Gizmodo Australia » oem

The Cheapest Way To Get Windows 7!

Danny Allen — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:34:28 +0000

Newegg has listed prices for OEM copies of Windows 7 — technically intended for little computer building businesses, but there’s nothing stopping you buying them. And as long as you understand some mostly-minor limitations, you can save some serious money.

Take a look at the table — that’s not chump change. Newegg is also taking a further $US5-$15 off some prices for pre-orders before October 20.

The main two caveats: OEM product keys aren’t transferable from one PC to another, and you’ll need to install them on a formatted machine (usually the best way, anyway). Less of a concern is that you don’t get any support or packaging; just the disc. Still sounds like a bargain to me. [Newegg via ComputerWorld via ArsTechnica]

Windows 7 Home Premium Professional Ultimate OEM $US110 $US140 $US190 Retail Upgrade $US120 $US200 $US220 Full Retail $US200 $US300 $US320 Full OEM (3 Pack) $US310 N/A $US550

Windows 7 RTM Cracked (What Took So Long?)

Sean Fallon — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:18:51 +0000

I mean, it’s been six days since the RTM first leaked on BitTorrent. SIx days! That’s like an eternity. At any rate, it is true—Windows 7 RTM Ultimate has already been cracked using a Lenovo OEM product key.

The key and OEM certificate were extracted from Win 7 Ultimate’s .wim files. A similar method was used to bypass Vista, and those vulnerabilities were never addressed so there is no reason to suspect that Microsoft will do anything about it now (but there are no guarantees). Supposedly, the crack works with 32-bit and 64-bit Ultimate versions and can be implemented on HP, Dell, and MSI computers in addition to Lenovo. Of course, you would need to engage in a little BIOS magic to fool the OS that you are using an OEM machine before any of this would work in the first place. [Softpedia via Download Squad via Lifehacker]

Microsoft Offering Vista-to-XP Downgrade Option to Anyone, Not Just OEMs

Ben Longo — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 19:14:25 +0000

While many sites today are claiming that MS is only offering Vista-to-XP downgrade discs to OEMs, CNet Asia found out that Microsoft support will allow anybody with a copy of Vista Ultimate or Business to call and request a downgrade disc themselves, just like it says in the licence terms. So there you have it, any Joe Schmo can pick up a Vista downgrade disc as long as they have a nice enough version of Vista. [CNet]