Let me get this straight..

[TheEn|gma]

Vista.

OEM = Change anything other than your mobo and you can still format as much as you want.

Retail = Change as many components as you want including motherboard and you can format?

Amirite?

[Wizrdwarts]

Re: Let me get this straight..

OEM = It's linked to the mobo. You can reactivate if the customer service rep lets you, call them and hope he or she feels nice. Technically it's illegal though. That's why retail is more expensive.

[TheEn|gma]

Re: Let me get this straight..

OEM = It's linked to the mobo. You can reactivate if the customer service rep lets you, call them and hope he or she feels nice. Technically it's illegal though. That's why retail is more expensive.

Figured, more than likely go with retail had enough issues with.... not so legitimate versions of XP. Cheers.

[Hellsent 2.0]

Re: Let me get this straight..

Figured, more than likely go with retail had enough issues with.... not so legitimate versions of XP. Cheers.

I'm feeling the same. I really want to upgrade to Vista atm, but aint got the dough..usually i would head on over to download it but I've had problems in the past so i dun want to go down that road with operating systems...

[Jazzman]

Re: Let me get this straight..

just buy the oem version >_> thats what i did
'

[TheHeartSmasher]

Re: Let me get this straight..

Yes OEM is nice, but when your doing upgrades and changing things around your out of an OS, if you upgrade your motherboard and have a really nice case. Work a few extra hours at the job, do some work for the parents/friends to save up for the retail and install 64bit :) or if your really strapped for cash, wait until Windows 7 is released. Though please be warned your upgrade experience will be much better if you already have Vista installed.

[megawhompertoo]

Re: Let me get this straight..

Though please be warned your upgrade experience will be much better if you already have Vista installed.

wondering why a fresh reformat/install of xp-->win7 system would go any smoother than a reformat/install of a vista-->win7.

info you could share?

[TheHeartSmasher]

Re: Let me get this straight..

A fresh install of XP to Windows 7 might be ok. But there is a greater chance that some may not be able to upgrade due to not meeting hardware requirements that are acceptable for XP but not for Vista or Windows 7.

If you have a modern machine with modern software then there will probably be little to no issues. If not you may need to load XP into a virtual machine if you do not do a dual boot or have a spare machine for XP.

But support for Windows XP will be ending soon.