Can you realy get windows 10 pro for under 15$?

[ArunasNe]

I know this toppic might be already somewhere out there, but there's over 800 pages and it's hard to go through them all, so I just want to ask, can you realy get legit windows key for under 15$ from scdkey or sites like that? Will there be any issues or something after awhile? Is checkout secure and all that?  I'm planning on building a new pc which will be expensive already so windows for that much if it's legit would be quite nice or I will just be left with that watermark in the corner. Thanks for help guys.

[LukeSavenije]

well, yes and no

 

we have two ways:

 

harrr (won't go too deep into that because of cs)

 

gray market: this includes websites like g2a, kinguin and ebay, who sell mass licences and licences meant for other countries. they aren't technically legal, but should work just fine

[FlappyBoobs]

You can get a license that MS will take one look at and tell you to kick rocks if you try to get support from them. Honestly I don't see why people have such a problem purchasing windows for the correct retail price. I mean it's the cost of 2 or 3 AAA Games, and we are talking people who have THOUSANDS worth of games in their libraries...Just buy the real version, if you can't afford it then get Linux. 

 

People will tell you that the licenses will "work okay" but really, what's the point? you are not being legal with those licenses, so you may as well just grab the ISO from the Microsoft website and run it unregistered, you'll have the same level of support and protection as with one of the cheap licenses.

[Curious Pineapple]

I bought one on eBay yesterday, really is too cheap for what it is but activated fine and is a retail key. Seller has been selling them for quite a while so I think if they had been getting them through dodgy means, they would have been found already.

 

I have about 10 Windows 10 licenses, didn't realise at the time that the free upgrade was tied to the machine. Most of them licenses are tied to virtual machines that will never run again as the system that hosted them went pop.

[LukeSavenije]

26 minutes ago, FlappyBoobs said:

You can get a license that MS will take one look at and tell you to kick rocks if you try to get support from them. Honestly I don't see why people have such a problem purchasing windows for the correct retail price. I mean it's the cost of 2 or 3 AAA Games, and we are talking people who have THOUSANDS worth of games in their libraries...Just buy the real version, if you can't afford it then get Linux. 

 

People will tell you that the licenses will "work okay" but really, what's the point? you are not being legal with those licenses, so you may as well just grab the ISO from the Microsoft website and run it unregistered, you'll have the same level of support and protection as with one of the cheap licenses.

but bending you over a barrel for 150-250 bucks is stupidly high imo

 

if it was like 50 bucks, i would think wildly different about it

[Ertman]

6 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

but bending you over a barrel for 150-250 bucks is stupidly high imo

 

if it was like 50 bucks, i would think wildly different about it

I actually agree with you. Not everyone has a single PC anymore, there are many users that will have specific purpose machines that get rarely used so it at the very least seems expensive to the user.

 

At $40-50, I wouldn't think twice about getting another license if I need one. There will still be those that pirate, and those looking to get the $5 key, but I'd be fine with $50.

[zhubaohi]

You can get Windows 10 pro for free, if you want software piracy. Buying a key with 20 bucks is also pirate, so spending money doesn't make your copy of windows legal. If it's illegal anyway, why are you paying for it?

 

[Tcrumpen]

Legally?? No

There are ways you can get them of course to would be against ToC to mention them here

 

You could have got it for free if you had 7 or 8/8.1 when they were doing the free upgrade. If not i believe your only way is to now pay the $100 or whatever it is

[LogicalDrm]

2 hours ago, ArunasNe said:

can you realy get legit windows key for under 15$ from scdkey or sites like that?

 

Yes, they are legit in sense that they are not cracked. How seller has acquired them is different, and there's 0 way to really know. There are better and worse ways ranging from re-using OEM keys from dead prebuilds and laptops to using fraud credit cards to buy keys. Either way, you are paying for someone else being a pirate.

 

2 hours ago, ArunasNe said:

Will there be any issues or something after awhile?

 

There have been cases where MS blacklists bunch of keys they have found to been sold from volume or enterprise pack without their authorization. Blacklisting mean that key looses activation and can't be used. Keys can also be sold many times, causing same thing. Usually sellers are willing to give new key, as they are essentially free for them.

 

2 hours ago, ArunasNe said:

Is checkout secure and all that?

 

Depends on site. If site is selling extra insurance, then you can have good doubts.

 

2 hours ago, ArunasNe said:

 I'm planning on building a new pc which will be expensive already so windows for that much if it's legit would be quite nice or I will just be left with that watermark in the corner. Thanks for help guys.

 

Drop some quality of one of other components. Considering OS lifetime and high possibility that MS will allow to use key for next version, you get much more lifetime out of $150 Windows compared to your $300 GPU.

 

2 hours ago, Curious Pineapple said:

Seller has been selling them for quite a while so I think if they had been getting them through dodgy means, they would have been found already.

 

Not necessarily. If no one complains to MS, they usually get to roam free. At this point MS is more interested about having highest marketshare than busting down on grey markets. I mean, when they allow you to use OS for free for unlimited time, you know they are interested more about something else than actual software sales.

 

2 hours ago, LukeSavenije said:

but bending you over a barrel for 150-250 bucks is stupidly high imo

 

if it was like 50 bucks, i would think wildly different about it

 

Same can be said about $400 monitors and $600 GPUs. Not to even start with $800+ phones. All with less or same lifetime than with $150 OS key.

[LukeSavenije]

2 minutes ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

Same can be said about $400 monitors and $600 GPUs. Not to even start with $800+ phones. All with less or same lifetime than with $150 OS key.

except that there aren't really free alternatives to those...

[LogicalDrm]

Just now, LukeSavenije said:

except that there aren't really free alternatives to those...

You meaning by "free" something like Linux? Or "free" as in $15 you pay someone else to pirate Windows for you? Since there are cheaper alternatives and the fact that if you demand quality for lower price, you get quality for lower price. But if you don't care abotu stuff being overpriced and keep paying, companies will keep raising prices. Thats how capitalism and inflation works.

[LukeSavenije]

1 minute ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

You meaning by "free" something like Linux? Or "free" as in $15 you pay someone else to pirate Windows for you? Since there are cheaper alternatives and the fact that if you demand quality for lower price, you get quality for lower price. But if you don't care abotu stuff being overpriced and keep paying, companies will keep raising prices. Thats how capitalism and inflation works.

linux, but you're kinda right

 

i guess it's a difference between people

[porina]

I haven't tried recently, but I have in the past got the <$5 keys from ebay high feedback sellers. They arrived quickly by e-mail, activated online, and have remained activated since.

[FlappyBoobs]

2 hours ago, LukeSavenije said:

but bending you over a barrel for 150-250 bucks is stupidly high imo

 

if it was like 50 bucks, i would think wildly different about it

 

The Price is the price, if you cannot or are not willing to afford it then you are not entitled to go and just take it from a non legitimate source. You are basically doing what is the 2019 equivalent of buying a car stereo from a guy in the pub. You KNOW that it is not legal, but you do it anyway because "fuck paying full price for things". 

 

You have to remember that you are paying for the engine that drives all your software, there ARE free alternatives out there that you can use if you don't like the price, but of course you want to rip off the premium version because it fits your purpose better. 

 

I simply don't get how you can have a PC worth so much money and wont buy the OS that you need to run it, or install a legal alternative. It's pathetic and something that has really started to bother me about this community. Why should I do everything right and be the one who is worse off?

 

[LukeSavenije]

2 minutes ago, FlappyBoobs said:

 

okay, to start a bit (i really don't want some flamewar again, so I'll try to do it as calm as possible)

 

i DO have legit licences, but I'm not willing to spend over 1000 bucks for a product with huge margin that's trying to cheap out more and more, so i do my "illegal" stuff too, because i think it's bullshit to ask that much

 

do i pay for my legit licences? no. i get them from school, so you can counter me if you want to, no hard feelings about that.

 

and again, a reasonable price like 50 bucks would make it a whole other story, but with current pricing, I'm willing to do illegal, and that's my risk and choice.

 

I'm happy that linux exists, because it shows that it can be done for free too

[FlappyBoobs]

18 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

okay, to start a bit (i really don't want some flamewar again, so I'll try to do it as calm as possible)

 

i DO have legit licences, but I'm not willing to spend over 1000 bucks for a product with huge margin that's trying to cheap out more and more, so i do my "illegal" stuff too, because i think it's bullshit to ask that much

 

do i pay for my legit licences? no. i get them from school, so you can counter me if you want to, no hard feelings about that.

 

and again, a reasonable price like 50 bucks would make it a whole other story, but with current pricing, I'm willing to do illegal, and that's my risk and choice.

 

I'm happy that linux exists, because it shows that it can be done for free too

 

The moment you leave school those licenses will expire. What are you going to do then?

 

Okay lets take another path, why should I and all the other people that buy software continue to buy it when we could just do what you do? I mean if we stopped buying it there would be no software company to purchase from at all, and then everyone loses!

 

I don't actually give a crap how you run your life, that's on you and your own moral compass, what I really disagree with is the fact that you (and many other people of course) are also encouraging other people to go the non legal route and that's my beef. Why is it a problem? because when the community in general feels entitled to just take things governments around the world start making up bullshit laws to attempt to control something they don't understand...and then we end up with crap like article 13. 

[LukeSavenije]

2 minutes ago, FlappyBoobs said:

The moment you leave school those licenses will expire

windows doesn't expire that way... only my office does

 

3 minutes ago, FlappyBoobs said:

Okay lets take another path, why should I and all the other people that buy software continue to buy it when we could just do what you do? I mean if we stopped buying it there would be no software company to purchase from at all, and then everyone loses!

then i'll go a different part too. Do we need paid software? i mean, we've seen many times that communities, donations and giving training in the software can give sufficient revenue, as showed by for example Ubuntu (Canonical Ltd.)

 

10 minutes ago, FlappyBoobs said:

I don't actually give a crap how you run your life, that's on you and your own moral compass, what I really disagree with is the fact that you (and many other people of course) are also encouraging other people to go the non legal route and that's my beef. Why is it a problem? because when the community in general feels entitled to just take things governments around the world start making up bullshit laws to attempt to control something they don't understand...and then we end up with crap like article 13. 

as with any recommendation, it's my choice what i recommend, it's your choice what you recommend. in the end it's the one purchasing that makes the end choice

[Curious Pineapple]

4 hours ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

Not necessarily. If no one complains to MS, they usually get to roam free. At this point MS is more interested about having highest marketshare than busting down on grey markets. I mean, when they allow you to use OS for free for unlimited time, you know they are interested more about something else than actual software sales.

 

I meant more along the lines of if they were being bought with stolen card details, or were stolen keys.

 

Buying grey product keys is no different to importing a car thats sold for 6 grand less in another country and people do that all the time.

[LogicalDrm]

2 hours ago, Curious Pineapple said:

I meant more along the lines of if they were being bought with stolen card details, or were stolen keys.

 

Buying grey product keys is no different to importing a car thats sold for 6 grand less in another country and people do that all the time.

There's a difference as you still need to pay for shipping and import fees, while they are less than what you would pay for new car. This is more comparable with going to back alley to buy new car, but seller doesn't say how they got it and why its 10% of the actual price.

[Delicieuxz]

I've recently seen Win 10 Pro licenses on eBay for around $5.

 

A lot of those keys might come from volume licensing subscriptions. Maybe some people call reselling those keys "grey market" (maybe not?), but the fact is that reselling your licenses is a legal right in most of the world, equal to reselling anything else you own, and so it's only as "grey market" as you selling your car, your clothes, any of your other used good is - which is to say, it's fully in the clear.

 

If the licenses that are being resold were bought with stolen money or personal information, then that's a different thing. I tend to not suspect that is a major source for licenses, though. I think that is more an argument some publishers or developers have made to prevent people from buying their products from cheaper sources.

[LogicalDrm]

14 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

I've recently seen Win 10 Pro licenses on eBay for around $5.

 

A lot of those keys might come from volume licensing subscriptions. Maybe some people call reselling those keys "grey market" (maybe not?), but the fact is that reselling your licenses is a legal right in most of the world, equal to reselling anything else you own, and so it's only as "grey market" as you selling your car, your clothes, any of your other used good is - which is to say, it's fully in the clear.

 

If the licenses that are being resold were bought with stolen money or personal information, then that's a different thing. I tend to not suspect that is a major source for licenses, though. I think that is more an argument some publishers or developers have made to prevent people from buying their products from cheaper sources.

I kinda get what you are after. There's still difference. There are sellers who have bought volume licensing for sole reason to resell keys, as many of them as they can, for profit. That's the grey market part. I don't mind reselling keys from dead PCs, or anything like that.

[bws2007]

On 3/29/2019 at 7:00 AM, Tcrumpen said:

Legally?? No

There are ways you can get them of course to would be against ToC to mention them here

 

You could have got it for free if you had 7 or 8/8.1 when they were doing the free upgrade. If not i believe your only way is to now pay the $100 or whatever it is

You can still get the free upgrade they don't advertise it anywhere but if you have a windows 7/8/8.1 key lying around you can use it when it asks for windows 10 I've just did a upgrade on my windows 7 PC and windows 8 PC one last night and one tonight

[grss1982]

On 3/29/2019 at 7:00 PM, Tcrumpen said:

Legally?? No

There are ways you can get them of course to would be against ToC to mention them here

 

You could have got it for free if you had 7 or 8/8.1 when they were doing the free upgrade. If not i believe your only way is to now pay the $100 or whatever it is

If you have unused Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 keys the Windows 10 1809 installer will still activate using those keys.  Have tested it personally with a Dell Windows 7 OEM key on the side of an Optiplex.

[grss1982]

On 3/31/2019 at 5:48 AM, Delicieuxz said:

I've recently seen Win 10 Pro licenses on eBay for around $5.

 

A lot of those keys might come from volume licensing subscriptions. Maybe some people call reselling those keys "grey market" (maybe not?), but the fact is that reselling your licenses is a legal right in most of the world, equal to reselling anything else you own, and so it's only as "grey market" as you selling your car, your clothes, any of your other used good is - which is to say, it's fully in the clear.

 

If the licenses that are being resold were bought with stolen money or personal information, then that's a different thing. I tend to not suspect that is a major source for licenses, though. I think that is more an argument some publishers or developers have made to prevent people from buying their products from cheaper sources.

Too good to be true IMHO.  It probably is volume licensing or MSDN keys which if you call MS for help in the future they'll probably tell you to take a hike.