Buy windows in bulk.

[BruceMyers48]

Wow Love the new look!. I have a question. I have a small licenced PC shop at my home. I do this part time. I want to save my customers money when I buy an OS for the system I build. Typically it cost 85.00 to 91.00 to purchase XP Home oem. Is there a way to buy much cheaper in bulk. I build custom computers and have 40 out in the field for the last 4 years and not a problem with any. I build with TLC and allot of research. I love what I do but could pull more business in for system builds if I could get the price down. Thanks Bruce

 

[riser]

You'd have to sign up with a distributor.. if you were to only buy 40 licenses over the course of 4 years, you won't be able to bring the price down.

If you bought a pack of 100, you'd save money. But then again, many distributors require you have at least $20,000 in a bank account they have direct access to, plus you have a monthly/yearly free to be associated with them.

In your case, you won't be able to save them any money. Now, if you look into buying hardware in bulk, 3-4 motherboards at a time, then you might be able to save money.

www.axiom.com I think is the site for smaller resellers/companies.

 

[BruceMyers48]

Thanks ,That is what I thought. Yes I can buy hardware in bulk at a good price. I only use MSI boards at the time because I have had no failures at all. I pack good parts in my boxes and that keeps the customers happy. Bruce

 

[riser]

I've been using MSI since AMD released their 650mhz thunderbird I think it was.. never had a problem.

My brother on the other hand has been able to fry 3 MSI boards.. 1 by putting in the wrong CPU into the board without a heat sink.. twice because he smoked so much that his board was covered in a fine layer of cigarette smoke/dust that it shorted out. He's an idiot though.

I had one problem with a MSI board.. damaged in shipping from someone.. no big deal.

Right now I use a MSI refurbished board.. originally 150 dollars a few months back, I picked it up for 41 dollars. No problems at all.

I use their Video cards too.. have 2 of them, ti4200 and a 6600gt. Both are great, no complaints.

 

[BruceMyers48]

Thanks for replying. I am setting up a MSI board as we speak. I tried putting the cables on backwards because they were short.I put the end that was to go to the HD in the CD and visa versa. I did set the HD to master and the CD to slave. XP had a problem when it tried to install the OS . It said having trouble finding drive C. So I switched the cable back and loaded it with no problem. It has worked it the past but not tjis time. Take care Bruce

 

[Pimp]

Isn't it possible to use the same copy of Windows on all your PC builds, but buy new liscense from Microsoft for each one. I thought that the liscenses only cost like 50. You just get a new cd key. No cd's or anything

 

[BruceMyers48]

I have bought a extra licence for the same copy of XP and it worked. You only save about ten dollars. I think It cost me 89.00. You would have to keep up with which copy you used. Some have told me that you can use any OEM version bought for building a custom PC and use it with some ones Key Numbers. That way if some one lost the CD you could use your copy as long as they had a licence number. I don't know for sure because I have not tried it. Bruce

 

[INeedCache]

Licensing is only for computers within the same organization. You cannot buy licenses and sell them to different individuals. As for those selling Windows COAs on the web without the media, I think that's illegal. See
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/howtotell/en/default.mspx.