windows 10 Getting Windows 10

[IrishGamer34]

Hi, I'm looking to build a new PC. To get windows 10 on it is it as easy as download it to a usb, put the usb in the new PC and enter the product key that I can buy for £5 off of amazon? If it is where are all these £100+ price tags coming from? Sorry if it's just such a idiotic question but seeing too many contradicting searches with no definitive answer for what I need. Any help is appreciated, thanks!

[vK 3 1 RON]

I didn't think Amazon allowed grey market keys for windows 10, huh, I usually use something like--- I mean... Coughcough, if I were in theory to buy a windows 10 Home PC key for less than £80, I'd buy it from a retailer with trusted reviews and then install Windows 10 onto my PC with the USB bootable media, then enter the keycode I bought when prompted... Although, note that you can say "maybe later" to the key input (I think), which lets you use all of windows 10 except there's the "Validate windows 10" message (or something like that) in the bottom right corner of the screen.

[Oshino Shinobu]

Yes, that will work. You could install it, choose not to activate and buy a key later if you wanted to. It would function as normal, you just can't personalise Windows without activating it (and a couple of other things, nothing major). 

 

You won't be getting it for £5 off Amazon though. There are key sites that you can buy it that cheap from, but most of the time the keys, while legitimate in terms of them working, are of dubious origin. Things like MSDN keys which aren't meant to be resold or bought through stolen credit cards for example. They'll work, but it's a matter of morals/ethics on your side.

[IrishGamer34]

1 minute ago, vK 3 1 RON said:

I didn't think Amazon allowed grey market keys for windows 10, huh, I usually use something like--- I mean... Coughcough, if I were in theory to buy a windows 10 Home PC key for less than £80, I'd buy it from a retailer with trusted reviews and then install Windows 10 onto my PC with the USB bootable media, then enter the keycode I bought when prompted... Although, note that you can say "maybe later" to the key input (I think), which lets you use all of windows 10 except there's the "Validate windows 10" message (or something like that) in the bottom right corner of the screen.

Yeah that's what really threw a wrench into the works was when I saw amazon with it. One of my shadier mates suggested that I just bought a key from ebay and use that (disclaimer: I toooootally don't suggest anybody reading this does that.. . .  ) as much as.  . . .forgetting.  .. to enter my product key does interest me it's no actual problem to enter everything and pay the prices I just don't want to be spending £100+ when I could legit just spend £5 

 

Link to the amazon key https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07T917MP4?pf_rd_p=330fbd82-d4fe-42e5-9c16-d4b886747c64&pf_rd_r=5XDTGXWCSDZH9ES1YV08

[vK 3 1 RON]

32 minutes ago, IrishGamer34 said:

 

Link to the amazon key https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07T917MP4?pf_rd_p=330fbd82-d4fe-42e5-9c16-d4b886747c64&pf_rd_r=5XDTGXWCSDZH9ES1YV08

To be honest, I feel like the amazon link is very sketchy. I'd use another site, scdkeys maybe - that's what I usually use. It sounds weird, but I prefer to go to a site where they know they're sketchy, we know they're sketchy - it's obviously grey, rather than some person trying to pass by a windows key on a trusted site like Amazon. I've bought a couple keys from scdkeys and cdkeys and they've been fine, however, I don't want to promise you that you'll 100% get what you ask for because at the end of the day: It's still the grey-market

[IrishGamer34]

27 minutes ago, vK 3 1 RON said:

To be honest, I feel like the amazon link is very sketchy. I'd use another site, scdkeys maybe - that's what I usually use. It sounds weird, but I prefer to go to a site where they know they're sketchy, we know they're sketchy - it's obviously grey, rather than some person trying to pass by a windows key on a trusted site like Amazon. I've bought a couple keys from scdkeys and cdkeys and they've been fine, however, I don't want to promise you that you'll 100% get what you ask for because at the end of the day: It's still the grey-market

So...don't go to the reputable sketchy guy, go to the one behind the dumpster?  Nah I get what you're saying. So in theory once I acquire one of these product keys and it works once it's requested all I have to do to prep for that is download the OS from the site onto a memory stick and everything after is spot no dramas? Sorry if it's a bit drawn out, one of these people who might not get something for a while but once it clicks it clicks

[vK 3 1 RON]

46 minutes ago, IrishGamer34 said:

So...don't go to the reputable sketchy guy, go to the one behind the dumpster?  Nah I get what you're saying. So in theory once I acquire one of these product keys and it works once it's requested all I have to do to prep for that is download the OS from the site onto a memory stick and everything after is spot no dramas? Sorry if it's a bit drawn out, one of these people who might not get something for a while but once it clicks it clicks

Yeah so once you buy a key, it usually gets sent to your email address, just make sure you give them the correct email. Then save it somewhere so you can get it later.

I'll step-by-step the procedure so it's as clear as can be.

1. Download the Windows 10 Bootable Media Creation Tool (Download tool now button) https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10
2. Plug in your desired USB to the laptop/PC 
3. Open the windows 10 tool and follow it through, it'll ask which USB you'd like to use, then tell you that it will erase all the data on the USB, click accept/continue.
4. There's a chance it'll fail, mine did on 2 USBs before the 3rd one worked, but that might've been cause my USB ports are a bit... fried If it does fail, you can either try a different USB or just retry.
5.  Build your PC and then plug in the USB with the Windows 10 on it, when you launch your PC for the first time, try and get into the Boot menu - it'll usually tell you on the flash screen what to press, but F11 is a good bet. Then select the USB stick.
6. (Alternatively, you can go into the BIOS and make the boot order have the USB as the top priority then restart, which means the motherboard will first try to boot from a USB stick, then from the 2nd, 3rd etc drives. But this is a bit more tedious.)
7. When you boot from the USB, it'll give you a purple/blue screen and go through windows installation - at some point it'll ask for your product key, just enter the key you got from your email and a small prayer never hurt anybody  
8. After this, Windows 10 will install, you'll boot into it and all is good in the world. Just make sure to get the proper drivers you need, Chipset, Networking, GPU drivers, etc 

 

Hope that kind of helped to clarify, if you don't understand any part just let me know and I'll try and explain it in a different way  

[IrishGamer34]

35 minutes ago, vK 3 1 RON said:

Yeah so once you buy a key, it usually gets sent to your email address, just make sure you give them the correct email. Then save it somewhere so you can get it later.

I'll step-by-step the procedure so it's as clear as can be.

1. Download the Windows 10 Bootable Media Creation Tool (Download tool now button) https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10
2. Plug in your desired USB to the laptop/PC 
3. Open the windows 10 tool and follow it through, it'll ask which USB you'd like to use, then tell you that it will erase all the data on the USB, click accept/continue.
4. There's a chance it'll fail, mine did on 2 USBs before the 3rd one worked, but that might've been cause my USB ports are a bit... fried If it does fail, you can either try a different USB or just retry.
5.  Build your PC and then plug in the USB with the Windows 10 on it, when you launch your PC for the first time, try and get into the Boot menu - it'll usually tell you on the flash screen what to press, but F11 is a good bet. Then select the USB stick.
6. (Alternatively, you can go into the BIOS and make the boot order have the USB as the top priority then restart, which means the motherboard will first try to boot from a USB stick, then from the 2nd, 3rd etc drives. But this is a bit more tedious.)
7. When you boot from the USB, it'll give you a purple/blue screen and go through windows installation - at some point it'll ask for your product key, just enter the key you got from your email and a small prayer never hurt anybody  
8. After this, Windows 10 will install, you'll boot into it and all is good in the world. Just make sure to get the proper drivers you need, Chipset, Networking, GPU drivers, etc 

 

Hope that kind of helped to clarify, if you don't understand any part just let me know and I'll try and explain it in a different way  

That's a perfect guide thank you very much! It'll be December by the time I'm building as I went a bit over planning budget but realised I could split it over 2 payslips  I feel like this will be the story of my life from now on once I finish my build.  . . .