In article , Nick21
34 wrote:
my mobo on my dad's pc just broke and he has an oem version!


OEM that was installed by a PC maker or by himself/you/someone else?

Much of what is said on newsgroups about OEM installations is based on
what is known about PC's manufactured by eg Dell HP etc with OEM
versions.

If a personal system builder calls Microsoft about this problem with
OEM VISTA installed it's anyone's guess as to what they will do.

Apart from buying a new motherboard and a new copy of VISTA you really
do not have a choice other than to call Microsoft's Activation phone
line and tell them the truth -- the board broke (do you mean
physically or it just stopped working or what?) and will they give you
a new KEY to activate it.

If they say No then you are out of luck and have learned the
disadvantage of cut-price shortcuts. I'm not moralizing on this -- I've
used OEM XP myself but the rules were different then.