That said, you really can get OEM software for a fraction of the price of the commercial versions. There are some serious drawbacks, chief among them that you can only install them on one motherboard EVER, and no upgrades EVER. In other words, if you ever need a major computer repair (including, for some companies, just changing a hard drive) or want the newest version, you might have been better off buying commercial.
Microsoft is among the companies who've acknowledged that they authorize and provide full support for OEM versions of Vista, with the restrictions above.
Also note, many of the sites like the one you found refer to software that simply isn't available in OEM versions. Stick with known vendors like Amazon (you can get OEM Vista there for example), and don't go with anyone who won't give you a physical disk.
Tim
Tim Wilson
Associate Director, CreativeCow.net
Associate Publisher,
Creative Cow Magazine!
