Ant said:
I have no idea. I didn't know there various OEM versions that are
orderable online. Bascially, this is for my custom built computers. I am
trying to get off my very old XP Pro. SP3 machine from early 2000.
Unbranded OEMs are used by "System Builders", that guy in your neighborhood
who builds computers locally.
When you install that disc and activate it, the disc is tied to that
machine. That's why the price is low, because in theory, you can't
reuse it.
If you change the hardware significantly, by upgrading, it's pretty
hard for Microsoft to tell you're not installing the same software
on two computers. An example of how the scheme works, is here.
http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm
And that's why Activation is present, to try to sort out tiny changes
to hardware (all hardware same, amount of RAM doubles), to major
ones (onboard NIC MAC address changes, might be entirely different
computer).
A retail version of the software, leaves no doubts. You're free to
upgrade your machine. But again, if two machines show up using the
same license key, on Windows Update or otherwise, Microsoft has the
option to do what it pleases.
And if the software has any "call home" capability, with a high
enough frequency of calling home, that can catch duplication as
well.
Branded OEM, the content that comes with Dell, HP, Acer, can use
various additional schemes. On the one hand, Activation may be
unnecessary, as it's automated. (When you restore from the recovery
partition, there is nothing to do.) But then, some additional checks
must be in place, like the OS checks the BIOS string on each start,
such that taking your Dell and putting an Asus motherboard in it,
is going to cause problems. And as Ed mentioned, in the past they
also had a scheme for tattooing the hard drive. In some instances,
on those older machines, the media accompanying the machine was
an actual installer CD, so fairly close to being useful. In other
cases, what's provided is just an image of something suited for
restoring to the machine, which means you may be missing the
ability to use certain features you might have had, with real
installation media.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS
"Some BIOSes contain a "SLIC" (software licensing description table),
a digital signature placed inside the BIOS by the manufacturer, for
example Dell. This SLIC is inserted in the ACPI table and contains
no active code. Computer manufacturers that distribute OEM versions
of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft application software can use the
SLIC to authenticate licensing to the OEM Windows Installation disk
and/or system recovery disc containing Windows software. Systems
having a SLIC can be preactivated with an OEM product key, and they
verify an XML formatted OEM certificate against the SLIC in the BIOS
as a means of self-activating (see System Locked Preinstallation).
If a user performs a fresh install of Windows, they will need to have
possession of both the OEM key and the digital certificate for their
SLIC in order to bypass activation; in practice this is extremely
unlikely and hence the only real way this can be achieved is if the
user performs a restore using a pre-customised image provided by the OEM."
On my WinXP machine (this one), I bought an unbranded (system builder)
OEM disc. I changed the motherboard, CPU, RAM amount, over time, and
the motherboard change required Activation to be repeated again.
No phone call was required, and I was able to do it over the Internet.
And one reason it worked, was there was a claim at the time that the
rules had been loosened a tiny bit. Otherwise, the activation
might have triggered a need for the phone call. Sufficient time
had passed since the original installation, to not trigger any
time related trigger. (If you OEM install on Tuesday with one NIC MAC
address, and reinstall on Wednesday with a different NIC MAC address,
that would be enough to trip a time trigger when both are activated.
Too close together.)
You can spend a lot of time tracing down all the options available now.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/02/11/1735210/Anti-Piracy-Windows-7-Update-Phones-Home-Quarterly
Dell gets their branded OEM license, for less than you'll pau
for your System Builder unbranded license. But for people
who upgrade hardware, they're equally crappy options. The SLIC check
may not stop a motherboard upgrade on the unbranded install, but
the motherboard identity still counts as an "item" in the voting
scheme for activation. So you still might end up having to do
phone activation, and explain you're "repairing a hardware failure
by using a new, different motherboard brand". And that's a bit
harder to explain, if you went from LGA775, DDR2, Core2 to
LGA1366, DDR3, i7. That's no longer a "repair". And there is
no way for Microsoft to know "you're using the same computer
case for the build", as if that made it the same computer
Paul
