Quote:
Q: What is an OEM license?
A: OEM licenses come pre-installed on a new PC, or are purchased by system builders to bundle with new PCs. OEM licenses are Full editions restricted by a non-transference clause which states that the OS may only ever be installed on one computer. It is not legal to move an OEM license to a new PC. It is also not legal to reinstall the operating system if a new motherboard with a different chipset is installed.
|
That's an interesting statement since when I had XP Pro OEM and my mobo died, I was able to re-install the OEM OS. One call to MS and explained the situation, they gave me a new activation code. MS support people are there to help you, not to give you grief. I also did this when I upgraded my CPU and changed from an nVidia graphics card to an ATI Radeon. So I know that at least on four occasions I was able to get new activations from MS via phone with no problems whatsoever.
Perhaps it has changed with Windows 7, but I imagine that MS will work with people. When a mobo crashes or the CPU fries out there is no reason to purchase a new install disk of the OS. MS is there to help people with these types of problems.