OldTimer said:
I am looking at purchasing MS Office 2003 on the net for my new PC (with
Win XP Sp2). What are the differences, problems, etc. between OEM and
Retail CDs?
An oldtimer trying to keep up.
Thanks,
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 non-peripheral
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. This is the main reason some people
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. The only
legitimate way to transfer the ownership of an OEM license is to
transfer ownership of the entire PC.
2) Microsoft provides no free support for OEM versions. If you
have any problems that require outside assistance, your only recourse is
to contact the manufacturer/builder of the PC or 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 telephone or email support
for problems with the OS.
3) Retail licenses of Office (and many other Microsoft products)
permit the installation onto one desktop computer and one portable
computer, provided that the license owner is the primary user of both
machines. An OEM license would not permit this.
--
Bruce Chambers
Help us help you:
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
