Dell Licensing of Vista Premium x64

I have a friend that just bought a new PC from Dell that had Vista Premium
x64 on it. The motherboard promptly died on it and Dell is sending out a
replacement PC. For various reasons including a supposedly incompatible TV
tuner card, Dell swapped Vista x64 for x32 and told my friend that he could
keep the original Dell Vista Premium x64 disk. They also told him that the
x64 disk could be used in the future to do a full install of x64 on the
new(er) PC should he choose to do so. To me this seems to violate the OEM
rule of once on a PC it's locked to that PC. He shouldn't use it on the new
PC. Comments?

Brian

The disc is only a disc, that's not the issue. The issue is the product key
for the 64-bit version which is dead alongside the dead computer. The disc
can almost certainly be used to install the 64-bit version of Vista on his
new computer using the product key that will ship with the new computer.

"BrianB" <brian@notreal.com> wrote in message
news:OoYcRZbqJHA.528@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> I have a friend that just bought a new PC from Dell that had Vista Premium
> x64 on it. The motherboard promptly died on it and Dell is sending out a
> replacement PC. For various reasons including a supposedly incompatible TV
> tuner card, Dell swapped Vista x64 for x32 and told my friend that he
> could keep the original Dell Vista Premium x64 disk. They also told him
> that the x64 disk could be used in the future to do a full install of x64
> on the new(er) PC should he choose to do so. To me this seems to violate
> the OEM rule of once on a PC it's locked to that PC. He shouldn't use it
> on the new PC. Comments?
>
> Brian
>

Hi,

Nothing wrong with that. A Vista license can be used to install either bit
version of the operating system. If he chooses to at a later point, he can
use the license from the 32-bit installation to install the 64-bit version.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"BrianB" <brian@notreal.com> wrote in message
news:OoYcRZbqJHA.528@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>I have a friend that just bought a new PC from Dell that had Vista Premium
>x64 on it. The motherboard promptly died on it and Dell is sending out a
>replacement PC. For various reasons including a supposedly incompatible TV
>tuner card, Dell swapped Vista x64 for x32 and told my friend that he could
>keep the original Dell Vista Premium x64 disk. They also told him that the
>x64 disk could be used in the future to do a full install of x64 on the
>new(er) PC should he choose to do so. To me this seems to violate the OEM
>rule of once on a PC it's locked to that PC. He shouldn't use it on the new
>PC. Comments?
>
> Brian
>