Windows 7 OEM $99.00

Seeing as how I'm still somewhat new at this can someone explain to me what the difference is between the retail version and the OEM? Also the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit.
 
trapar said:
Seeing as how I'm still somewhat new at this can someone explain to me what the difference is between the retail version and the OEM? Also the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit.
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OEM is for system builders, retail is for normal end users, OEM just means you dont get any box and information, its just the DVD and the product key, OEM is also a hell of a lot cheaper.
32bit is for 32 bit CPU's, 64 bit is for 64 bit CPU's
 
2^32 = 4294967296 (in bytes) approx. 4 gigabytes RAM limit.

2^64 = 18446744073709551616 (in bytes) approx. 18 exabytes RAM limit.

If your CPU (every cpu since like pentium 4) and RAM (DDR, DDR2, DDR3) are 64-bit then you can run either 32-bit or 64-bit O/S.

Windows Vista 64-bit still has issues with drivers and programs but this will probably pass with Windows 7 64-bit.
Nowadays 32-bit is essentially used for business/school computers even though the hardware supports 64-bit.
 
The Retail version, you can install it on a pc, then if you want, move it to another pc later if you get a new one.

OEM is locked to the first hardware it is installed on. Cannot be moved to another pc.
(depending on the situation. ie: hardware failure or such could persuade Microsoft to let you move it, but not without some work)

32bit Operating Systems are limited to 4Gigs of RAM, and some of that gets reserved for OS resources, reducing the actual RAM used by software and applications to around 3Gigs or so.

This limitation is not present in 64bit Operating Systems, and the 64bit architecture allows some programs to run faster.

In a nutshell.
 
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