I spoke with a MS represenative about the legality of software licenses recently. Basically what he said was this - it's illegal.

Whatever you do and however you do it, it's illegal. However his arguments were full of anomalies, he stated that the software license is tied to the mainboard - never seen an OS installed on a mainboard myself? He stated that it is illegal to transfer the license from one PC to another and that the license is tied to the user (shome mishtake here shhhurely, hic*). I didn't argue with him because well you don't want MS hounding you around do you they have way too much money and time on their hands - and I don't. He changed his argument and what the license is tied to every time I gave him a different scenario and get this, the license he says is the bit you click at the end of the install (The Eula).

The COA label merely confirms that the software was installed from genuine media although not surprisingly at other times he said that the COA label is part of the license. What chance have you got - I don't think he even knew what the license was. And to be even better confused if you install OEM software you cannot install it by running setup (illegal) you must create a master image using Sysprep or a Ris image and install that image.

We had a good laugh about it - after he had left.