Vista 64- OEM Question

[vince]

I'm going to be building a computer for my friend; he wants to go for a
budget system, so I figure that I can save him money if he buys a Vista
64-OEM "System Builders Pack" instead of the full retail version (OEM version
is about 90 dollars). I've built many machines before, but have never used
OEM Operating System software. I realize that you can only install it on one
particular machine, which is no problem for us, however, many times I've
built machines where a piece of hardware (especially HDDs) fail after a few
weeks. Would the OEM Operating system install disks still work assuming I had
replaced a failed HDD? I was planning on buying "Vista 64-Bit Home Basic for
System Builders Single Pack DVD - OEM" from newegg. Any helpful comments
would be appreciated. Thanks -Vince

 

[Mick Murphy]

With OEM disks it is OK to replace Hard Drives. It is a bit of a grey area as
to what you can, or can not replace.
Different people classify the heart of a computer as different things.

AFAIK you can replace a failed MOBO with one exactly the same; but not
upgrade a MOBO or CPU.

If you have to replace Hardware(RAM, Graphics, Hard Drives etc), you have to
re-activate again, which is simple, do it by NET or by phone(prob by phone as
it the second activation).

An OEM disk is sold to you based on, as you know, one install on one
computer for the life of that computer.
And NO support is offered with OEM

OEM is cheap, and we don't transfer our OS from one to the other computer
every day!

 

[Gary Mount]

Microsoft considers a change of motherboard to be the defining item that
represents a different computer. You can change any other thing or things in
any configuration or combination and as long as the motherboard has not
changed, it is the same computer with regards to the license. You might have
to re-activate however after a change of hardware.
There may be exceptions, for example if your motherboard fails you might be
able to re-activate with a new motherboard, by the phone method, but no
guarantees. You might hold off from activating your copy right away until
you are confident that the hardware works fine.

 

[John Barnes]

You would have to activate a fresh install on the new HD. Since it would be
in use, you would have to use telephone activation.