal Eastern time but would have been in a slightly different
>>> time
>>> zone (e.g. no DST) prior to 2007. I _thought_ that some of Indiana was
>>> that
>>> way, but if so, they didn't get a special time zone for it in Windows.
>>
>> IIRC, there was a large problem when the time zone changes were enacted
>> for XP.  I remember originally Microsoft was NOT going to update XP  
>> unless
>> you wanted to pay them some ridiculous amount (something like $10k) for  
>> a
>> patch.  However, there were numerous tools that could be used to edit  
>> the
>> time zone information.
>>
>> So they eventually did update XP (must be they got raided by the common
>> sense police).  I would highly suspect that Nick's system isn't updated
>> since it's at SP2 (I'm pretty sure the original SP2 was pre- the  
>> timezone
>> changes) and Microsoft typically stops releasing patches for an older
>> service pack when a new one comes out.
>>
>> Nick, you really should update to SP3, there literally is no down side,
>> except the time it takes to update, and then apply the subsequent  
>> patches
>> that have been released since SP3.
>>
>
> Hypothetically speaking, if a person was on an unauthorized version of XP
> SP2, then they would be blocked from installing SP3 (since the SP3 update
> requires validation that it's a legitimate copy of XP). Since MS no  
> longer
> offers legitimate copies of XP and the Windows licenses are
> non-transferable, such an immoral person would, as far as I'm aware, be
> stuck with SP2.
>
> Hypothetically speaking, of course.

What do you mean "non-transferrable"?  Full genuine copies of XP are  
transferrable, as long as you deactivate the original copy.

Also, XP Pro upgrades are installable over Windows 2000.  I have a windows  
2000 disc and an XP pro upgrade disc that I used to enable XP-mode on my  
Windows 7 home edition system (not the pro version of windows 7).  The  
copy has SP3 installed without issue.

OEM copies are not transferrable, but those will only work on the vendor's  
BIOS key anyways.  So they are "technically" transferrable to another  
system with the same vendor, but I don't think the license officially  
permits it.  It also might fail the genuine test.  I suspect if you used  
the key from the original computer when validating the genuine-ness of the  
system (assuming that computer is no longer active), it should work.

The answer is, you don't know until you try.  However, I would highly  
recommend making an image backup of your system if you do ;)

-Steve