Licensing issue - upgrade from upgrade

P

PJay

I have a retail upgrade of Visio 2000 (never used) which requires Visio 1 or
later to upgrade from. I was wondering whether I can use this to upgrade to
Visio 2003 (upgrade to upgrade)? My first thought was that this probably
isn't allowed, although it could perhaps be argued that the cost of two
upgrades is roughly the equivalent of a full product. The EULA is unclear on
this.

Since I have always found Microsoft's UK Licensing department refreshingly
and extremely helpful with licencing issues I gave them a ring and asked
this. Their reply was that I wouldn't be able to upgrade this way since I
wouldn't not be able to install Visio 2000 (not that it contraviened the
EULA). They happily pointed out that I could buy a (second hand) copy of and
earlier version of retail Visio and legally transfer the license to install
2000 and use it or upgrade to 2003. No problem really and I assumed that I'd
go down that route.

Today though, just out of interest I ran a Visio 2003 upgrade install and it
validated itself against my retail Viso 2000 upgrade CD (not an installation)
and proceeded to the next step of installation. I quit the installation at
this point and will go no further until I'm clear of my license status (or I
obtain and earlier version of Viso to activate Visio 2000), I am serious
about my software being correctly licensed. I will also contact Microsoft
again to clarify things, but thought that I'd ask here too. Does the fact
that my Visio 2003 upgrade validates itself against a Visio 2000 upgrade
(without asking for previous CDs) mean that it's ok not?

Like I've said, I will check things out with Microsoft myself but will be
interested to hear people's thoughts.
 
P

PJay

Sorry, perhaps something else of interest in this particular case is that the
software required to give upgrade eligibility for the Visio 2000 upgrade is
not Microsoft sofware, Visio versions prior to 2000 were owned by Visio, not
Microsoft.
 
P

PJay

As I thought, Microsoft UK confirmed that I will need the qualifying software
to upgrade to 2000 in order to upgrade to 2003, so I'll go down this route.

Again, the licensing depart were very helpful, well worth giving them a call.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top