Use installed OEM version vs install retail ver

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Greetings,

I’m currently running WinXP SP3 on a 3 1/2 year old laptop.

I recently purchased an HP Pavilion dv6t (Intel Core i5-430M 2. 26GHz) with Win7 Home Premium 64-bit pre-installed by HP.

I also have a purchased retail copy of Win7 which of course may be installed with 32 or 64-bit version. I plan to upgrade to a 64-bit system.

Here’s my question: should I simply use the pre-installed Win7 on my new laptop? Or, given that I have a retail version of Win7, should I erase the HDD (on the new laptop) and install the retail version of Win7 on the new laptop?

I’m well aware that I must download and install all necessary drivers if I install the retail version. But what other consequences or benefits are there for either choice?

I’m only considering installing the retail version to make it easier to upgrade to a newer laptop sometime in the future. My understanding is that the HP OEM copy of Win7 will not permit that to happen – correct?

Any/all comments or suggestions welcome! Thx, Rob

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AFAIK the only limitations with an OEM version is that you cannot transfer it to another computer. You can upgrade from an OEM version, unless MS changes upgrade requirements in the future. I upgraded my laptop to Windows 7 from an OEM version of Vista.

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There should be no problems with upgrading the Win 7 in your new HP laptop in the future. The only issue with having the OEM license on the laptop is that you cannot transfer that license to a different machine. For example, you cannot transfer the OEM license on your new laptop to the old laptop. You can, however, use the retail license on either laptop.

One of the reasons for re-installing the OS on a store-bought PC is that by doing so you can get rid of the junkware that is preinstalled. My 3-year old laptop came with Vista and when Win 7 came out I upgraded and being rid of the junkware was wonderful!. By the wany, if your retail version of Win 7 is also Home Premium, you can use the retail disc to do a clean install on your new laptop and still use the OEM license. How? When you install, do not supply a license key. After the install is finished, go to Computer Properties and click on the Change Product Key link and enter the OEM license key on the bottom of your laptop. This way your laptop is still using the OEM license key and you still have the retail license key available for use elsewhere.

Before going through this process, you should probably make the recovery DVDs for the new laptop – see the HP docs that came with the laptop for instructions.

The drivers should not be a problem, you should be able to get them from the HP web site.

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Hi Rob,

In my opinion, it would be far easier to just remove the junkware that HP installed on your laptop than to do a fresh install. Your OEM install is Win7 64 bit, as is your retail package, so you gain no advantage in going through all the work to remove the OEM install and start over.

Just download and install a program like Revo Uninstaller Free , and use it to uninstall all the junkware. It will utilize each programs own uninstaller routine and then go beyond it to search out registry listings to remove as well, giving you a pretty clean uninstall. Most, if not all the junkware installed on laptops is 32 bit software, so the free version of Revo works just great.

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Thanks for the replies! All useful information.

As pointed out, the OEM license on the (new) laptop cannot be transferred to a different machine. That was the real point of my question. If I install the retail version, then I can at anytime in the future transfer my HDD to a new machine, install the necessary drivers for that machine and continue to run all my existing software on the new machine without having to perform another clean install. That is an option I’d like to have and is not available if I elect to use the OEM version.

And, yes, I am aware of the junk/bloatware installed with the OEM version. And I know how to eliminate any software I don’t want. I don’t view that as a big deal.

Please correct me if any statement made here is erroneous.

Rob

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Hmmm, is this “newer laptop sometime in the future” not going to have its own operating system? If it does, you probably really only want to transfer the documents and settings and maybe programs if you use a program like PC Mover to accomplish this. If the operating system is going to the newer laptop as well, that’s a difficult task in any event without some good bare metal image restore software.
From the information supplied I don’t see any reason to get rid of the current install, its easy to get rid of junkware if you do it right away but if you want to go through the trouble of a clean install, that works too.

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Hmmm, is this “newer laptop sometime in the future” not going to have its own operating system? If it does, you probably really only want to transfer the documents and settings and maybe programs if you use a program like PC Mover to accomplish this. If the operating system is going to the newer laptop as well, that’s a difficult task in any event without some good bare metal image restore software.
From the information supplied I don’t see any reason to get rid of the current install, its easy to get rid of junkware if you do it right away but if you want to go through the trouble of a clean install, that works too.

@Rob,

I agree with this. Why would you want to throw out a legitimate version because of a future laptop, which you don’t even know what OS it will be running, depending on when you will buy it? If that laptop will have different hardware (which is most likely) it may even be possible that the disk won’t boot in that new PC.

Again, Byron is right on the programs situation. If all you care about is your programs and settings, Laplink has several programs that will transfer them for you, to a new OS, without the accumulated junk that all OSes inevitably accumulate over time.

Just MHO.

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Funny, I don’t seem to be able to say c-r-a-p without it being substituted with junk

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Let’s say in this hypothetical situation that years from now you were able to physically move the hard drive from your “new” laptop to your “future” laptop and have everything just work. If the “future” laptop also came with Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit installed, then all you would have top do to be “legal” is go to Computer Properties, click Change Product Key, and enter the license key on the sticker at the bottom of the “future” laptop. You could do this whether the hard drive had an OEM or a retail license.

However, if the future laptop came with Windows 8 (fairly likely), and if 8 was not a Vista clone (heaven forbid!), then I could not see downgrading to Win 7.

Therefore it seems to me that switching over to using a retail license on the laptop really doesn’t buy you anything.

And by the way, if you really still want to switch to the retail license, a reinstall is not necessary – simply change the product key like I outlined above. Where the bits that run on a computer came from don’t matter, all that matters is the license that gives you the legal right to run those bits. There is no difference between Home Premium retail and Home Premium OEM once it is installed. The installation DVDs are pickier, however, allowing only keys of like kinds, For example, you can use any retail key to install from any retail DVD, but you cannot use a retail key to install from an OEM DVD. On the other hand, you can install from any kind of DVD (OEM, volume license, retail) and after installation set the proper license key and you are still legal.

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Let’s say in this hypothetical situation that years from now you were able to physically move the hard drive from your “new” laptop to your “future” laptop and have everything just work. If the “future” laptop also came with Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit installed, then all you would have top do to be “legal” is go to Computer Properties, click Change Product Key, and enter the license key on the sticker at the bottom of the laptop. You could do this whether the hard drive had an OEM or a retail license.

Peter, I’m afraid I must disagree given what Microsoft states regarding Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) activation “… is a perpetual, one-time activation that associates Windows 7 with the firmware (BIOS) of a computer.” (see OEM activation)

Unless the BIOS for both machines is identical (not likely if one machine is several years older than the newer machine), the “old” OEM Win7 could not be activated (licensed) to run on the newer machine.

However, it does appear that a retail copy of Win7 could be re-activated on a new machine (within 30 days).

Again, my lack of understanding this difference prompted my original question.

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Peter, I’m afraid I must disagree given what Microsoft states regarding Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) activation “… is a perpetual, one-time activation that associates Windows 7 with the firmware (BIOS) of a computer.” (see OEM activation)

. . .the “old” OEM Win7 could not be activated (licensed) to run on the newer machine.

Did you read this sentence in my post:

all you would have top do to be “legal” is go to Computer Properties, click Change Product Key, and enter the license key on the sticker at the bottom of the “future” laptop.

This associates the OEM license key of the “future” laptop with the copy of Win 7 running on that laptop. (Note I never said to run with the “new” OEM license key on the “future” laptop.) I maintain that it is immaterial as to how Win 7 got on that laptop, as long as that OEM license key is used only on that laptop, you are in the clear legally. (Of course, I am not a lawyer, but I don’t see how this violates the spirit of the license.)

P.S. I edited the earlier post to add the word “future” before laptop in the above quote to make it clearer (though the context should have been clear from the earlier parts of that sentence.)

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Peter, hello.

Can I strech my neck out and say that you could not move that HD to another system and run it. I included in a post here, a text that explains that the OS is imprinted with all the devices of the machine that it is intalled on. When booting Windows looks at the files, ( I forget their names, there are two of them ) and sees if the data in them matches what the machine has running. It is called WPA, (W)indows (P)roduct (A)ctivation, methinks. I tried it once and had to place a call to Microsoft and I was able to talk my way out of this dillemma.

If you so desire, I would link you to this .txt, the jest of it is that the machine takes votes on the different devices, MoBo, Ethernet card, HD, sound card etc, if you loose three votes, game over. In your case you would loose all votes except the HD identification.

I hope that I am on the right track here. …………….Jean.

NB: Rob, look in Windows 7 here, the tread called : Gparted, Removing a HD partition, look at post #30, you will find the text.

Edit : NB added.

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Can I strech my neck out and say that you could not move that HD to another system and run it.

That is why I labeled it a hypothetical situation. Getting an OS disk to run on different hardware is along shot. The purpose of my post, however, was to show that even if moving the OS disk to different hardware would work, that there is no good reason to replace the OEM license with the retail license on the “new” laptop.

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Can I strech my neck out and say that you could not move that HD to another system and run it.

There is something of a chance for validation, but most likely it will be out of the OEM volume license range authorized for a certain set of mass-produced computers in a certain time range. I can move a system drive to another system and make it run right now….as long as its XP . Don’t know of a certain way in 7…

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the machine takes votes on the different devices, MoBo, Ethernet card, HD, sound card etc, if you loose three votes, game over.

Sure, its usually game over for automatic validation because of that, but, there’s always the “hardship” rule, where somehow the mobo was damaged and had to be replaced

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One still has the “hardship” rule of replacement in order to transfer and use the “old” OEM license in the new system, but, I wonder how far that can be carried in a laptop. Desktop is no problemo, mobo went bad, new mobo, lots of people build and rebuild thier own….activate me please Mr. Softy. With a laptop however it might need to be an out of warranty type “replacement” I’m thinking, or even then the mobo may be so specific to the old laptop that it can only come from a certain group of “trackable” mobos…but I still don’t see how Mr. Softy would be able to tell unless they can somehow check the hardware number and know that the processor type changed or something like that??
Then the conversation might be rather embarrassing, “So Dr. Jones, I see that at the same time you replaced your damage motherboard, your processor suddenly shows a six-fold increase in computing power…how can ziss be Dr.?”….ahhh, crank call, crank call!…click. I don’t think they can tell though….can they?

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Be aware that according to the strict definition of a new system by Microsoft, installing a new motherboard is creating a new system. therefore, strictly speaking if you have an OEM version of Windows you should purchase a new copy of Windows for a new MB. Practically speaking, if you have to call Microsoft for an activation issue with a new MB in all likelyhood they will give you a key without any hassle.

Joe

--Joe

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Interesting that none of you addressed the Microsoft statement “Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) activation is a perpetual, one-time activation that associates Windows 7 with the firmware (BIOS) of a computer.”

Note that this only applies to OEM activation – not retail activation! That’s the crucial difference. It implies that OEM Win7 cannot be “moved” to another machine – while the retail Win7 can.

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Interesting that none of you addressed the Microsoft statement “Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) activation is a perpetual, one-time activation that associates Windows 7 with the firmware (BIOS) of a computer.”

Note that this only applies to OEM activation – not retail activation! That’s the crucial difference. It implies that OEM Win7 cannot be “moved” to another machine – while the retail Win7 can.

Actually, although that specific statement was not addressed, a few posts here noted that you can’t transfer the license to a new PC, which is basically the same thing. Even if you decided to go on, put the disk in a new PC and the license failed to activate then, at that precise moment, you could enter a new license. This means that you can just keep the existing license and use the retail one if and when you actually need it. That’s why I personally don’t see a reason for your to “throw away” your existing OEM license.

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Unless a new revelation is posted here describing a clear and absolute pitfall of using the pre-installed OEM Win7 on my new laptop, I’ve concluded that I’m gonna save myself considerable effort by simply using it and keeping my already owned retail Win7 license available for use in the future if needed.

Much appreciate all the responses to my question! This forum is awesome!

Saludos, Rob

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Rob, hello.

>>> I’ve concluded that I’m gonna save myself considerable effort by simply using it

Hey, stellar move………Jean.

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Interesting that none of you addressed the Microsoft statement “Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) activation is a perpetual, one-time activation that associates Windows 7 with the firmware (BIOS) of a computer.”

Note that this only applies to OEM activation – not retail activation! That’s the crucial difference. It implies that OEM Win7 cannot be “moved” to another machine – while the retail Win7 can.

Oh, but I did address it…it was easy to miss though since I couched it,,,spoke only of a “damaged” motherboard being replaced…and the BIOS is on….that’s as far as I’ll go…I’ve never driven my Mac Truck through that loopity doopity hole but it exists because it has to exist…I really have burnt out about 6 motherboards over the last decade (two in short order in one disasterous power supply issue ) and have had no problem reactivating an OEM on a brand spanking new BIOS that came with the brand spanking new motherboard.

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I strongly suggest keeping your OEM install, it probably has installed features specific to your laptop hardware which you will not find included in a generic retail package. You may be able to download them from the manufacturer but in my experience it can be a real pain.

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