Buying a product key online

[Changnoi]

I've seen quite a few listings for "Product Key Only" Windows 7 on ebay and a few other places. I've read speculation on other forums that these are misused MSDA keys, and Microsoft was invalidate them when they've realized they been sold.

Is this really the case? Should it be true for all such keys? Will Microsoft really deactivate them (can they?) when they get wise to what's happened?

 

[jaguarskx]

Dude,

Just buy a legitimate copy of Windows 7. If you can't afford the money for OEM or Retail, then forget about upgrading.

 

[Changnoi]

But mabye those are legitimate copies. Besides, I have Vista Ultimate and don't really want to "upgrade" to home premium, but don't want to pay 200 dollars for a new load screen and some driver enchancements. Besides, it's lame for me to have to install vista before I install windows 7. Can't you just enter 2 product keys, your original and your upgrade key.

But that doesn't answer my question anyway. Who knows more about this or MSDA product keys?

 

[saran008]

They may be legitimate copies. Or may not be too.
Why to waste your money to some unknown person for suspicious thing???
To be on safer side, buy the Windows copies from Microsoft authorized reseller & retailers only.

 

[sminlal]

MSDN and Technet keys are licensed to the owner of the subscription and are not supposed to be resold. Microsoft CAN invalidate the keys if it discovers that someone is breaking the licensing terms. They know which keys were distributed to which subscribers, because the subscribers have to sign on with their ID to acquire them.

What you're basically asking is: "How likely is Microsoft to deactivate illegitimate keys?" And you're also hoping that the guy selling the keys isn't selling the same ones to different people.

All I can tell you is that I've seen posts here by folks who have bought these fly-by-night keys and ended up with a lighter wallet and systems that won't activate or that loose their activation after investing a lot of time and effort on them.

You pays your money and you takes you chances. You've go nobody to cry to if it turns sour on you.

 

[jaguarskx]

What you're basically asking is: "How likely is Microsoft to deactivate illegitimate keys?" And you're also hoping that the guy selling the keys isn't selling the same ones to different people.

Also, do not forget the incident where MS invalidate online accounts thousands of people who hacked their Xbox 360s. Only way to get back online was to buy another legal version of the Xbox 360.

 

[RealBeast]

Hard to believe that those keys are genuine at those prices, but the site seems to have been around a while without MS doing anything????