U.S. Software compatibility

Nouveau

Hi folks,
I am thinking of buying some software from the U.S. on ebay because it is cheap.
Are there any compatibility issues that I should be aware of ?
Will American software work on an Irish computer ?

aidan_walsh

Yes. Yes it will.

Nouveau

Can you be a little more specific ?

aidan_walsh

If a program is designed to run on Windows, it will run on Windows, be it an "American copy", an "Irish copy", a "Pakistani copy", or any other copy you like. There are no differences in the way the software is built. It all comes from the same code at the end of the day.

What might be different are regional specific things like spelling and language, but if you're buying from the US and not, say, China, then I don't think that'll be a problem.

Nouveau

Thanks for the info. I thought that would be the case.
I was thinking about regional restrictions like DVDs have or different video systems like PAL / NTSC.
Do you know about that stuff ?

aidan_walsh

You know, I was thinking to myself that stuff like DVD region encoding and\or Digital Rights Management was probably what put the idea into your head.

PAL\NTSC doesn't apply on computer monitors, and software discs aren't region encoded (that was something dreamt up to keep the movie industry happy).

zilog_jones

PC's use the same video standards worldwide. The "regions" on DVDs are only on DVD Video discs.

The only thing to worry about is being able to claim any customer support you may be entitled to (if you were in the right country), and the warranty will probably be invalid as well.

Nouveau

Excellent. Thanks for your help.

aidan_walsh

The only thing to worry about is being able to claim any customer support you may be entitled to (if you were in the right country), and the warranty will probably be invalid as well.

Good points, both. Hadn't thought of those myself.

Stephen

Be careful buying software on ebay, lots of pirated crap there.