Really dumb question

lewis2701 · 29 Sep 2011 at 18:36

basically im building a pc from scratch so i need a cody of windows, do i need to go for the £120 retail home premium 64bit w7 or can i use this one? http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SW-127-MS&tool=3?

thanks in advance

DrewBrees · 29 Sep 2011 at 18:40

You can use either, but the OEM one is limited to 3 installs. The more expensive retail one can be re-installed as many times as you like.

lewis2701 · 29 Sep 2011 at 18:57

ahh thats great, so the only limitation to the cheaper one is that im limited to 3 installs yeah?

DrewBrees · 29 Sep 2011 at 19:11

Thats the main difference, but the retail one contains copies of both 32 and 64 bit versions of windows, the OEM one appears to only be the 64 bit. But if all you want is the 64 bit one, the other disk is unnecessary.

Edit: By installs, i mean installs on new hardware. iirc if you dont change your hardware and re-install it doesnt count. If you change your motherboard or a number of other components, you use one of your 3 activations.

lewis2701 · 29 Sep 2011 at 19:19

alright cheers mate

J.B · 30 Sep 2011 at 16:59

DrewBrees said:
You can use either, but the OEM one is limited to 3 installs. The more expensive retail one can be re-installed as many times as you like.

Thats not true.

OEM can be installed as many times as you like, providing it is always on the same computer.

Retail can be installed as many times as you like, on any computer, providing only one instance of it is installed at any one time.

Also, OP you sig is too big