I do want Ultimate, any multiple license versions of that?
Just had a look at the Microsoft website and it looks like it's only Home Premium that comes in the bundle. Ultimate has features that take it above the Professional Version so it's unlikely Microsoft see any value to a bundle price.
As far as the upgrade version, I have XPx64 as the main OS right now, but intend to keep it as the secondary OS in a dual-boot set-up after installing the fresh copy of Win7. At least for a while in case any necessary apps don't like Win7. I may even reinstall XPx64 at that point since it's been acting a little strange lately.
There's a second option. Windows 7 Ultimate comes with built in virtualisation that will allow you to run apps under an XP environment so in way you're getting two OSes for the price of one.
Also unless you put the Windows 7 onto a second drive/partition you're not going to be able to dual boot. When Vista came out (and continued with 7) if you're not upgrading the old version it detects the old operating system and moves into a folder called windows.old along with the contents of the program files and users directories. This ensures that there's nothing left that will conflict with the new version at the same time providing you access to the old stuff in case you need something (so make sure yo have oodles of disk space available).
My current copy of XPx64 is an OEM that was purchased on ebay and the original XP (also OEM) I bought while building the machine was purchased from TigerDirect. Now TigerDirect and Amazon both have OEM versions for sale, I'm not sure if the sellers bother to send some small circuit board along so it's included with "hardware" like used to be done.
Probably an OEM version bought with hardware but the person didn't want to use it. I've never bought software from Amazon or TigerDirect so I'm not sure how they manage to do (Microsoft must of approved it under some critera - maybe when you go to check out it flags that you haven't bought anything else).
To qualify for OEM in the past it's generally had to be a complete new system or a system component that would allow you to run the version of windows - e.g motherboard, CPU, ram or hard disk and couldn't be a peripheral such as keyboard or monitor.
As far as the XPx64 I've been running for about a year and a half, never had any problems updating or with multiple re-installations on the same machine. Obviously they won't "support" the OEM version with any tech support, but even MS tech support is useless, so I don't consider that any loss.
You've been luck then but Microsoft have really tightened up on the activation in recent years - there was concern when Vista came out that simply changing a video card was enough to enough to require a reactivtion as it would of resulted in a different system ID number (an internal hash value used by Windows and generated using information from the system components).
Something just struck me - are you sure it was an OEM key? (might off been just sold that way but you couldn't tell). There are only two times when you wouldn't get prompted for a licence key witn XP. First if you have an OEM version from Dell, HP etc etc and re-installed in on there hardware (it reads from the bios) or it was an Open Licence key that was used in a business (though you need to have an Open Licence edition CD).
So, forgetting the ebay sellers, is the only proper way to get 1 DVD with multiple licenses is to buy the 3 license version?
pretty much yes.
Also remember for furture reference - asking questions in here that could be taking as you're planning to breach copyright will see your OP editted out then thread locked.
To be fair, his original question is whether the same dvd will work with 2 different license keys, which is a perfectly reasonable question considering situations where you end up with 2 legally obtained keys but only 1 piece of media.
His post could of been taken to mean that he intended to buy a product key from a seller on e-bay and they are for the most part not selling a legal product.
The thing with the ebay sellers is, there are dozens of them, each selling dozens of licenses, so how can they get that many from these "Technet or Action Pack" that were mentioned above?
Are they actually trying to sell the same key many times over?
An action pack licence for say Windows 7 will be 10 users i.e the product key will activate 10 times (maybe 20 to give you leeway if you have to re-install).
The same goes for Windows 7 Ultimate through an Technet subscription.
But as I said the danger is that Microsoft will track down the keys and remove them from activation and then you're either hoping you never have to re-activate or you have to purchase a new licence.
I bought Cyberlink PowerDirector off ebay a while back. What I received was a copied CD with a key, which worried me at first. But according to Cyberlink, that was OK since they sell "multiple licenses" to resellers, who can then burn physical copies rather than just sell downloaded versions. The reseller pays for the licenses and resells them at a profit.
Cyberlink is very different from Microsft. Microsoft will never allow resellers to copy their media for distribution. That's why now it you say get an Dell computer you don't get any media with it. Dell isn't allowed to provide OS install media so you hve to generate it yourself.
Hell Microosft won't even allow the mirroring of their patches and updates even through systems such as Akami - you have to go right back to Microsoft as the source.
