Windows XP Professional OEM & Retail?
 

Okay, I'm building a custom PC for a friend and part of the spending requires plunking down for a legit OS. Now my question is what is the difference between XP PRO Retail and OEM. Also, will the OEM allow multiple PC use, just wanted to get that question out as well. :eyebrow:

OEM is original equipment manufacturer.

Basically they send you the disc and manual. There's no other difference between retail and OEM. And no, you still can only install it on one computer, legally.

Retail means it's the boxed version that costs more. OEM means that it costs less and you have to buy it with a piece of hardware (usually sellers will just toss in an IDE cable or something if you don't purchase any hardware at the same time). No, you cannot use any version of XP (except Corporate, if you're a huge enterprise customer) on multiple PCs.

EDIT: ZOMG Stealth you posted just before me. ;_;

Yeah, but he misses the chance to get the pretty Blue Box with the Windows logo.
Like they've said, the core product is the same. Only the retail packaging will be missing (you'll get a shipping box instead). The only time OEM vs retail matters is when buying hardware, where they might leave out wires and drivers in an OEM package.

If you wanted to cut costs a bit, you could opt for an upgrade rather than full version. I have heard that the upgrade contains the full OS except that you need a CD from an older OS to allow it to install. It doesn't actually read critical files off the old disc, rather it's just to prove that you are actually in ownership of the older software. Can't be 100% certain of this though, someone else here could confirm/deny.

I heard that works and works well, but I haven't tried to do so myself, I always had a OEM or (downloaded) full version of a Windows disc handy.

my xp home disk is legal and and upgrade version, i just drop in my windows ME disk and it works great, every time. So i can confirm that this works, for me at least.