Cloning a drive - OEM key

[Richie]

My HDD uses a windows OEM key for the os which was pre-installed when I made the purchase. I'm after spending the last 3 hours trying to get Microsoft to assist me in getting the OEM key to work on a different drive, they refused to help (which is odd because they've done it before). So i just cloned the drive and the SSD works without any problems, it's also displaying as activated but so is the other copy on the HDD :P. Does anyone know why this is? Surely Microsoft wouldn't just allow you to clone a drive, people would just constantly share the same OEM. I'd imagine if this works they'd catch on after a number of people using the same OEM but surely for your average home user, they wouldn't give a crap?

[xxMATTGxx]

I can't remember the whole crap behind OEM keys but I always thought you could re-use it again on a new hard drive if it failed for example.

[Richie]

I can't remember the whole crap behind OEM keys but I always thought you could re-use it again on a new hard drive if it failed for example.

That's what I thought but Microsoft were adamant that i should contact dell for a new OEM or some crap. To be very they used to be pretty laid back even in regards to giving out ISO's, now they don't let you download it without inputting an licence key.

Their support used to be fairly helpful. Now they're just ********s.

[scottish]

I can't remember the whole crap behind OEM keys but I always thought you could re-use it again on a new hard drive if it failed for example.

OEM key is tied to BIOS these days iirc.. so hard drive shouldn't make a difference.