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I plan to purchase a new Lenovo laptop that comes preinstalled with Windows 8 (the exact product statement is Windows 8 64). As far as I understand, that's an OEM version.

The problem is that I need to use this laptop not only within the US and I might need to reinstall the OS from scratch in other country. I found out that Windows 8 (without Pro) comes in three flavors:

  • Core
  • Core Country
  • Core Single Language

As I understand, the latter two are limited with their activation ability as well as LP MUI installation. Lenovo states that their laptops may be regionally locked.

Regional Activation: Use of this product is restricted to a specific region. You may not be able to activate this product outside of such region.

Neither sales nor technical representative was able to tell me which version comes with T430.

How can I find which version is bundled?

P.S. I have the same question regarding 2012-fall Dell computers as well, but didn't try their support yet.

UPD: Dell sales representative failed to fulfill my request at the current moment as well as Lenovo's one. UPD2: Dell support was unable to tell me which Windows 8 the New Inspiron 23 Touch will be running as well.

The source of my assumption is the following table:

enter image description here

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From what I can tell the licenses sold with USA PC's are not restricted, I help with quite a few people on forums from other countries that have purchased their PC in the USA and never had an issue re-installing or activating. The most common problem with this scenario is getting warranty support from the PC manufacturer. – Moab Oct 28 '12 at 19:58
It appears that "emerging markets" have the restrictions, probably due to the discount price of the license, MS does not want them being sold by 3rd parties in other countries like the US which gets no discount. – Moab Oct 28 '12 at 20:01
What you say regarding price is correct about Windows, but w/hardware, the situation is directly the opposite. That drives a lot of customers worldwide into US market. Thank you for some sort of relief anyway. – ABerezovskiy Oct 28 '12 at 20:06
Can you post a link to the info you found on "Core" "Core Country" "Core Single Language"? – Moab Oct 28 '12 at 20:06
imgur.com/B3V52 – ABerezovskiy Oct 28 '12 at 20:09
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closed as too localized by Tom Wijsman, Synetech, MaQleod, 8088, soandos Oct 29 '12 at 7:01

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