Upgrade or Full Retail?

You can buy the software once, and then contact Microsoft to purchase an additional registration key. I believe it's considerably less expensive than buying the software twice.

What would be the advantages of the upgrade over the full version? Can I use the full version to upgrade or is it limited to only new installs? OEM versions,,,what are they really good for?

Thanks, CRONTAB

Go ahead,,,make my day! root@sys02 /root> kill -9 1

As far as upgrade versions vs full versions - Upgrade versions are full versions, with the additional requirement that during install - you will be prompted to insert a previous version of windows into your CD Rom so that M$ can verify that you actually have a legal disc. After verification, it will eject the older version and prompt you to reinsert the XP version and continue on with the full install. I've installed with an academic upgrade version several times without issues of any kind.

As far as buying additional licenses - sorry, can't help you with that issue.

BTW - it's always recommended that you reformat and do a complete clean install vs installing over an older version. Many horror stories can be found in these forums on that issue.


<b><font color=red> “Liberals have many tails and chase them all.” – H.L. Mencken </font color=red><b>

OEM versions are full versions minus the cute box and manuals which you probably don't need anyway - general requirement is you must buy a piece of hardware with the OEM software - think thumbscrews ... maybe a new mouse ...






<b><font color=red> “Liberals have many tails and chase them all.” – H.L. Mencken </font color=red><b>

The real difference as far as Microsoft are concerned is that generally, OEM versions are supposed to be supported by the reseller, whereas retail versions are supposed to be supported by Microsoft.

Note the phrase "supposed to be". In practice, you'll be lucky if you can get any sort of support from either the shop OR Microsoft. But of course, if you can access THGC, you won't need it  

If he's running win 2k on two workstations - he's probably pretty knowledgable already - can't imagine why anyone would want to call Redmond. Can you say hold time ...


<b><font color=red> “Liberals have many tails and chase them all.” – H.L. Mencken </font color=red><b>

Personally, I would get two OEM full versions. If nothing else, you have a spare cd, in case the other gets damaged or something, and you've only spent as much as one retail version. Besides what has already been stated about OEM's, they also don't come with any documentation. But you don't need it anyways.

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Your arrogance is boring!

Something I might add:

IMO, your not actually buying the software. They would probably give that away, if it would make more people want it. Your paying for the right to use it, in the form of a registry key code. I've never contacted MS about purchasing another key code, but I would have to assume that it would cost almost as much as buying another cd, for someone who only wanted one extra key.

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Your arrogance is boring!