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May. 2nd, 2008 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI finally got an account number for my new grant!
That means that I get to start buying stuff now. Like computers. We've been anxiously hovering over our e-mail, waiting to hear from the Business Office, because the word is that starting June 1st you won't be able to buy a PC with Windows XP on it anymore. And I'm damned if I'm going to run Vista.
On my shopping list: a desktop and a laptop for me. A desktop for Steve, who is my right-hand man on this grant. 24-inch monitors for both of us. I've got $3000 budgeted for "office supplies" - that buys an awful lot of file folders and pens. Let's see... a cashbox. Thumb drives. Software? A fun twirly office-supplies organizer? Some of the supplies money will have to go for postage, thanks to a fairly ridiculous IRB call.
I have no idea how to spend $3000 on office supplies. What a lovely problem to have.
(Sorry, don't mind me. This is the first time I've ever had untrammelled purchasing power, and it's going to my head a bit.)
That means that I get to start buying stuff now. Like computers. We've been anxiously hovering over our e-mail, waiting to hear from the Business Office, because the word is that starting June 1st you won't be able to buy a PC with Windows XP on it anymore. And I'm damned if I'm going to run Vista.
On my shopping list: a desktop and a laptop for me. A desktop for Steve, who is my right-hand man on this grant. 24-inch monitors for both of us. I've got $3000 budgeted for "office supplies" - that buys an awful lot of file folders and pens. Let's see... a cashbox. Thumb drives. Software? A fun twirly office-supplies organizer? Some of the supplies money will have to go for postage, thanks to a fairly ridiculous IRB call.
I have no idea how to spend $3000 on office supplies. What a lovely problem to have.
(Sorry, don't mind me. This is the first time I've ever had untrammelled purchasing power, and it's going to my head a bit.)
no subject
Date: 2008-05-03 01:14 am (UTC)Not quite true--the cutoff date's June 30th, not June 1st. And what OEMs are not allowed to do is to sell XP licenses after June 30th. Stay with me. That's an important distinction.
What you WILL be able to do, at least if you buy from one of the big boys like my employer (very VERY large PC maker . . . one-syllable name . . . you've probably heard of us), is to buy a system that has a OEM license for Vista but which has XP loaded on the hard drive. Vista Business and Vista Ultimate edition licenses allow us to do this legally through the beginning of 2009. (Maybe longer, if Steve Ballmer caves again.)
The drawback is that if you have a hard drive fail, and you don't already have your own XP installation media that you got with some other XP-licensed machine, you're stuck having to install Vista once the drive is replaced. (Or you could install Linux, but that's a whooooooooooole different can o' worms.) We absolutely are not allowed to send you an OEM XP installation CD so you can reinstall XP on the system. Once the sausage has gone through the grinder, you can't turn the handle backward and get the pig out again, so to speak.