Need Help

Ok here is my problem I am building a new PC for the first time but I already have a working PC that I want to do some upgrades on. I have windows Vista home premium on my existing computer but I want to upgrade to windows 7. The thing is I want to put a new hard drive in the old computer and of course the new computer I'm building is going to have a blank hard drive. So I was looking at the oem version of the software for the new build but can I also use that for the old computer with the new hard drive. And do I have to buy two copies of oem or can you get license keys for the same disk I'm lost here I just need to get a operating system on both computers after the build and the upgrade and I really want windows 7! please help.

richc46 said:

achaffin said:

Ok here is my problem I am building a new PC for the first time but I already have a working PC that I want to do some upgrades on. I have windows Vista home premium on my existing computer but I want to upgrade to windows 7. The thing is I want to put a new hard drive in the old computer and of course the new computer I'm building is going to have a blank hard drive. So I was looking at the oem version of the software for the new build but can I also use that for the old computer with the new hard drive. And do I have to buy two copies of oem or can you get license keys for the same disk I'm lost here I just need to get a operating system on both computers after the build and the upgrade and I really want windows 7! please help.

OEM is sold, by Newegg, etc on the honor system. You could get it for the New computer, but I think that the upgrade version for the old would be the legal thing to do, but yes you could buy for both.

Hi

Take a look at this thread on OEM licence:

A "Must Read" for OEM license users

There isn't much difference in price between OEM and the Upgrade version. In fact, I bought an Upgrade on eBay for less than the OEM. You will need two separate keys, one for each computer. I'm not certain how to do it, but I think that MS does have a means for buying additional keys, but I just bought two Upgrades so that I wouldn't have to hassle with MS, because I have always found that when talking with them, I find myself going in circles, from one tech to another, getting conflicting information.

I would strongly recommend doing clean installs on both machines with the Upgrade, and then moving your data from Vista afterward.

EDIT: Since you are going for Home Premium, why not get a family pack with 3 licenses. It has been discontinued, but when I looked a few days back, there were still plenty of these available.

If you buy OEM you are locked to the hardware for the life of the OS.

If you buy Upgrade, it can migrate like full retail as long as there is a qualifying XP/Vista to back it up. And the Xp/Vista never has to be installed; you are on the honor system.

However at some point in the future during a reinstall, if you should be elevated to a person during activation (almost never happens) then they could ask for XP/Vista qualifier. No one has reported this yet, though.

Plus, if you make a Win7 backup image stored externally, you never have to reinstall Win7 again anyway.