Windows 7 Retail

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Technically, Consumer B can buy a deactivated retail license from Consumer A. Legally, I don't know. However, I wouldn't trust Consumer A to have actually deactivated the retail license.

I understand. Buying a "used" Retail from an unauthorized reseller involves a lot of risk and honesty code. Thank you for confirming it was at least technically possible.

Whether it is legal or not, is still another one to be answered.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

You can buy two OEM licenses for only a little more than what one of the equivalent retail licenses would have cost; less if you can catch them on sale. The only difference between an OEM license and a retail license is an OEM license can't be transferred from the first computer it is installed on. Retail licenses can be transferred from computer to computer.

That difference is pretty much my strongest driving point in pursuing Retail. I may buy two OEMs, but unfortunately, it means I can only change the mobo twice.

If my current mobo fails (which has happened before), I understand I will have to go through certain checks at M$ to transfer my OEM license from the failed mobo. There have been talks M$ has not been too generous lately. I just got *lucky* that my Win7 Pro OEM was not activated yet at the time my old mobo failed, now it is activated on my current mobo.

Also, we all have to upgrade to a new laptop sometime, but unfortunately, the OEM license is now married to the old laptop.

These are the times when Retail licenses become extremely convenient. I tend to use OS for quite a long time (10 years WinXP), so it is highly probable I would still be using Win7 until 2020 or so.

Thank you, Lady Fitzgerald for your response. I guess I really just have to try my luck if I can find a stray Retail from the stores around here. It is quite common in the Philippines to have old stock of products lying around, but I must do so quick.

Good luck! I really hope you get lucky and find one lurking in some dusty corner.

I was even considering on buying a "used" Retail from a trusted member here (or any spare Retail). Hence why I was wondering if it was legal. Lots of honesty code, I know.

Haha, thanks for the well wishes. I hope so too. :)

Ok, both of those links AddRAM provided are not being sold by BestBuy but by a couple of their Marketplace vendors. One has to be careful dealing with Marketplace vendors, be they BestBuy's, Amazon's, Newegg's, etc.

The first one is being sold buy a cookware supply company . Besides being grossly overpriced, the whole thing smells a bit fishy. I couldn't find much on them. They aren't listed with the BBB.

The second looks better. The price is more inline with MSRP. What reviews I found are a bit better and they do have an A+ rating with the BBB. Whether they will ship internationally is another story. Another problem is M$ software sold in one region often cannot be activated in another one.

Yep, after I realized that, I removed the links.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Another problem is M$ software sold in one region often cannot be activated in another one.

This is a very valuable piece of info. Thank you.

Checking my OEM COA, it is indeed marked SEA (South East Asia).

kathy025 said:

Sorry for missing that.

Oh man, I need to get my hands on a genuine Retail copy quick. In my area, Win8 sells for 4000PHP and Win7 OEM sells for 8000PHP.

As has been said, the OEM is the same files as Retail, the difference being OEM is tied to the motherboard. == Let me tell you a story about a "friend". This "friend" built a new computer. He had a Win 7 OEM on the old computer. In as much as he did not want to pay a $100 or so for another Win 7, he installed the OEM from the old PC on the new PC. When it was attempted to be activated, the "friend" was prompted to call Microsoft. It was a Robot on the phone. A few questions were asked that were easily answered and a new number was given by the Robot to put in the authenication spaces so that the OEM has a legal license. None of the questions forced my "friend" to lie. It was above board. As a last resort, I would go this route.

Interesting to know, bigmck. I'll take note of that. :)

gregrocker said:

There really isn't a deactivated Win7. The activation servers don't know you deleted it off the disk or even that you changed the Product Key which writes a new hardware signature for the new key to the servers.

Only when an attempt is made to reactivate with that same key do the servers do their comparison with the existing hardware signature. My understanding is that if there's already a hardware signature tied to that key, the next question is "How many PC's is this copy of Win7 installed upon?" to which you can only answer one to proceed. It then overwrites the old hardware signature with the new one and activates. Until this happens that key sits in the servers with the old hardware signature.

Thanks for clarifying that.