What is the difference between windows 7 OEM and Retail?

Hagar · 31 Aug 2010 at 22:48

Retail +

I like the box and media on my bookshelf. I have just sold on my retail XPpro to someone who had an XP computer without a media disk.
OEM was always sold with mobo or hard disk until the retailers realised they could get away with selling it alone.
A lot of piracy is down to the old practise of selling the hardware with an image of the software only, meaning that it became an invisible part of the hardware and not a physical item with measured worth or value.

Burnsy2023 · 1 Sep 2010 at 10:03

nkata said:
OEM was always sold with mobo or hard disk until the retailers realised they could get away with selling it alone.

Nope, it was a change in policy by MS that allowed this.

nkata said:
A lot of piracy is down to the old practise of selling the hardware with an image of the software only, meaning that it became an invisible part of the hardware and not a physical item with measured worth or value.

This just confuses me.

SiriusB · 1 Sep 2010 at 11:13

Burnsy2023 said:
This just confuses me.

And I :/

What are you on nkata?

Hagar · 1 Sep 2010 at 11:23

I am certainly not condoning piracy far from it, but a lot of sharp practise occurred with certain retailers and manufacturers selling PC's with no windows disk which in my mind led people to think that they have bought a copy of windows with their PC and they could install any old copy of windows when it inevitably fell over.
When you have a physical disk it provides ownership.

Burnsy2023 · 1 Sep 2010 at 11:36

nkata said:
When you have a physical disk it provides ownership.

This is not really the case. Licensing is all about the licence funny enough. If you had a machine from an OEM such as HP, and used physical media from another machine to reinstall it, you are not breaking the licence.

Hagar · 1 Sep 2010 at 11:53

Burnsy2023 said:
This is not really the case. Licensing is all about the licence funny enough. If you had a machine from an OEM such as HP, and used physical media from another machine to reinstall it, you are not breaking the licence.

Agreed, but if you are a home user, where do you get the media, download?, ask a mate to borrow his disk? (not necessarily the same version, but, you know what I mean guv), ask the manufacturer / supplier, "Yes certainly sir we will send you a disk for £30 P+P". :eek:

This has gone off topic and it is my fault for which I apologise but the number of people who I know in similar situations annoys me.

SiriusB · 1 Sep 2010 at 11:53

nkata said:
When you have a physical disk it provides ownership.

It provides ownership over a circular piece of plastic. You do not own your OS, you are merely licensed to use it. The method by which it arrived on your computer is irrelevant provided you have a legitimate license for it to be there.

Hagar · 1 Sep 2010 at 11:59

SiriusB said:
It provides ownership over a circular piece of plastic. You do not own your OS, you are merely licensed to use it. The method by which it arrived on your computer is irrelevant provided you have a legitimate license for it to be there.

I also realise that. I have read the T and C. If you have that circular piece of plastic, you are more likely to be able to stay within the terms of your licence without additional hassle or expediture.

Said my piece, my rant of the day.

Burnsy2023 · 1 Sep 2010 at 12:06

nkata said:
I also realise that. I have read the T and C. If you have that circular piece of plastic, you are more likely to be able to stay within the terms of your licence without additional hassle or expediture.

Said my piece, my rant of the day.

Don't get me wrong, get very frustrated when they don't include media too, but I'm not sure it really contributes to piracy much.

kylew · 2 Sep 2010 at 13:45

Burnsy2023 said:
They were bothered enough to issue advice on this particular issue.

But not enough for them to actually do something about it. Such as not letting retailers sell OEM copies, or having retailers make sure they sell to "the right" people.

If Microsoft themselves really aren't enforcing it (and they really really aren't) then I don't quite get why the usual people have rants about how they shouldn't be doing it.

Corasik · 2 Sep 2010 at 15:51

Expensive to enforce? Not like MS can slap up a few speed cameras and use them as cash cows. The price differences between retail and OEM have gradually reduced, and these days the Retail copy is no longer 2-3 times more expensive than the OEM. And you get the 32bit, and 64bit disks supplied as standard (with windows 7).

I buy retail copies these days, but dont see the need to rant when people buy OEM. Its their choice, just as its a drivers choice to drive at 100mph on a motorway.

That said, I would love to know if MS's OEM terms and conditions would actually stand up to a test case in european law, especially when you consider how much the euro's love Microsoft business practice

stoofa · 2 Sep 2010 at 16:08

kylew said:
But not enough for them to actually do something about it. Such as not letting retailers sell OEM copies, or having retailers make sure they sell to "the right" people.

If Microsoft themselves really aren't enforcing it (and they really really aren't) then I don't quite get why the usual people have rants about how they shouldn't be doing it.

I can go into a supermarket and buy items "off the shelf" that could be used to make explosives.
I can go into a pharmacy and buy non-perscription drugs that when mixed together could do some serious harm to somebody.

If the supermarket and/or pharmacy is not enforcing the "You may not make explosives/deadly cocktails" can I just get on with it?

Microsoft include a license agreement with their OS that you must agree to before installing the software.
If you just click through it without reading you are deemed to have accepted this.
That license governs what you can and cannot do with the piece of software.
There is noothing illegal about them restricting OEM versions of the OS to the machine it was first installed on.
They sell a perfectly affordable alternative product that doesn't not have that restriction.

Anyone who buys OEM and then moves that license to another machine is effectively no more legal than some theiving scumbag who has decided to download their OS for free.
I know people don't like to hear this, nobody likes to hear the truth when it doesn't fall their way.
But that is fact - move the OEM license and you are no longer licence legal, you might just as well thieve it in the first place and save your money for sweets and comics or something.

SiriusB · 2 Sep 2010 at 16:15

As usual stoofa's thrown a wobbly!

The discussion wasn't about OEM being used on a different machine than it was first installed on. We were talking about MS's apparent rule against people using OEM software for a machine they do not intend to sell. And if it was such an important rule, why does every software retailer out there sell OEM to all and sundry.

Only a minor point in the grand scheme of things to be sure!

CaptainCrash · 2 Sep 2010 at 17:27

stoofa said:
snip

stoofa, you might want to actually read the thread before you start your "thieving scumbag" routine.