There's a few different ways of looking at the Windows 7 OEM license:

• Do what Microsoft wants: buy a retail license if you build your own PC. They explicitly state that's what you should do.

  
  

• Do what the license says: it simply states you must sell the hardware to a "third party" (without defining what that means) and provide support. So if you wanted to be legal, sell the PC to your cat. Note that Microsoft says outside of the license that it must be an "unrelated" party, but they cannot make up new, legally binding terms outside of the OEM license.

  
  

• Do what you feel is morally acceptable and not going to get you into any trouble whatsoever: buy the OEM for yourself and happily use it.

If you were running a business and you wanted to purchase OEM software, what you'd do is set up a sub-company that handled the tech support.

Enough of one for the court to allow people to make pets beneficiaries of wills.

This whole discussion is silly anyway, because they aren't going to care if you buy OEM for personal use. It is just another lame argument against the use of Windows. If you were going to actually purchase and use it, you'd just grab an OEM license and be done with it.

http://oem.microsoft.com/script/contentpage.aspx?pageid=563841

Again, that last line isn't necessarily legally binding as it doesn't exist in the license.

So they definitely care, because the retail version makes them more money.

Now are they going to do anything about somebody building himself a PC? No. But it's not because they don't care... it's because it's not worth it and impossible to police. (They do, of course, perform business audits.)

By "don't care" you basically mean that Microsoft doesn't consider it economically feasible to assign an agent to personally moniter every individuals' actions. If you openly reveal yourself as violating their license you bet your ass they'll make an example of you.

Essentially, what you're saying is to violate their license terms because you are extremely unlikely to get caught, and even less likely to be taken to court, in which case you're basically paying $150 too much. You're just as illegitimate as if you had copied the software without expense in the first place, which makes paying the $150 about as intelligent as playing golf in a lightning storm with iron clubs.

I have a retail license for Windows 7 Ultimate, and it's purely for games. When I'm not playing games, I benefit absolutely nothing from Windows. A free Linux distribution provides me more reliable functionality and more features. I hope to never deem another Microsoft purchase relevant ever-a-fucking-gain.

My understanding is that if you get a computer with OEM software, then the person who sold you the computer (with the software) is meant to provide you with tech support. ie. Microsoft is not obliged to provide tech support for OEM software. Also, the OEM software is only to be used on the computer that it came with. Retail copies of Windows can be reused on different computers (but only on one computer at a time), whereas OEM Windows is not meant to be reused.

As far as I know, those two points are the main difference between the OEM licence and the retail licence. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) I think it's worth pointing out that both of those differences have the potential to save Microsoft some money — they don't have to provide support, and the software is meant to be repurchased for every new computer.

With that in mind, my interpretation of this:

Is that they don't want to recommend the supportless OEM software for do-it-yourself PC hobbyists; such a recommendation could later cause problems for Microsoft and for the hobbyists — so Microsoft recommend the retail software licenses instead.

If I'm not mistaken, the retail version comes with something like three licenses, so you can have it on three computers at a time. Or at least it used to be this way.

However, what really pisses me off are the various versions of Windows 7. Apparently all features are installed, but only some are activated depending on your license. You have a Win 7 Home and want to use Win XP mode? Sorry sir, you have to pay more or shut the hell up...

Bollocks. They exist because it allows them to sell the full version for a higher price.
What, you think Microsoft develops a simple version, then spends extra time and resources on making a professional version with more options? Of course they don't. You think they have #ifdef WINDOWS_PRO_ULTIMATE_GOLD_ENTERPRISE in their source code to disable certain options in the cheaper version? I bet you they don't even have that.
Now, having a simplified option for the average user, who would just get confused otherwise (fewer options = simpler = better) is probably a good thing. But it has nothing to do with saving the average consumer some money.

And I'm sure Microsoft gets very upset whenever one of those really broke and poor consumers pirates a copy of Windows instead of opting for a freely available alternative.

Like I said, Windows is only worthwhile for gaming right now, and only if you want to play modern games like the Half-Life and Call of Duty series'. And only if you aren't satisfied with playing said games on a game console. For computer professionals, Linux has so much more to offer, and most of it is free is every sense of the word (and I'm sure I don't need to tell you this).

AFAIK, Microsoft does sell volume licensing packages, which would allow you to install on multiple machines, but it's more expensive (maybe you save the $1 for packaging materials ).

What concerns me is whether or not the human race will still be making computers at all in say 200 years time given the way things are going with global warming.

...but then I do have a psychiatric diagnosis

Of course. The Vista I have are Home Basic, or how it's called. However, if I ever was to buy Windows 7, I'd really like to buy at least the Professional edition simply because of the Windows XP mode. It's a sort of virtual machine that provides environment for the program you want to run.

So far I don't have any incentive of running anything on Windows. However, I want to be on the safe side for having the capability to run them. I would not really want to find myself in the situation that I'd need to run such a program and realise that I can't do it because I've bought stripped down version of extremely overpriced software. Mind you, even some 220$ or 230$ isn't really a price I'd like to pay.