[SOLVED] Where to Purchase

[Ferimer]

I am in the midst of building a brand new Pc. I am curious as to options out there on where to purchase a one time key? I can't afford to spend over $130 on the operating system. I heard that you can purchase inexpensive one time keys for windows 10 that are genuine. please correct me if im wrong. thanks for the help

 

[Gam3r01]

Unless you are purchasing from a Microsoft authorized dealer its not going to be a genuine key.
As such, you can expect genuine keys to most often (if not always) be full retail price.

The keys you see at discounted prices are grey market or straight stolen keys.

As an alternative, you can run win10 without a key with no impact on performance or system health. One of our moderators has been running an unactivated copy of windows for years as a test to see if anything would eventually cease to function, as of this time it still runs identical to a retail key in terms of performance. When you have the budget you can purchase a digital entitlement from the Microsoft store.

 

[RyzenNoob]

You can buy OEM windows 10 from Microsoft. Just be warned, if anything goes wrong with windows, you wont get support from them, unless they charge you

 

[USAFRet]

You can buy OEM windows 10 from Microsoft. Just be warned, if anything goes wrong with windows, you wont get support from them, unless they charge you

"OEM" is only applicable with a license that is included on a prebuilt system.

Purchasing yourself, there is no more "OEM vs Retail".

 

[USAFRet]

I am in the midst of building a brand new Pc. I am curious as to options out there on where to purchase a one time key? I can't afford to spend over $130 on the operating system. I heard that you can purchase inexpensive one time keys for windows 10 that are genuine. please correct me if im wrong. thanks for the help

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/windows-10-home/d76qx4bznwk4

 

[RyzenNoob]

"OEM" is only applicable with a license that is included on a prebuilt system.

Purchasing yourself, there is no more "OEM vs Retail".

So why do they sell OEMs on Amazon if that were the case, right from the Microsoft store

 

[USAFRet]

So why do they sell OEMs on Amazon if that were the case, right from the Microsoft store

Because the person writing that text is clueless. Hanging on to old concepts.

That was a thing with Win 8.1 and previous.
The whole licensing concept was changed with Win 10.

 

[Ferimer]

I was doing some reading and apparently on Kinguin they have genuine keys that come from places that buy them in massive bulk and cant use them anymore or something, according to the person that owns the Kinguin website.

 

[Ferimer]

Unless you are purchasing from a Microsoft authorized dealer its not going to be a genuine key.
As such, you can expect genuine keys to most often (if not always) be full retail price.

The keys you see at discounted prices are grey market or straight stolen keys.

As an alternative, you can run win10 without a key with no impact on performance or system health. One of our moderators has been running an unactivated copy of windows for years as a test to see if anything would eventually cease to function, as of this time it still runs identical to a retail key in terms of performance. When you have the budget you can purchase a digital entitlement from the Microsoft store.

Doesn't it stop you from getting security updates and all that though?

 

[DSzymborski]

I was doing some reading and apparently on Kinguin they have genuine keys that come from places that buy them in massive bulk and cant use them anymore or something, according to the person that owns the Kinguin website.

Because it's a better explanation than the truth, which is that this is a common way for people to launder money. Steal a credit card, buy a bunch of keys, sell off the keys at a discount. No physical products to deal with or to fence. And even in the best case scenario, companies do not have the right to resell "extra" bulk keys in this manner. Your key can be revoked at any time by Microsoft.

In other cases, key resellers have caused a lot of hardship in software access for third-world countries. Companies used to be more willing to sell software at a significant discount in poorer countries, where sometimes software prices can be the average monthly wage of someone. But key resellers exploiting this has caused companies to be less willing to do this. Aiding key resellers helps exploit poverty.

You can run Windows 10 without a license perfectly legally and you just lose a few customization options and have a watermark (and yes, you get all the security updates).

 

[Ferimer]

Because it's a better explanation than the truth, which is that this is a common way for people to launder money. Steal a credit card, buy a bunch of keys, sell off the keys at a discount. No physical products to deal with or to fence. And even in the best case scenario, companies do not have the right to resell "extra" bulk keys in this manner. Your key can be revoked at any time by Microsoft.

You can run Windows 10 without a license perfectly legally and you just lose a few customization options and have a watermark (and yes, you get all the security updates).

Alright i will hold off on buying anything for now and wait a bit and weigh some options. is the watermark only present on the desktop and games or just the watermark?

 

[USAFRet]

Alright i will hold off on buying anything for now and wait a bit and weigh some options. is the watermark only present on the desktop and games or just the watermark?

The watermark appears on top of everything, not just the desktop.
Games, applications....

It is not always there, but when it is, it is on top of everything.

 

[Math Geek]

if you are a student you can usually get a good discount on both windows and office.

check with your school if you are a student and see what info they have. i've seen office pro for $29 lately but don't recall what win 10 was selling for. but i know it is a lot cheaper than retail for students.

or if you are not a student, then if you know one, see if they can get the discount for you

 

[USAFRet]

I was doing some reading and apparently on Kinguin they have genuine keys that come from places that buy them in massive bulk and cant use them anymore or something, according to the person that owns the Kinguin website.

According to the guy in the white van in the mall parking lot, those boxes labeled 70" Sony 4k, that he's selling for $150 each, are perfectly legit.

According to the guy in the van.

 

[USAFRet]

Doesn't it stop you from getting security updates and all that though?

No.
I have a 4 year old Win 10 Pro installed in a VM, to test exactly this.
Unactivated since Day 1. (Dec 8 2016).

Its current Update history:

 

[Math Geek]

i'm running win 10 education version unactivated for about 2 years now and not had any issues getting updates. and i don't even have a watermark or nag reminder to activate.

 

[hotaru.hino]

I was doing some reading and apparently on Kinguin they have genuine keys that come from places that buy them in massive bulk and cant use them anymore or something, according to the person that owns the Kinguin website.

I'd take anything from what a key reseller like Kinguin or G2A (if they sell those) says with a grain of salt. The only ways I'm aware of to get a Windows key and sell it at those prices without taking a massive loss are:

• Being part of a volume discount or some other program, which I'm pretty sure Microsoft says "the keys you get are yours and yours alone" so that'd be breaking the ToS if they're resold. Which means the key is going to be invalidated.
• Stolen someone's credit card and bought a bunch of keys before the person notices

So the reseller is either breaking ToS or they're doing something illegal. I mean, I'm sure there are cases where a small business got a volume discount on the Pro edition and had some extra keys that aren't going be used that someone took, but that's like winning the lottery if someone is selling those keys.

 

[johnbl]

It would be better to go to a computer recycle place and see if they have some retail disks and keys they will sell to you.
They know the keys are valuable and will be saving them if they can. plus you can go back to them if there is a problem.

 

[Ferimer]

I ended up sticking with the just a free version of windows 10 if a problem does arise I will get a genuine key. Thank you for all your help

 

[USAFRet]

I ended up sticking with the just a free version of windows 10 if a problem does arise I will get a genuine key. Thank you for all your help

There isn't a "free version".
There is one version, licensed or unlicensed.

 

[Ferimer]

There isn't a "free version".
There is one version, licensed or unlicensed.

yes i went with the unlicensed, which technically it could be classified as the "free version" as i didn't pay to retrieve a genuine key. but yah anyway I am keeping with the unlicensed version for the time being.