I made a mistake and bought win10 home oem. Can I install then upgrade to home retail. I really do not want to go to the hassle of returning for the retail disk.
Unless your planning to move the OS to another computer you'll be fine with the OEM version.
Robert,
The previous reply was correct. For all practical purposes, the only differences between your OEM licence and the Retail licence are
1 Your licence is tied to the first computer you install it on [whereas the Retail licence could be used to install on a replacement computer later on]
2 The OEM licence is not entitled to receive limited MS support for a defined period [whereas a Retail licensee can, for a short period, endure the privilege of finding out that MS support to consumers is run by database operators not Windows technicians - if your question matches an entry in their database then you are fine but if not then you might as well have asked the ship's cat for advice]
Denis
That would be wrong, or at least incomplete. There is one more important difference between an OEM Windows 10 license and a Retail Windows 10 license:Robert,
The previous reply was correct. The only differences between your OEM licence and the Retail licence are
1 Your licence is tied to the first computer you install it on [whereas the Retail licence could be used to install on a replacement computer later on]
2 The OEM licence is not entitled to receive limited MS support for a defined period [whereas a Retail licensee can, for a short period, endure the privilege of finding out that MS support to consumers is run by database operators not Windows technicians - if your question matches an entry in their database then you are fine but if not then you might as well have asked the ship's cat for advice]
Denis
The Windows 10 OEM (System Builder's) license does not allow personal use:
Windows system builder licensing for personal useWindows 10, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7 system builder software does not permit personal use, and is intended only for preinstallation on customer systems that will be sold to end users.*
Is there any enforcement of that by Microsoft?That would be wrong, or at least incomplete. There is one more important difference between an OEM Windows 10 license and a Retail Windows 10 license:
The Windows 10 OEM (System Builder's) license does not allow personal use:
Windows system builder licensing for personal use
I expect that most of the OEM copies sold by online sellers end up on personal systems, but I have no information on that.
This is not to encourage violation of license agreements. The only times I have ever used OEM licenses was for systems I built for others.
Whilst it is correct that the licence terms for OEM versions include the stipulation that they are only for use on systems that will be sold to end users, I have not seen any reports of enforcement action in this forum or the MSAnswers forum.
Nor have I ever seen any reports of what data such enforcement action could be based on. There is no data that identifies the original purchaser. There is no data that identifies the sale event because it is not a system event but a human interaction.
I have edited my previous post to reflect this.
Denis
