XP professional OEM

[institute3]

I am in the process of building a new machine but have a problem with purchasing the OS. Microsoft rules (?) state that hardware must accompany the purchase of the OS OEM version. {Am I mistaken about this?} This gives me gas pains because the website that offers the lowest price for the OS may not sell the hardware parts that I want or is not competitive price wise.. example: Newegg wants 679 dollars for the Athalon 64 X2 5000 whereas Outpost want 325 dollars and the shipping is free. Doesn't make a bit of sense to buy this item at Newegg.. also found that I can buy XP professional with SP2 at another site for right around 100 dollars but they don't deal in hardware..

Anyone know anything about the 5200? Think the only difference, that I know of, is that it has 2 megs of L2 whereas the 5000 has 1 meg of L2

Thanks for any and all responses

Bob Hager

[codered6651]

I maybe mistaken but I don't think the rule of buying hardware in order to purchase the OEM version of XP applies any longer. I just recently purchased from Newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ubCategory=368 for $137.99 Win XP Pro OEM with SP2 and I didn't have to purchase anything else.

There are roughly 3 broad categories of these CDs :

The full retail CD is the boxed version, is usually the most expensive version of the OS that you can buy;

then there is the generic OEM CD, which cannot be bought legally unless you buy qualifying hardware. For some retailers like newegg, it could be a cable or something like that, which will satisfy the necessary requirements of what qualifying hardware is.

Finally, there is the OEM CD that is provided by name brand computer manufacturers (Dell, Toshiba etc etc etc) when you buy their computers. This CD may or may not be locked to the BIOS - which means that you cannot install a Dell OEM XP CD to a non-Dell computer because it is going to look for some information in the BIOS. Even if, the mfger OEM CD is not locked to the BIOS, you still cannot legally use it on another computer (doesnt matter if you toss the Dell computer out), it is still meant to be used only for the computer that it shipped with.

In regards to the second part of your question, I'm sorry I have no answer, I'm not an AMD user.

[glc]

http://www.viosoftware.com/Windows+X...2+CD+Only.html