What are the differences between these two?
Last year I bought retail Windows 7 to my custom build and I could do clean installs with it and change to different computers.
The only retail they sell is upgrade. How does this compare to OEM? Are there any more different versions beside OEM and upgrade?
In my country Windows 8 Pro version just reads Windows 8 Pro. No upgrade or anything. Is that retail license or what?
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/mseea/fi_FI/pdp/pro...
If you would have Mac, which one would you buy for Boot camp?
Can you move Windows 8 License to another computer?
upgrade means you have to have windows already installed to be able to use the upgrade. retail means you can install it on a new computer or a fresh install on older computer. oem means "original equipment manufacture" like dell & hp so most likely will not load or work properly on a clone computer.
OEM discs are the same as retail the difference is they have a limited number of activations & once reached you must phone ms to reactivate,they are usually tied to the machine they were first installed on,however even microsoft has no idea about the rules governing oem,don't take my word for it do a web search there's an article round there somewhere from one of the websites like cnet,tech republic regarding blown mobo or transfer to new comp,in a nut shell tell ms the mobo blew & you should be good to go on a new computer
I use oem tho i would prefer retail however over here retail is a ripoff,once upon a time oem were meant only for hp etc,however ms relaxed somewhat (back at xp) & started shipping oem discs for system builders like yourself,just make sure you have all the hardware your ever going to need installed at one time,this will avoid the too many hardware changes crap & need to reactivate message the culprits are
mobo
cpu
ram hdd
ethernet cards
graphic card
Strangely the upgrade works as a clean install at least it did for me... I had Windows 7, but just installed straight into my new SSD and wiped the old HDD. I might have given up my Windows 8 license by installing 8.1 though... When I install the preview, I have to use the MS key rather than my own key. Maybe I should have bought another license. Oh well.
