According to what a MS representative told Kerry Brown recently, the
restriction of OEM XP to the first machine it is installed on is for the
purpose of limiting an OEM's responsibility for support to the machine that
the OEM built. The idea was not to create an ephemeral version of Windows.
The idea was not to make more money, even though the results may have
deviated from the concept in some cases.
If an individual is their own OEM, it kind of begs the question of support,
doesn't it?
I am one of those who believe that honoring the spirit of a rule is more
sensible than blindly honoring the word of a rule. I have been known to cut
the label from a pillow!

Leythos wrote:
In article ,
says...
the latest from mike brannigan is that it's the oem that determines
when the original computer is no longer the original computer . so
who built the computer , who bought the oem os and who installed the
os on that computer determines the rules as far as i read it .

Not that I want to get into this again, but if you go into the OEM
site at MS, read around the documents, it seemed very clear to me
that the OEM software is tied to the first computer it's installed
on, and that the computer, by MS's documents on the OEM site,
indicate that the Motherboard is the "computer".

When I, as a personal choice, choose OEM, I limit the scope of the
license to the motherboard.

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