Don Brodhecker wrote:

> I thought that the only difference between OEM and Retail, is that
> Retail comes with lots of fancy packaging and useless offers, and it
> also has free phone support with MS for a certain period of time. Other
> than that, I'm under the impression that they are the same as
> far as application and EULA's go.


No, that's not correct.

Although if you get a complete generic OEM version, it contains the same
software, it has the following disadvantages as compared with the retail
version:

1. Its license ties it permanently to the first computer it's installed on.
It can never legally be moved to another computer, sold, or given away.

2. It can only do a clean installation, not an upgrade.

3. Microsoft provides no support for OEM versions. You can't call them with
a problem, but instead have to get any needed support from your OEM; that
support may range anywhere between good and non-existent. Or you can get
support elsewhere, such as in these newsgroups.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
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