DELETED_5350

oem windows are tied to the motherboard

if the motherboard dies, you are allowed to replace it (might have to tell ms this on the phone if it fails to activate over the net)
 
need to be the same type of disc..

ie if they have a sony oem key, it won't activate with a normal xp oem key (and has to be the right version -ie, pro, mce or home)
 
no

you can 'make' a sony oem disc, but you'll need a royalty oem key and the oembios files to add to your current xp disc.

pain in the butt, but doable
 
The bottom line is that as long as the machine you are attempting to install Windows on to is legally licensed then you can use any copy of the media you like.
However the "version" of Windows that you install must match the license in place on the machine.

So if your machine has an OEM license then it must be an OEM version of the OS you install, not Retail, not Educational, not VLK etc.

So if your friend has a PC with a valid OEM license attached to it (still using original motherboard supplied etc) then you could use your own OEM media, other friends OEM media quite legally.

With regards to SP levels - the license is for an OS release, not for a particular version.
So an original OEM license could be used to install an OEM SP3 installation without any issue - unless the original key was a known compromised one and is no longer accepted after the SP1, SP2 & SP3 releases.
(There were many compromised keys posted on the web, so with each SP release MS have made it so they won't install, basically baring the keys).
 
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