TWSIII said:
Hi:
My pc motherboard croaked last week so I purchased a new pc from a local
vendor who makes their own clones. My last "dead" pc had Windows XP Home
Edition SP2 loaded on it. I asked this vendor to unregister my existing XP
license from the dead computer and reload it on my newly-purchased computer.
I was told by this company that my request could not be done and that I had
to purchase XP all over again. Would someone be kind enough to confirm this
for me?
It would depend entirely upon the specific type of WinXP license that
you have on the old, defunct PC. If it was an OEM license (purchased as
part of the PC and pre-installed at the factory, usually), then that
local vendor is perfectly correct. An OEM version must be sold with a
piece of hardware (normally a motherboard or hard drive, if not an
entire PC) and is _permanently_ bound to the first PC on which it's
installed. An OEM license, once installed, is not legally transferable
to another computer under _any_ circumstances.
If, however, you had a retail license, you can remove it from the old
PC and install it on the new computer.
If this is true, it is extremely unfair of Microsoft to have this
policy. Please advise. Thank you.
Why is this unfair? If you had an OEM license, you got what you paid
for. The OEM License that came with the PC was deeply discounted, as
compared to a full-featured retail license. One cannot reasonably
expect to pay a discounted price for a limited product and yet expect a
product with no limitations. One of an OEM license's limitations is a
lack of transferability.
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) An OEM CD cannot be used to perform an upgrade of an earlier
OS, as it was designed to be installed _only_ upon an empty hard drive.
It can still be used to perform a repair installation (a.k.a. an
in-place upgrade) of an existing WinXP installation.
4) If the OEM CD was designed by a specific manufacturer, such as
eMachines, Sony, Dell, Gateway, 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 on-line 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 manufactured by Microsoft
and sold to small systems builders, don't have this particular problem,
though, and are pretty much the same as their retail counterparts, apart
from the licensing, support, and upgrading restrictions.
--
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
