XP pro - OEM vs Retail

[powerandrubber]

I need to buy a new copy of XP pro for my laptop that only comes with vista. I don't understand OEM vs retail. OEM is MUCH cheaper, info on newegg's site says "Qualifying proof of purchase must be recent receipts showing the purchase of a mother board, hard drive, RAM and a CPU." Can I buy OEM with the receipt from my laptop?

[EricCamper]

One would think so, but I not quite sure. Have you tried where you bought the laptop?

[tom182]

best of my knowledge the answer is no.
I believe the fact that you bought a laptop with an already installed OS on it means that you would not be entitled to a xp OEM,
Essentially you already have an OEM os on your laptop.
say you are upgrading a workstation and you are swapping out the MB, HD, CPU then you would get the OEM version, (Barring the case and psu its a new pc, hence you can get the oem version)
i paid €140 for 64 xp OEM ($190 approx.) for a recent upgrade I put together.
hope that helps,

I know of reputable online stores (not the spamming mofos) that wont require proof of receipt of hardware, ( or maybe because I bought the upgrade kit from them, it wasnt an issue)

hope that helps,
Tom

[DaForce]

OEM is meant to only be sold when building a machine.

Not for laptops with existing OS's

However some places just sell it anyway.

[Blitterswitch]

In order to buy an oem copy you need to be buy certain hardware or hardwares - so you are a 'system builder'.

In my local shop you either have to buy a cpu, hd, memory, motherboard.... any major componant really.

As a tip... look for edo ram or summin realllllly old and costs like £2. It will still qualify.

Good luck!

[dlparisi]

As a tip... look for edo ram or summin realllllly old and costs like £2. It will still qualify.

Although you can probably find a place to sell it to you (the OEM version that is), Microsoft I believe has officially changed their qualifying hardware for OEM versions of operating systems. You used to be able to buy a small component and qualify, nowadays they're requiring it be sold to system builders supplying full pc's to the end user. I think most reputable places can get around this and still stay OK with microsoft by requiring the user to provide receipts for MB, CPU, HD, and ram at the time of purchase.

[powerandrubber]

Thanks all. I ordered an OEM version for $135 usd no problem no questions asked. Really happy with that price even though I'm torqued that I couldn't get XP on my laptop in the first place. I was told by my supplier that the only difference between OEM and retail is that with OEM you only get 2 support phone calls to microsoft. Also I've bought at least 10 computers worth of components in the past so maybe that had something to do with it.

[DaForce]

The only slight issue that could arrise with installing xp on a new vista based laptop.

Is the drivers might not be available for XP. So possible some of the cooler features may not work.
Depending on what drivers you can get from the manufactorers website and what you can source off the net.

[Blitterswitch]

Yeh DaForce is right, I have noticed an increasing prevalence of laptops which are marketed with the slogan "this laptop is not compatible with windows xp"

Glad I have my Dell!

[powerandrubber]

Fingers crossed on that one! It's a dell vostro 1700. I'll post some benchies when I get it up and runnin.

[DrJan]

I was wondering about that too sometime and then I informed with my local computerstore. There are three different version of an OS.

OEM is meant to be sold with a piece of hardware that's essential for a computer to work i.e. motherboard, videocard, memory, processor etc
BOX is meant to be sold with a complete computersystem.
Retail is sold seperatly, and costs more.

I just bought a new videocard to be able to buy my copy of XP. I needed a new one anyway. But I don't know if that works with a laptop...