[SOLVED] Buying a prebuilt without OS

Otterabove

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Apr 12, 2019
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Ok so everyone knows you dont need to spend £/$100+ to get a Windows OS, you can get an OEM key. If you get a prebuilt gaming pc from lets say cyberpower without the OS saving £60 GBP, do they just ship the pc alike a pc builder just finishing the build?


cheers :)
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Ok so everyone knows you dont need to spend £/$100+ to get a Windows OS, you can get an OEM key. If you get a prebuilt gaming pc from lets say cyberpower without the OS saving £60 GBP, do they just ship the pc alike a pc builder just finishing the build?


cheers :)
With Windows 10, the "OEM" thing has mostly gone away.
A Win 10 license costs what it costs. There is no cheaper "OEM" thing that is actually valid.

Secondly, I'd be very suprised if there was a $100 difference in a CyberPower with or without an OS.

Lastly, I wouldn't buy a CyberPower if you paid me to take one.
 

Otterabove

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Apr 12, 2019
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Its £63 difference, so thats around 77$, and the amazon page i got the OEM from is still up and selling for £4 and i built a computer about 2 months ago and the OEM was still valid
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
E.g. it could have been part of a bulk licensing deal, and the seller broke the terms of their license by reselling it, and MS could deactivate any/all those licenses if they were so inclined at any point in the future.
Not just 'could'...they can and do.

A lot of those are also ex-corporate licenses, that expect to connect to the company licensing server.
They may work initially, but a few months later, when it wants to revalidate with the company server...poof...Unactivated.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
so are you saying, even if it does work, i shouldnt get it?
Correct.

Consider this:
You have a job.
It pays $100/day.
You can afford rent and food. You can even afford buying a whole new PC, and some games for it...;)

You arrive at work tomorrow, and get an email from your boss..."Today, we're only going to pay you $4."
"Oh, and you can't quit, either."
"This rate extends to the rest of the year. $4 a day."

Fair?
What would you do?

Or...

If, in building this new PC, you came across a link for 16GB DDR4 RAM, for $5....you'd run away laughing, knowing it was a scam.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator

Otterabove

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Apr 12, 2019
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USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
im aware of that, you get a non genuine copy of windows that you have limited use of. however im wondering if you can actually do it to a prebuilt😂
Yes.
And it is genuine, fully (almost) functional, runs forever.

The only restriction is a sometimes appearing watermark at bottom right, no customization of the taskbar or desktop background.
Other than that, an Unactivated Windows 10 runs just fine.

I have a Win 10 Pro running in a VM instance, to test exactly this.
First installed Dec 8, 2016. Still running just fine.
 
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