You may be right in your circumstance, without knowing more I cannot say, but what you have said does not hold true in all cases. Take this example: a customer brings me his PC to re-install the OS, XP Home, on the side of the PC is an OEM license sticker, he bought the PC new and it came with XP Home installed, he has mislaid the original XP media. He has a license . . . yet I am not allowed to re-install from media that I have . . . I have read this from a post by Microsoft personnel.