Trust you to come up with the exception to the rule.

With Windows, the manufacturer normally has a license which *requires* him to put a copy of Windows on every machine he manufactures. In return, he gets a heavily discounted price per copy and Bill Gates gets to be the richest man on the planet. [FWIW, in common with most things Microsoft, they didn't invent that licensing model - it was Gary Kildall at Digital Research, Inc, for the CP/M operating system way back . . .]

So the license is glued to the machine, as it were.

My company does something broadly similar by employing a floating license system which is attached to the CPU ID of a server which then doles out the appropriate number of licenses to client users on a network. The 'root' license is granted to a machine within an organization.

Talking of Ebay. why would they wake me up at 11.45pm last night with a message which began something like: "If you are expecting a call from Ebay......" I didn't wait to hear any more and put down the phone.

This is one of my favourite eBay Sellers.

His stuff is fantastic, particularly if you want to buy really fresh fish. I highly recommend this seller's produce.

When you open the strapped polystyrene box, which is full of ice and perfectly fresh fish and/or sea food, it smells of the sea.

TOK,

I have just signed up as an eBay seller. In the process I had to give them my number and immediately the phone rang with that message you received.

My guess is that someone accidentally put your number in the box and you were called as a result.

Not me - I promise. I only signed on this afternoon!

TP

Thanks TP for the explanation. "Accidentally" at 23.45? I wonder.... But then, I'm just a grumpy old cynic.

I've just had a note from PayPal and also a confirmation e-mail from the eBay Seller saying that he has given me a full refund on my Windows 7 Ultimate purchase.

So a nice start to my weekend, eh?

I have a Acer laptop which is about 3 years old and has been ultra reliable but this last week its been a right pain getting the thing to fire up,gut feeling tells me its the battery gone home and like most things i never took the battery out while i use it on the mains.If the battery is finished would that cause the issue of it firing up when even plugged into the mains.

Any thoughts on this one please,i am very tempted to open the battery pack and replace the batteries myself.

Any suggestion please.

The answer is no. The battery is effectively bypassed when the mains is connected (except when it is charging up). The battery should be lithium-ion or similar and is not serviceable (Sealed unit). Replacement of the entire battery unit only. Your boot-up is due to another cause (assuming your mains supply/transformer is not defective), but you don't say if the the lap-top actually starts the boot sequence but doesn't load Windows or doesn't appear to do anything. (Fan noise, hard drive noise, screen base lights up).

To prove the point, just remove the battery completely. It should boot up normally. If it is any different from the battery being in then there is a connection.

fwiw I've had two laptops where the battery has expired/very limited life. Start up remained normal with or without the battery pack in place.

As suggested by others, try removing the battery and just run it on the mains adapter. That will eliminate the battery as a problem in the power system. If you still have the problem, then it's not the battery (apparently).

And you're right, what does for Li-Ion batteries is continually being recharged when already charged to within about 90% of capacity, So it's sensible to remove the battery when the laptop is being used continually as a desktop.

A Li-Ion battery is best stored when charged to approximately 50% of its capacity, but I wouldn't lose sleep over that.

A word of caution, young Mega. I assume that the battery is a Li-Ion (Lithium-Ion) type. It will say on it. Li-Ion cells don't come in standard AA packaging etc because they (a) run at 3.7 volts and (b) have a tendency to ignite if charged with the wrong type of charging circuit.

If the battery pack needs replacing, replace it with a manufacturer replacement and don't leave the damn thing in the laptop all the time when it's running on mains.

Thanks gents for the advice on the laptop,i have decided to retire it and buy a new one.

Mega

Just one point about taking out & leaving out the battery, if you ever have a power failure whilst using your laptop & the battery is not installed, you will lose all the work you have done which hadn't been saved. With the battery in, the laptop will continue to run normally.

Amazon have just emailed about a half price deal on Acronis 2011.

My version is about two generations old so I am tempted to upgrade.

First, though, I ask the gurus.....

I use it to create a bootable image on a USB mounted hard drive. It worked the one time I used it, but I am never embarassed about upgrading if it hints at more safety and reliability.

TP

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface

It's a bit of a mouthful, but it might be an idea to commit it to memory.

AND

It might be best to delay ordering that new computer.................

"New PCs could start in just seconds, thanks to an update to one of the oldest parts of desktop computers.

The upgrade will spell the end for the 25-year-old PC start-up software known as BIOS that initialises a machine so its operating system can get going.

The code was not intended to live nearly this long, and adapting it to modern PCs is one reason they take as long as they do to warm up.

BIOS' replacement, known as UEFI, will predominate in new PCs by 2011.

The acronym stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface and is designed to be more flexible than its venerable predecessor."

More at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11430069

An enthusiastic evangelist at work (not you Exec!).

Most of the time taken to start a PC from a cold boot is spent loading and initialising Windows, The BIOS doesn't contribute that much to the start-up time.

It's certainly true that the BIOS is past its sell-by date, but it's also true that, in reality, UEFI is just BIOS Mk 2 - or perhaps Mk 20 is nearer it.

The BIOS has evolved very significantly from the original IBM PC version - and not all BIOSes are equal. (I worked for a company that 'cloned' the original IBM PC BIOS to produce a non-infringing copy for some of the early IBM PC clones - we just call them PCs now.)

I agree with MM the bios is only a small part of the story. Most new macs dont use BOIS's already.

My predictions for things that will certainly change the way that PCs 'boot' in future:

1) Solid state disks and cheap RAM
2) OS's that only load an interface (probably a browser) at boot with everything else happening later as required and often from the 'cloud' and often from within the browser.
3) Ultimately devices (PC wont be the right word by then) that provide only power and local storage that can run multiple different images locally but with almost all data being cloud based (they will boot into the cloud). Multiple devices will be able to run the same software so you will access the same stuff from your phone, your ipad, your laptop and your fridge (yes I did mean fridge) .

We shall see if I am right and I predict we will have most of the above within 5 years from now.

jonuk76

FYI I have now replaced HDD & battery. Laptop working OK again. Tks

I do hope your're not entirely right Spaceman. I worry enough about data loss and security when the data is stored under my nose plus when I'm in Spain the data roaming costs will be astronimic without some radical re-pricing.

The data roaming costs and data access costs are a couple of the reasons that I don't think it will all be in the cloud. One of the other reasons is that people like to have the apps on their own device and not in the cloud. They also like local storage for security. Add to that the fact that serious gamers choose PCs rather than games consoles and you have the continued existence of PCs with them getting more and more powerful. Many businesses will also want their data within their organisions.

There are plenty of historical examples of mistakes in predicting the future of computers. I remember going to a lecture at the BCS in the early 1970s and the speaker was predicicting that computers would, in less than ten years, be dealing in concepts too difficult for humans to understand. This was from one of the leading lights in AI at the time.