OEM and SA

[dsmith1984]

Hi, I hope someone can help me - We have software assurance in place for Windows Enterprise (Upgrade/Maintenance) but we don't have any Windows Base Licenses for a handful of machines. Is it OK to go ahead and purchase Windows Professional 8.1 OEM licenses from the likes of eBuyer or other online stores which would act as a valid base license and then use our software assurance to upgrade our machines to Enterprise Editions therefore making us fully compliant? Would this be OK as the OEM base license would be purchased after the machine was built/setup? Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks, David

[pete]

According to Microsoft licensing you can't use an OEM license for personal use (build it, use within the same business/home). When building for others it's perfectly fine. There was a short while that you could do that with an Windows 8 license, but Microsoft changed terms when 8.1 came out.

 

https://www.microsoft.com/OEM/en/licensing/sblicensing/Pages/licensing_faq.aspx#fbid=8VnxJVOPv4F

 

Microsoft marketing material and the website has historically (Windows 7-ish) had conflicting OK/Not OK information.

 

Whether you can find a non-dodgy source of unused Windows 8 OEM licences is another matter.