AMD strictly moderated (AMD)

[Not a Short]

With a W2K or Win9x OEM license you owned the disc and the key and could use it on one PC and only one PC at a time. The only real restrictions were antipiracy oriented.

With XP you own a lease on the OS and the lease has restrictions that vary from OEM to OEM and even retail package to retail package.

It might say something like "The SOFTWARE may not be used by more than two (2) processors at any one time on the COMPUTER, unless a higher number is indicated on the Certificate of Authenticity."

Some copies are specific to the PC they were first installed on. Heaven forbid you install it on a test PC for a week then format the drive and wait a few months before installing it on a different PC once some parts arrive. If that first PC dies you can't install it on any other PC ever. The license key would still work but it is theoretically illegal for you to use it.

Of course if you don't mind thumbing your nose at MSFT and risking the ire of the software police its a non issue. But the reality is that MSFT is being way WAY over the line of reasonable terms in many ways on many copies of WXP. And they've gone way over the line of what is reasonable when auditing corporations.

And Dell or any other big OEM doesn't want to tell you up front what the EULA says in it, nor do they want you to compare theirs vs anyone elses.

As far as I'm concerned I should be able to buy a XP license for each area of my house (or a company should be able to buy per employee) I'm concerned about and build an infinite number of PCs out of random parts over the years and reinstall 2 or 3 times a year just so long as I'm not running more copies concurrently than I paid for. As far as MSFT is concerned they would like to see me buy a new copy of windows every year or two.

They'll keep changing the EULA until they can find enough technicalities to eventually force us all to a software subscription model. (Assuming we don't to move to Mac OS or Linux instead).