0
4y ago or so I built my own PC and bought Win8 and installed it on it. I still have the DVD and box with the key, but I am not sure if I can reinstall the OS on the same machine without problems since OEM smells to me like some limited version of Win8.
Also if I can not do the reinstall is there any way to purge all the user data from the machine and return it to brand new state - this means all user content, all SW, all registry entries...
To be precise this is what says on the box: WINDOWS 8 PRO ENG INTL FOR OEM SOFTWARE
1Microsoft change the way it licensed software with Windows 8. There are "Upgrade" keys which only give you rights to upgrade a previous compatible version of Windows to Windows 8. There are Retail keys which is what you purchase, while they still are refer to themselves as OEM, they actually have transfer rights. There are OEM keys which came with Windows 8 hardware, there is no physical representation of this key, its stored in the ACPI table on the motherboard of the device. Windows 8.1 got rid of the "Upgrade" keys. – Ramhound – 2017-01-22T17:45:47.407