Windows 7 OEM vs Retail install disc content

Hi,

I haves two recovery disc from HP, first disc is the Windows 7 installer and the second contains every driver and HP software (plus userguide, wallpaper, etc).

How is the first disc any different with its retail counterpart? (apart from license).

I remembered I have similar two-discs recovery media from Fujitsu and the Windows disc is basically a vanilla install with different CD Label. Not sure with HP, though.

The serial on the bottom of my laptop works with the retail disc, I'm thinking to use the retail disc since it has SP1 integrated, but I refuse to lose any HP specific customization.

Thanks.

 

To answer the topic, OEM vs. Retail the discs are same. Difference is the license.
How specifically HP OEM disc differs from a Retail or plain OEM disc, who knows Usually those have incorporated cert&license code to auto-activate windows in correct computer.

 

In the case of Dell, I noticed only one minor difference between the Windows install disk provided by Dell, and the Open license media I use at work. The "factory" desktop wall paper was a different graphic than the wallpaper installed by the Open media. HP may do something similar.

The HP laptops I've worked with have a recovery partition, and HP provides instructions on how to use it to recover your C: drive directly from the partition, and to make recovery DVDs you can use to recover you C: drive.

The recovery process restores the c: drive to it's new OOB state, with all drivers and shovelware installed.