Moral/legal question

From a legalistic point of view ....no. But from a realistic view..... go for it. You'll have a legally licensed copy on hand that you own, so your covered in my book.

I am sure that upgrading your OS is going to be way cheaper than buying a copy of Autocad... do you listen to what you say?

Why not just buy AND install your copy? Autodesk and it's shareholders would be happy and you could rest easy. Since you seem to be concerned about the morality of their license agreement; once you buy it's yours forever. You can't legally sell it. (BTW, 98 to XP "upgrade" is a poor one. I applaud!)

Let's see. It has just cost me $AUS 3,300 to upgrade my operating system by the time all the other hardware that needed upgrading was paid for, and then it has taken me just short of a week getting all the software transferred/reinstalled and configured. All up I am looking at around $AUS 5,000.

I'm glad I don't pay Australian prices. Here (US), for that kind of money, I could through out the old system, buy a new system and a new copy of Autocad LT.

For the record, it's not necessary to upgrade to WinXP in order to use ACAD

We had 21 computers running Win 98 and Autocad 2002. Crashes were common. Minimum of four per day usually more. I kept mine going by rebooting three times a day. Upgraded one PC to Win 2000. Solid as a rock. Upgraded the rest to XP. Not as good as 2000 but much better than 98. Some have said that they got it to run fine on 98 but many people have had the same experience as we did.

Well, if I had to do that as well, that would be another $AUS 6,000!

That is with the $AUS 1 = $US 0.72.

Isn't it possible to install the same version on two computers unless you make 100% certain that only one of them is being used at the same time? If I understood the AutoCad Licencing Model correctly - and the meaning of the Licence Transfer Application that comes with ACAD 2002 - it shouldn't be a problem: You export the licence from your PC at work to a disk, import it to your machine at home and so on. That's how you could use one licence on two or more machines as long as you make absolutely sure that only one licence is being used at the same time.

If that isn't possible, you'd be illegal with only one licence

Kind regards, Olaf

Use "reply to" address for e-mail, please.

Until the latest upgrade we have always been a version or two behind with the new version in a cupboard. Because we purchased bit by bit as we could afford it (9xADT, 1XLDDT and about 40 LTs) we ended up with a vast range of different versions.

We got our dealer to get Autodesks agreement that we could do this, a prime example was we were still operating on Window 95 and could not run the latest version until the network and the PC's connected to it were upgraded..( you could get away with this with LT 2000 because it did not need the autorisation code )

Now finally we have all copies at a common version (2004) and have PC's that will run them.

There was a German court case where a user with a licence got away with using pirate software because of the down time taken to get a replacement dongle or code in the old days.

The judge ruled as long at the user of the pirate copy had a licence to cover the event, then he should not be put in the situation where he could not work because of the delay in the admin.

Can I purchase a copy of ACAD 2004

If memory serves me correctly I had 2004 working just fine on a W98 system AMD 900 so try it and see before buying an old 2002. CGH