Hoss wrote:Vista Home Premium OEM is ~$190.00
" " Branded is ~$99.00
What does "branded" mean?
Is Premium something I should get or is basic fine? I know Premium has the Aero effects but is that all?
OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) is a restricted license. It can only be sold to system builders and/or with new hardware. OEM's are not transferrable and are bound to the hardware that it's initially installed on. Essentially this means that OEM's allow fewer activations before you have to start calling Microsoft's india division to ask them for help.
Branded, (I assume) means that the version in question has been branded with the name of a large volume manufacturer (Dell, HP, etc) ... Typically these are even more restricted and can only be installed on hardware from the brand in question. If you're not getting these from Dell, HP... I'd be suspicious as to their validity.
Basic is what you install on your Grandmother's computer because she only uses the internet for gmail, and gets confused easily. It's about as stripped down as you can get.