Whats OEM

[Born_2_Kill_83]

Probably a stupid question but what does OEM stand for and whats the difference between this and Retail?

 

[Mat]

Original Equipment Manufacture - same product, comes with computer etc, no pretty boxes etc, usually cheaper.

 

[Richdog]

Hello... meet Google http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2006-41,GGLD:en&q=oem+means

With it simple questions like this that have been answered 100's of times on 100's of forums can be found.

 

[hardc0re_tid]

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2006-41,GGLD:en&q=define:+OEM&meta=

define: 'x'

 

[Lysander]

Original Equipment Manufacture - same product, comes with computer etc, no pretty boxes etc, usually cheaper.

The most important difference is that you can only install it on one machine.

This means that once you've installed it you can upgrade every component in your PC, but if you change the motherboard you will be asked to buy a new license/copy. Microsoft consider a change of motherboard to be a change of computer.

If you buy the retail version you can upgrade motherboard etc as many times as you like, you won't have to buy a new version of Vista.