Originally posted by: aircooled
even newegg doesn't sell OEM without you buying a mobo or hard drive, etc...
Um, actually, Newegg (and a bunch of other companies out there, including ZZF) only have the MS requirement of a "piece of hardware" that has to accompany the oem software order. In the case of Newegg, they just throw in a cable (think the last time I ordered, it was a sound cable, like you'd put from an optical drive to your motherboard sound header) to make it legal. ZZF, I think, actually makes you spend $0.99 for the same cable.
Is it what MS would like these companies to do? No.....they actually want something like a mobo or hdd ordered, but it DOES follow the "letter of the law", if not the intent.
edit:
I just checked out the site. Softwareoutlet used to be one of the best online companies for getting oem products & coa's, before MS got the law changed this year (so that coa's can no longer be sold alone, without the cd & booklet, or "oem"). I can't say much about them for the past year, since it's been at least that long since I last ordered from them.
That being said, a word of warning about this version of windows xp pro. Notice that it's the cd with key, and no mention of a coa. That's cuz you're not going to get one with this. I know because I bought the same sort of item from another online retailer once, and thought it odd that I didn't get a coa, until I went back and really read their description, and noticed it was NOT an oem product. What you ARE going to get is a cd in a paper sleeve, with the keycode printed on that sleeve.
Will it work. Yep, ought to. It did for me, and I had no problems activating it with MS. I used it on my file server computer, since I know I'll never get rid of that one, so don't have to worry about it not having a coa sticker on it. If you're building a system for yourself, or someone in your immediate family, you'd do just fine with a product such as this. If, however, you're a system builder that builds for fun/profit, this likely wouldn't be a good choice for selling to someone else, unless you have a good heart-to-heart sit down with them beforehand, and explain the difference to them.
Is this form of windows legal? IMHO, it lives right on the edge, somewhere in that thin gray line. But since it activates just fine, and doesn't give any problems in that regard, I'd say you're just fine with it. And if it won't activate, you still have the microsoft piracy thing to fall back on.
