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No Retail copies? So to get a copy you have to buy a new PC or have an existing Windows OS?



Nope, the "System Builder"/OEM license appears to cover that as well now[0].

[0] (footnote) http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2...


Pretty sure the pure "retail" version of the OS disappeared with XP->Vista. Everything on a store shelf today is an upgrade copy, and the version sold from people like Newegg (which is what I meant) is titled something like "OEM version for system builders".


I have a Windows 7 Retail copy sitting on my shelf.


Me too. And unlike the new "personal use license", it doesn't include new, ambiguous changes to the license text, like the prohibition against "licensing more than five copies of the software for commercial use in total" (concurrent or consecutive?) and the restriction that it may only be used on computers that "you are building for your own use". Given any reasonable interpretation of "build", this should exclude, say, a MacBook, and it leaves open questions about computers that I own but am "building" for the use of others.

I suspect the real reason for this train wreck of an EULA is that "no retail copies" is yet another stick to force volume license users to purchase software assurance, as it does mean that the only current-version Windows base license available to companies with more than five seats is the restricted, nontransferable OEM EULA. Or, oddly enough in the case of most volume license agreements, Mac OS X.


I was able to buy a retail copy of 7 Ultimate from MS directly for ~$300.




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