Windows 10 Product Key: Buying from Microsoft vs elsewhere, any differences?

[GigabyteImpact]

Got an SSD for my mom's PC and i'm going to install Windows 10 on it, she wants it activated and is willing to pay, But spending $139 for basic Win10 Home from MS sounds crazy to me when i see there's multiple ebay listings for W10 Pro at around $50-65+ brand new for the key + disc or USB in box, over $100 cheaper than from MS...now before i go ahead and buy, Is there anything i'm missing here? What reason would anyone want to buy straight from MS and spend full price?

[Andreas Lilja]

You can get working keys for like $10 from some places.

[Jay427]

I'd advocate for getting UbuntuMATE.  Its interface is almost exactly like Windows, click and install through the "Software Boutique", runs faster in every way, and it's free.  Even the office software and games are completely free.  No bloatware, more security.

 

Want to install something outside of the Boutique?

 

install synaptic software manager:

> sudo snap install <program>

 -- yeah that's really it.  Try it for yourself.

[SupaKomputa]

28 minutes ago, Jay427 said:

I'd advocate for getting UbuntuMATE. 

Meeeh, there's nothing in the linux world that can be as usable as windows.

Interface is one thing application support is the other especially games.

 

For windows keys, if they worked, wherever you get it it will work just as good from the retail key.

Most of these gray market has a warranty if the key not valid, you can change to another, make sure this is the case.

[Jay427]

14 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

Meeeh, there's nothing in the linux world that can be as usable as windows.

Very wrong, but I wholeheartedly respect your decision.  Setting up some applications is not exactly easy on Ubuntu if you are new to it; however, Linux can literally run Linux, Mac, and Windows simultaneously with all native programs running.

 

The reason why I suggested it was because I assumed their mother's not a gamer.  If she's not a gamer, then there's nothing complex about UbuntuMATE.  I made one for my mother on a RaspberryPi 4 with retroarch, timeshift, libreoffice, ect, as a nice upgrade from a chromebook.  The entire upgrade costed about $80.00 USD (but I did give her one of my old monitors for free).

[AlexP11223]

4 hours ago, SupaKomputa said:

especially games.

You  can play most of the games, which is enough for many people. You may not be able to play some new AAA games on the release day (though e.g. CP2077 worked), and some online games with some anti-cheats do not work (but there is some work in progress), but for me it's not a problem since I already have a big queue of older games, and usually do not buy anything on the release day anyway, waiting for patches, sales, etc.

[Ydfhlx]

Both keys do work. Those cheaper ones are from OEM manufacturers that get them at discount and flip those unused.

 

Technically, buying cheaper keys is illegal, and sometimes some countries take actions against it.

 

However, it happens rarely, and I personally know no one who pays full price for Windows. I personally bought one for $30 from Microsoft's official partner.

[Arika]

5 hours ago, Jay427 said:

Very wrong, but I wholeheartedly respect your decision.  Setting up some applications is not exactly easy on Ubuntu if you are new to it; however, Linux can literally run Linux, Mac, and Windows simultaneously with all native programs running.

 

The reason why I suggested it was because I assumed their mother's not a gamer.  If she's not a gamer, then there's nothing complex about UbuntuMATE.  I made one for my mother on a RaspberryPi 4 with retroarch, timeshift, libreoffice, ect, as a nice upgrade from a chromebook.  The entire upgrade costed about $80.00 USD (but I did give her one of my old monitors for free).

Which is all well and good until there is ANY tiny miniscule issue and the response will be "it's because of that Linux thing you installed, just put my windows back on my computer!!"

 

It may look close enough to windows, but try to explain what the difference is to someone non-tech-savvy and it will quickly become nothing but a waste of time because they will be wanting you to install windows again because they don't understand or feel comfortable with anything else.

[Jay427]

6 hours ago, Arika S said:

Which is all well and good until there is ANY tiny miniscule issue

Timeshift.  Done.  Issue gone.

[GigabyteImpact]

14 hours ago, Andreas Lilja said:

You can get working keys for like $10 from some places.

That sounds like one-time-use keys, which is what i bought for like $5 and used for my PC

8 hours ago, Ydfhlx said:

Both keys do work. Those cheaper ones are from OEM manufacturers that get them at discount and flip those unused.

 

Technically, buying cheaper keys is illegal, and sometimes some countries take actions against it.

 

However, it happens rarely, and I personally know no one who pays full price for Windows. I personally bought one for $30 from Microsoft's official partner.

The ebay listings i'm looking at are retail boxes of Win, so definitely not OEM versions,

Anyway, this confirms what i thought about there being no apparent reason to buy from MS, thanks  

 

[driver160]

She already has a working version of windows? wouldn't cloning the harddrive and then default everything back to factory settings work? 

 

[GigabyteImpact]

1 hour ago, driver160 said:

She already has a working version of windows? wouldn't cloning the harddrive and then default everything back to factory settings work? 

 

She's worried about it being unsafe cause the current windows installed is pirated/pre-activated, decided to upgrade to an SSD while i'm at instead of reinstalling to the current old hard drive that's probably the cause of the PC being so slow