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. 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
