Tech blogs are fizzing with rage at the 'revelation' that Microsoft small print says a new Windows OEM licence must be purchased if a motherboard is changed or upgraded.

The software behemoth is quoted as saying that the 'heart and soul' of a PC lies therein, and so changing it - other than in the case of a failure - amounts to creating a new machine. Other licence types do not face such restrictions.

Comments about the newly-uncovered atrocity are typically less than complimentary towards Redmond:

“They are trully [sic] evil,” fumes one.

Several others go for the succinct and to-the-point: “F**k Micro$oft.”

For Microsoft's part, it claims this has always been the case. And this document seems to corroborate the assertion.

Customers reading their license agreements? Whatever next.®

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• Court stops resale of software licenses in Germany (7 August 2006)
• Microsoft ignites idea of independent versions of Office (16 February 2006)
• Microsoft in Office 2007 shocker (16 February 2006)
• Cautious welcome for new MS shared source licences (19 October 2005)
• Reg readers take the Dell 'Open-source PC' challenge (7 October 2005)
• Palm sets sail as Microsoft OEM (24 September 2005)