WinXP OEM or Retail?

[danny_w]

Uh... VMWare is making the SATA drives look like generic drives so you don't need any special drivers.

When installing XP to hardware natively (Mac or not) you will generally need storage drivers for anything but the most plain vanilla boxes since lots of RAID interfaces, etc.. require special drivers (either to function at all or to achieve peak performance). You may be able to boot thanks to BIOS emulation, but as soon as Windows XP loads it detects the interface "properly" and realizes it doesn't have the right drivers.

B

Yes, I agree that you need drivers for a native installation, but I started this thread about vm installations, so I thought that was what you were referring to.

 

[balamw]

Will an OEM disk (not a reinstall disk, but a new OEM disk from the store) work in Parallels and/or VMware and/or Bootcamp?

I started this thread about vm installations

Anyhow, I was responding to Alican.

B

 

[SMM]

Too bad Microsoft can't really track if you've transferred it to another computer or not. I've transferred my OEM copy of XP through 3 computers already. Each year they allow you to activate your copy of Windows again, in case nobody knows that...Or so it seems.

If you try to activate it again in the same year (if you have to reinstall Windows for any reason), of course you'll get a message saying you've exceeded the amount of times activated on that serial. You just call them and tell them that you only have it installed on one machine and then they'll give you an activation key. So either way, you can activate it by waiting one year, or calling them on the phone. I think Vista is harder to get by this time around...

I vote for you as XP User of the Decade (conceding it has not been around for a decade)! Anyone who can re-activate XP OEM, three times, is alright in my book.

Usually, I order PC's (desktops and laptops) in quantities of six. In the past (we are changing our purchasing strategy), we order XP Pro and Office Basic installed. Occasionally, the install sucks, and we wipe it and redo it. That is when we run into our first difficulty with the OEM issue. We also get a few Dell motherboard failures. That is when we run into our second difficulty with OEM licensing. The problem escalates when we contact a foreigner, with limited communication abilities, who want to go straight through the 'written procedure'. They only seem to have learned to speak english, not understand it. Furthermore, they act like you are trying to burn them on a drug deal. It is frustrating beyond belief.

We are close to MS. We work in close proximity to Redmond, and also have literally hundreds of friends, family and colleagues working there. So, a few months ago, we had a rep come visit us and explain all of the ins, and outs, of licensing and activation. It is an absolute cluster fork. Sheepishly he warned us that things were going to become more difficult for us in the future. His suggestion: buy retail versions of all of their software, except for concurrent licensing.