douglasb

I've been upgrading the components in my PC to the extent that apart from one hard drive, the DVD drive and floppy, nothing much inside the case is original. What I have left would build a respectable PC for my parents (who have never touched a PC before but feel that they could use one).

I want to do everything legitimately, so I'll be buying a copy of XP. Full editions are around £160, but OEM versions are more like £60. Obviously, I'd rather save £100 and buy the OEM one, but what are the restrictions to doing this?

I'll need a case, modem, floppy, DVD/CD and hard drives (and possibly a motherboard as the old one is suspect) to build the PC so effectively it's a new PC. Can I buy the OEM version and will it work?

I've also seen second hand copies of XP on Amazon (have a look here). Is there anything I need to beware of if I choose this option?

kelvin

Ebuyer do XP Home OEM for about £50 + VAT. The only stipulation with buying OEM is that it must be purchased with "non-peripheral" hardware - with your list of things to get you'll qualify no problem

OEM copies are identical to their retail counterparts save the fact that the license is non-transferrable (i.e. you can't subsequently install it on a different PC), and you're not eligible for support from MS - that's the responsibility of the supplier. That said, most people never approach MS for support at any point anyway so it's a moot issue as far as i'm concerned. Access to Windows update etc is unaffected

I always buy OEM

Hope this helps...

K.

douglasb

Thanks, guys.

Non-transferrable and no support from MS don't cause me any problems. It would probably be better overall for me to buy a new motherboard with USB 2 support for about £30 than buy the full version of XP. That has to qualify for OEM pricing.

I suspect that if my stepfather gets into digital photography in a big way (a serious possibility) then they will upgrade to something more appropriate with its own version of Windows whatever at the time. I'm just looking at the cheapest way to get them up and running with a PC (various other family members will be able to provide a
keyboard, mouse and monitor).

Having said that, the system that I'm looking at building is an Athlon 2000XP with 512MB RAM and 80GB hard drive, so that should keep them going for a while.....

Looks like I just need to find who is doing the best total price for the bits that I need.

Thanks again.

Doug

Scooby Dooby Blue

You'll struggle to find an Athlon 2000 now, chips have switched to Semprons (333FSB)

If your mobo supports Semprons, you'll get a retail 2400+ (CPU cooler & 3tr warranty) with 512DDR, an 80GB HDD and Win XP Home (OEM) for about £180.

Paul

douglasb

The Athlon 2000 is one of the working bits I have left over from the upgrade so it's effectively free. (As is the 512MB DDR RAM)

Mick

iTrader: (1)

I've bought a couple of OEM XP CDs off ebay £50 for 1 and £45 the other - both purport to only be for a specified machine (HP + Dell) but both work fine on home built machine. MUST have COA to be legal and activate licence though. I always look for deals where you get the actual MS licence sticker from the original machine.

No probs when updating hardware either - just have to re-activate if changes are too great...

Cheers

Mick

class_A

Mick,

Doesn't matter if you have the COA or not, you are still breaking the license conditions although at least you have a genuine product key which isn't "out in the wild" so to speak. XP Home and Pro OEM come in at £50 and £78 on eBuyer which isn't too much difference to be fully compliant (obviously you need to buy a keyboard or something as well). Please don't take this as a post by a license ****, just clarifying things for the OP who wants to be totally legit.



Alex

Barmyclown

I have a query similar to this, My girlfirends laptop has just had a catastrophic failure, So I got the the data off the hard drive. And I want to transfer the XP Home licence to my desktop which is currently running ME. The way I understood it , was that the laptop came with a single user license of XP Home. Which technically means I can transfer the licence to another computer. as long as the licence is not used on another computer. Which it isn`t as I formatted the laptop hard drive. If this is not the case due to this OEM licence that was most probably supplied with the computer, I legally won`t be able to do this. Am I correct in this. assumption.

Jase

Mick

iTrader: (1)

I believe you are correct in your assumption...

http://www.microsoft.com/legal/usete...c5a7378693.pdf

look at Page 1 of 6 section 4 It says you may transfer the product to another workstation but must completely remove it from the previous one... blah blah...
- can even sell it on - once

Cheers

Mick

ChrisB

Nope (as Alex says).

An OEM license of XP is not transferable to another PC in any way (free, sold or otherwise). As explained by Microsoft:

XP OEM has a different license to XP retail or XP as part of a Volume License.

kelvin

Agree with ChrisB on this one - OEM is not transferrable to any other machine, even if removed completely from it's original place of installation.

Another MS quote:-

Mick

iTrader: (1)

Hmm... confusing... You can of course 'upgrade' the machine?

You presumably could add a graphics card, sound card, change CD drive etc. At what point in 'upgrading' do you have a 'new' machine?

Mick

kelvin

Sorry to keep quoting extracts from MS but it's easier :grin:

K.

class_A

Basically as Kelvin said above... when you change the motherboard. Have a read of http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/oemeula.htm

Mick

iTrader: (1)

They do also say that when a mobo is replaced or upgraded MS do usually allow activation of the software...

I guess it's probably worth phoning...

Mick

douglasb

A couple of the upgrades I've done are a new mobo and processor. Windows came up with a message along the lines of "I've detected some major hardware changes. Call this number to reactivate XP." I had to enter a string of numbers, but once this was done I had a reactivated system.

G00ner

So how does an OEM copy actually get tied to a machine that I had built myself then?
How would anybody check/know what PC the OEM copy belonged to?

kelvin

When you install XP on any machine you need to activate it with MS (as you probably know ). A code is generated based on the hardware configuration of your machine and this is checked by MS if you ever need to re-activate your software.

Installing on a different PC would generate an entirely different code to the one recorded. This contrasts with minor hardware upgrades which only have a negligible impact on your PC's identity.

K.

G00ner

Yeah I've had activation before with XP Home, is there an OEM version of Pro though?

kelvin

Yes

Cost is around £90

G00ner

Ok, thanks, next question

How is an OEM Pro version tied to a pc?

kelvin

In exactly the same way as the Home version... (If that makes sense?!)

Mick

iTrader: (1)

I've got a 'recycled' HP copy of XP Pro (with COA) on my main machine which I have installed and then changed some major components (inc Mobo) and the re-activation has worked fine...

Cheers

Mick

G00ner

Ok thanks Kelv.

So my VLK version doesn't need to be activated, but an OEM version does.

I was thinking about going legit with my copy of XP as MS seem to have made an operating system that is actually quite good.