Bios information on Gigabyte P55-UD3 please

[Ravenheart]

I'm running a Core i7 860 cpu on the Gigabyte P55-UD3 motherboard with bios version f4i and I've got a couple of questions I'd like answering if possible please.

When is the f4i bios version going to come out of BETA status?

And

I read over on the forums here http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showthread.php?t=8267 people asking if Everest Ultimate detects SLIC in the bios, now I've read about it and it's some sort of Software Licensing Internal Code, what is this and what is it used for? And do all motherboards bios come with it or isn't it actually a bios setting?

Thanks for reading.

[Ravenheart]

I guess not even Gigabyte employees know the answer to this then?

It's only had 7 views though so I'll check back tomorrow and see if I've had a response.

Thank you.

[Beekeeper]

after a quick search :
SLIC (Software Licensing Description Table) is used by OEM versions of Windows for activation by Royalty OEMs in order for the end-user to not have problems with activating, called SLP, or System-Locked Preinstallation. For activation to work, clients obtained through the OEM channels that have an ACPI_SLIC table in the system BIOS are required to have a valid Windows marker in the same ACPI_SLIC table. The appearance of the Windows marker is important for volume license customers who are planning to use Windows volume-licensed media to re-image or upgrade OEM through the re-imaging rights provided in their volume license agreement. Not having the appropriate BIOS marker results in errors on these systems and prevents them from activating.

There are now three different version of SLP, namely SLP 1.0 for Windows XP and Windows Server 2008, SLP 2.0 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, and SLP 2.1, which supports Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and has backward-compatibility support for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 too.

Whether or not the SLIC 2.1 exists in the BIOS will determine whether the installed Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 can achieve instant offline activation on system boot up.
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/07/30/how-to-check-or-verify-pc-motherboard-bios-slic-version-is-slp-oa-2-0-or-2-1-for-oem-activation/

beta bios F4i will transform into F4 (or maybe F5) after testing phase is finished and bugs corrected (if any found), as usually