75ZT Community

I have recently built a new computer to replace my aging Dell Dimension 5000 running Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit.
For those that are interested it is based around a sandy bridge,

Asus P8p67-PRO motherboard,

Intel i5 2500K Processor,

Corsair Vengeance 8GB memory,

Housed in a Cooler Master Gladiator 600 Case,

Couldn’t believe how easy it was to build after watching some tutorials on YouTube, Simon on newegg.com I found very informative.
But to get back to the point, I always thought that the Windows 7 licence only allowed you to install it on one machine but as my Dell was only a 32bit and my Asus is a 64bit and the home premium came with both on two discs I thought I would try to install it on my new PC.
I did a clean install and waited a few days before activating it and it went through with no problem at all!

So if any of you chaps are out there wondering whether to have a go at self build if I can do it at 70 years old it will be a doddle for the rest of you!

Although there are two discs, the license is valid for just one installation only (unless it's a family pack which contains three licenses).

But as long as you don't use the old installation anymore (or sell it), you're perfectly legal, Peter. After re-installing you can activate Windows a few times, but you'll have to phone Microsoft at some point.

There is another technicality too.

You can transfer licenses from one machine to another so long as it's a full license, not an OEM license. The OEM license shouldn't be transferred. Dell disks are probably OEM licenses. At least that's how it was for XP home.

I have no idea if or how they check this, but I did find it in the license agreement once.

Interestingly, I once had to re-install XP pro from a dell disc onto the machine it belonged to after a disc problem meant a re-install. I was expecting to have to activate, but never had to do this. Never figured out why, unless dell had some kind of agreement with MS.

Some OEM versions come without the need of activation, especially from the big PC manufactures.

Microsoft doesn't want OEM versions being installed on replacement hardware or being sold separately. But this restriction has been ruled invalid by court, at least in Germany.

Jürgen wrote:Some OEM versions come without the need of activation, especially from the big PC manufactures.

That explains it the. Quite a useful CD perhaps?

Microsoft doesn't want OEM versions being installed on replacement hardware or being sold separately. But this restriction has been ruled invalid by court, at least in Germany.

They are certainly sold in the UK, but usually there's a caveat that you must be building a system. Often you have to buy some system hardware to 'prove' it, say a new hard disk.

Duncan wrote:

Jürgen wrote:Some OEM versions come without the need of activation, especially from the big PC manufactures.

That explains it the. Quite a useful CD perhaps?

Some OEM discs contain a full installation disc, other just a pared down version. The latter ones can't always be installed on any hardware, but you could do the trial and error method ...

Duncan wrote:They are certainly sold in the UK, but usually there's a caveat that you must be building a system. Often you have to buy some system hardware to 'prove' it, say a new hard disk.

No need to buy bundled hardware over here anymore.