Thread: Vista oem with windows 7 oem, or retail

I keep going back and forth, on purchasing vista home premium with the windows 7 upgrade, I'm running windows 7 rc right now and love it, rarely use xp anymore, my problem is this though, I keep hearing that if i buy the oem copy i can only use it on one computer even if i uninstall it, if i get the retail version i can uninstall and reinstall as many times as i want. Is it true about the oem?, if so it kind of shitty, want to get my facts str8 before i order, don’t want to buy retail if i don’t have to.

That's right; the OEM is for use on one computer only. Definition of new computer is new motherboard. Now, MS seems to be very flexible about this. If you call and tell them that your motherboard died, they will usually let you reactivate the OEM on the new motherboard. To be ethical, do this only when your motherboard really does die. The retail version gives you the legal right to move it from one PC to another.

You can uninstall and install the OEM as many times as you want, as long as you do it on the same computer.