OEM WinXP question

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galdoes16

Gawd
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Jan 19, 2005
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I'm in the proccess of building a new pc, and I need to know if the (+/-) $90 WinXP OEM disk on newegg would be what I need to install the full version of xp.
 
Yes, that is the oem version of XP Home. Be aware that OEM software is linked to specific hardware, so in the case of an OS, Microsoft is within their rights to not allow you to reactivate the OS, should you make some major modifications to your machine (such as Motherboard) down the road. To my knowledge, they've been nice about this so far, but they could at anytime say sorry bud, go buy a new copy.
 
Yep, it should work just fine. If it's listed as an upgrade, as long as you have an older version of Windows that you could pop in during the XP setup, you'd be fine.
 
dargon said:
Yes, that is the oem version of XP Home. Be aware that OEM software is linked to specific hardware, so in the case of an OS, Microsoft is within their rights to not allow you to reactivate the OS, should you make some major modifications to your machine (such as Motherboard) down the road. To my knowledge, they've been nice about this so far, but they could at anytime say sorry bud, go buy a new copy.
Click to expand...

To be more clear...

An OEM license of Windows is tied to the first system it's installed on. Upgrades are fine, with the one exception of the motherboard (though that can be replaced\upgraded in a warranty situation). In short, an OEM copy of Windows is tied to the motherboard.

Also note that that OEM versions come with no free support from Microsoft.
 
[MS said:
Also note that that OEM versions come with no free support from Microsoft.
Click to expand...

If I'm paying $299 for the retail version vs $150 for Oem then support isnt really free is it
 
hulksterjoe said:
If I'm paying $299 for the retail version vs $150 for Oem then support isnt really free is it
Click to expand...


Exactly right, that's where part of the increased cost comes from.

Say it costs Microsoft an average of $200 to resolve a support request (I have no idea what the actual amount is, this is just an example), with two free support requests per retail copy. If one in every five purchases resulted in a single support request (again, I don't know any real numbers), then that's an average of $40 per copy.

The other part of increased cost is that OEM copies are discounted with the restriction that they can only be used on the original system.

So when you look at XP Home (street prices), you it's easy to see why the retail version ($150) is $70 more than the OEM version ($80).
 
[MS] said:
To be more clear...

An OEM license of Windows is tied to the first system it's installed on. Upgrades are fine, with the one exception of the motherboard (though that can be replaced\upgraded in a warranty situation). In short, an OEM copy of Windows is tied to the motherboard.

Also note that that OEM versions come with no free support from Microsoft.
Click to expand...
Do you have a good link explaining the legal differences (aka, what you just said in legal mumbo-jumbo)?

Or maybe not the differences, but the limits on OEM.
 
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