Windows 7 OEM prices revealed

Posted on 1 Oct 2009 at 10:39

The Windows 7 Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) prices have been revealed on online shops, and they're a chunk cheaper than the full boxed versions.

Oyyy.co.uk is selling Windows 7 Home Premium OEM for £82, a saving of £68 on the full edition's price of £150.

Windows 7 Professional OEM will cost around £110 (a saving of £110 on the full version's price of £220); Ultimate OEM will cost around £140 (a saving of £90 on the full version's price of £230). The prices are identical for the 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

While these deals seem good, there are some restrictions and problems. First, retailers are currently heavily discounting the full versions of Windows 7. Amazon is currently selling Home Premium for just £65, Professional for £148 and Ultimate for £170.

These are better deals while you can get them, as there aren't the same licence restrictions on the full versions as there are on the OEM editions. The OEM products are designed to be used by system builders, and don't come with any Microsoft support. They can also only be installed on a single computer and have to installed with a clean install (you can't upgrade an existing versions of Windows). OEM versions of Windows are a great choice if you're building a new PC and want to save money, but if you can find the full versions cheaply, buy these instead.

As usual, the UK OEM prices are significantly inflated from the US prices. Currently, Windows 7 Home Premium OEM is selling for $110 (around £69). Professional OEM is selling for $140 (around £88) and Ultimate OEM is selling for $190 (around £119).

Author: David Ludlow

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