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Customers who bought OEM versions of Windows XP, complete with an upgrade voucher for Vista, are being told they don't qualify for the upgrade unless the operating system was installed on a brand new machine by a system builder.

One such customer is analyst and PC Pro reader Mark Brookes, who bought an OEM version of Windows XP Pro from an online retailer. 'I followed the instructions on the redemption voucher for an online upgrade, up until the point at which the process asked me to send a copy of the receipt for the PC that I purchased with this copy of Windows XP on.

'I never bought a PC, I bought a copy of Windows XP to install on an existing home-built PC,' Brookes said.

'I have been promised that there is no way this upgrade will take place. Microsoft insists that I could not have purchased this copy of Windows XP to put on my own PC. They tell me

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that this is simply outside their licensing terms.'

OEM versions of Windows XP, complete with the free upgrade voucher, are readily available from sites such as Amazon.co.uk and Ebuyer.com.

Microsoft insists, however, that OEM versions of its operating systems should not be sold to individual users. 'The OEM product is designed to be sold to System Builders and not to consumers,' a company statement reads.

'We cannot police the sale of this [OEM software] through distribution and into all forms of system builder or reseller in the channel, and many end user websites have chosen to offer this for sale. Many do supply products to resellers and system builders as well. We work with the larger and more well known sites, including Amazon and ebuyer to ensure that a detailed description of this product is listed alongside the items on their websites, including information about the licence conditions.'

Mark Brookes believes Microsoft is passing the buck. 'Microsoft basically told me to get stuffed. It's blaming the reseller for not explaining things,' he said.

While some retailers, such as ebuyer, do explicitly warn of the restrictions of OEM software on product pages, several of those visited by PC Pro made no mention of the fact that OEM software isn't intended for consumers, nor detailed any restrictions with the upgrade voucher.

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