Re: Vista Ultimate Purchase and Use

The definition of being "tied to the BIOS" means that if installed on the brand of computer it was coded for, it will self activate.

Almost all OEM CDs are ALSO "generic" CDs; in almost all cases, you can successfully (and legally) use the MEDIA on ANY computer. The issues that arise have to do with the product keys and activation. You may take a Dell CD and use it on a non-Dell computer. With a valid (non-Dell) product key, it WILL activate. If you try to use the OEM (Dell) product key that it came with (on a machine not made by that OEM), then either it won't activate at all, or it will activate, but that will be your one single allowed activation, and you would then probably be unable to use that product key on the OEM machine with which it was supplied and intended to be used.

Isn't it wonderful how much time we get to spend on this kind of crap, instead of worrying about technical issues like we should be?


Tony Harding wrote:
Barry Watzman wrote:
There are different kinds of "OEM" copies.

The copies that come with a PC from a major manufacturer (Dell, Toshiba, Gateway, Lenovo, Sony ......) CAN be tied to the BIOS, and almost always are (almost always, but not absolutely always .... it's up to the OEM and may vary by model). Even when tied to the BIOS, they can be installed on non-OEM machines, but they will require manual activation which will usually fail if they had ever been previously activated.

However, there is another kind of "OEM" copy, that is the "generic" OEM copy, the kind sold by Newegg and other computer parts dealers, and the kind delivered with so called "white box" systems (mostly systems built by small local system builders). These are NEVER locked to a BIOS.

As I understand the term, Dell's OS install disk is not "tied to the BIOS", I have installed XP Pro on non Dell machines from the Dell CD. However, it will not self activate on a non Dell box, not a problem here because my ThinkPad came with XP Pro on it, so I have a valid COA. I entered it when asked and the install completed without a hitch.
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Relevant Pages

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