Our recent piece on Microsoft's interesting claim (now withdrawn*) that it's a legal requirement that a preinstalled operating system system remain with a machine for the life of the machine prompted a contribution on a related matter from Andrew Katz of Moorcrofts Corporate Law, who argues in some detail that under European law Microsoft has no right to stop you selling on any copy of Windows, including preinstalled versions.

This is not what the licence agreement says, of course, and it's probably not what Microsoft's lawyers are going to say when you meet them in court. So if anybody wants to be a test case, please note Andrew's disclaimer towards the end of this piece. Now, over to Andrew.

In Europe, subsequent sale of computer programs is governed by the 1991 Computer Software Directive, the relevant text of which is: The first sale in the Community of a copy of a program by the rightholder or with his consent shall exhaust the distribution right within the Community of that copy, with the exception of the right to control further rental of the program or a copy thereof. (Article 4 (c))