Building a PC for rookies

[SoulSister]

Quote

 

With Windows 10 you can run unactivated indefinitely.

 

However, it should be mentioned that this could theoretically change with every update. So it would probably be good to have a plan up your sleeve to get a license.

[Name_Too_Long]

9 hours ago, SoulSister said:

However, it should be mentioned that this could theoretically change with every update. So it would probably be good to have a plan up your sleeve to get a license.

True.

If you're a student, check if your school has any sort of Microsoft partner program (it was called MSDN Academic Alliance, then it was DreamSpark, I don't remember what it is now).  I've seen versions of the program that gave you "free" access to almost everything Microsoft made and others that just let you buy an EDU SKU license for like $15.  Some companies also have a "Home Use Program" as part of their Enterprise Agreement (EA).  Not sure if the pricing on that varies with the EA, but ours was $10.  It should be noted that most of those have "Terms of Use" restrictions on "commercial use" or transferring them to another user.  Same goes for transferring an "Enterprise" SKU license outside of the org with the EA (any time you see EDU or ENT licenses for sale in an open market, something shady is going on).

Then there are always standard "OEM" licenses.  "OEM" licenses cost ~1/2 what a "Retail" license does (so, ~$150 for Pro and there are occasionally sales); despite being "OEM", you can just buy them.  The only difference is that a "Retail" license can be transferred between computers while the "OEM" is tied to a motherboard (they'll give you a manual activation code if you have to replace it).

The codes you find on resale sites tend to come from system integrators (SI) selling off keys from their volume licensing agreements (VLA)... which they are very much not supposed to do.  In theory, Microsoft could invalidate all their keys.  I've never heard of that actually happening (and I suspect it would be a giant legal mess if it did), but it's in the VLA terms that they can.  The really cheap ones tend to be either stolen volume keys (e.g. a SI got popped and their Excel spreadsheet with all their keys got looted), keys that are being sold multiple times, or keys pulled off botnet systems.  The small number of carded keys tend to be somewhere in the middle, there are better ways to monetize stolen CCs.

As a point of reference for judging shadiness, when I was working at a SI that did ~1,500 PCs a year, our VLA price was ~$35/pc.  That was many years ago, but Windows pricing in general has stayed pretty consistent.

[Florian]

49 minutes ago, Name_Too_Long said:

If you're a student, check if your school has any sort of Microsoft partner program (it was called MSDN Academic Alliance, then it was DreamSpark, I don't remember what it is now).

now its Azure Education Program or something like that - even include 100$ azure subscription

i also could recomment creating a microsoft Partner Account and buy an action pack- you get a tons of Microsoft Licenses for the Onprem Stuff and 5 E3 Office and E3 EMS and Win 10 Licenses.
sure you can run in unlicensed mode 😉

[member]

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[Simon Zerafa]

On 11/6/2022 at 6:54 PM, kazukidevnull said:

Well, i know that if i want to get win10 on my own build system then MS want $300 for a license(a least for my country), so i am not sure about the "basically free part" tbh, something i have missed or?🤔

Also, No, i do not count "a heavily restricted OS after 90 day trial",  if i can not customize my system for example after 90 days, then i look at it as trialware at best🙃

If you look around there are resellers of OS licences for far less than $300. As far as anyone can tell these are genuine licences and will activate and operate normally. I don't want to link to these resellers directly them as this may well contravene a rule or two for this forum. If you DM me then I can pass some options for locating a reseller.

Kind Regards

Simon

[ender]

Re Windows licence: if you have any old computers with Windows 7 sticker anywhere, you can use that key, it'll activate Windows 10 without any problems.

Also, if you know how to install and activate Windows 7 on a modern computer, you can then upgrade it to Windows 10, and once you do that, you can reinstall the same Windows 10/11 edition without a key at any later point, and it'll activate automatically.