Sorry I was thinking that, as I placed the description "above Post" in brackets, you may would understand that those post was mean those in post No.: 15! Please re-read your own post (No.: 15 in this thread) and clarify. Thanks.
Seems to be - but isn't. Who cares ? When you buy online an upgrade key (till 1.31.2013 for 30 EUR) you also do not have a "media" nor a recovery partition. You only get a key via eMail from Microsoft and a download link. With the download link you can: Upgrade at once (without creating any "media") Burn a DVD Create a bootable USB stick. In case 1 you only have key in an eMail and no "media". Do you have a legal licence ? Without "media" ? Of course yes. Yes, of course. What's the main difference of reading the key from BIOS or reading the key from an eMail ? There you are wrong. A German highest court decision refers explicit to the case of pre-installed operating system. Heir you refer to an entirely different case.. This case leads to the fact that Microsoft has to offer "N" versions (without Media Player) and "E" versions (without Internet Explorer; intended, but not realized). The "remaining in BIOS" should not be the problem. The BIOS chip is mine, the sold key not. It's not important where a copy of the key is. Important is the legal owner. For example: If somebody buys a retail version in a computer store, opens the package, make a copy of the key and sells the retail version, then the buyer is the owner of the licence; even if the seller still have a copy of the key. Or when somebody steals my key (with a key finder in an unguarded moment of my notebook): Who is the owner of the licence ? The thief ? Like I previously said: In EU there isn't allowed to bind standard software to hardware. In France there even exist a court decision, where a buyer of a notebook with preinstalled software could give back the software (because of using Linux) to the OEM and get back the money for the software. I don't understand this court decision, because the buyer knows what he pays for before buying.
@ Please-8 But you accepted the Microsoft EULA when first activating the system, so Microsoft could claim it's a grey area. Wrong, because the sold key is basically a part of your BIOS and based off of the Microsoft EULA you shouldn't be allowed to sell that key. You still are. Your key simply risks getting blocked if the thief shares it with others. To prevent the key from being stolen use: Code: slmgr.vbs -cpky My point, however, is that I'm able to show you evidence via Microsoft EULA quotes and public knowledge about the N and E editions, but you're saying myself and others are wrong based off an EU law that you expect Microsoft to care about, and without actually giving any evidence to your claims. All I'm going to say that is if you think your law is going to save you from using that key on other hardware, or that you could sell that key, then good luck with that. Personally, I believe you'll have activation problems in the future. I'm going to close this topic as it's already been established that selling or moving an OEMM key has risks and is not recommended. If you want Windows 8 on another system then buy a license for it, or don't buy new hardware that comes pre-installed with Windows.