This has been a very good debate, but again it ultimately stops at Microsoft. Unfortunately we cannot give you absolute answers, only to reforce what Microsoft tell us.

I'm going to close this thread now as i feel it has reached the end of what can be and what needs to be said, anything else would only really be going around in circles, so if you have read this from the start and have managed to reach this point I hope we have managed to provide some kind of re-assurance but ultimately the decision is going to be yours Retail or OEM, your choice, decide whats best for you.