Greetings --
Yes, OEM versions can be used to perform clean installations. In
fact, OEM CDs cannot perform upgrades.
There are some very important reasons that an OEM license costs so
much less than a retail license. OEM licenses are very limited:
1) OEM versions must be sold with a piece of hardware (normally
a motherboard or hard drive, if not an entire PC, although Microsoft
has greatly relaxed the hardware criteria for WinXP) and are
_permanently_ bound to the first PC on which they are installed. An
OEM license, once installed, is not legally transferable to another
computer under any circumstances. The only legitimate way to transfer
the ownership of an OEM license is to transfer ownership of the entire
PC. This is the best reason to avoid OEM versions; if the PC dies or
is otherwise disposed of (even stolen), you cannot re-use your OEM
license on a new PC.
2) Microsoft provides no support for OEM versions. If you have
any problems that require outside assistance, your only recourse is to
contact the vendor of the OEM license. This would include such issues
as lost a Product Key or replacing damaged installation media.
(Microsoft does make allowances for those instances when you can prove
that the OEM has gone out of business.) This doesn't mean that you
can't download patches and service packs from Microsoft -- just no
free live or email support for problems with the OS.
3) An OEM CD cannot perform an upgrade, as it was designed to be
installed _only_ upon an empty hard drive.
4) If the OEM CD was designed by a specific manufacturer, such as
eMachines, Sony, HP, Compaq, etc., it will most likely only install on
the same brand of PC, as an additional anti-piracy feature. Further,
such CDs are severely customized to contain only the minimum of device
drivers, and a lot of extra nonsense, that the manufacturer feels
necessary for the specific model of PC for which the CD was designed.
(To be honest, such CDs should not be available on the open market;
but, if you're shopping someplace like eBay, swap meets, or computer
fairs, there's often no telling what you're buying until it's too
late.) The "generic" OEM CDs, such as are sold to small systems
builders, don't have this particular problem, though, and are pretty
much the same as their retail counterparts.
Bruce Chambers
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