What's the cheapest place to shop for legit Windows 7 licenses?

[AshleyAshes]

I have a Dell R620 1U server running Windows 7 Pro at work which we haven't licensed yet.  (Laugh all you want, we need it to run three Windows programs and that's it. )  Anyway, we put Win 7 Pro on it for testing and benching, it passed, we have 12 days left before we need to activate it and I'm curious if anyone knows of any places to get a windows license without shelling out $150 in the process.  If we have to pay MSRP, that's fine, but paying less is already better.

[TheRandomness]

I think G2A

[TechStyle]

Careful, sites like G2A, kinguin, and that windows reddit thing offer MSDN keys which are not meant to be distributed.

[theereal]

I think G2A

He said legit They arent allowed to sell the licenses they do there, and some of those licenses are pirated.

[TheRandomness]

He said legit They arent allowed to sell the licenses they do there, and some of those licenses are pirated.

Oh (I actually didn't know about that)

[Speedbird]

I have a Dell R620 1U server running Windows 7 Pro at work which we haven't licensed yet.  (Laugh all you want, we need it to run three Windows programs and that's it. )  Anyway, we put Win 7 Pro on it for testing and benching, it passed, we have 12 days left before we need to activate it and I'm curious if anyone knows of any places to get a windows license without shelling out $150 in the process.  If we have to pay MSRP, that's fine, but paying less is already better.

Your local store. Any particular reason why you chose 7 pro? 10 home would be cheaper.

[AshleyAshes]

Careful, sites like G2A, kinguin, and that windows reddit thing offer MSDN keys which are not meant to be distributed.

 

Yeah, this is for where I'm employed.  Buying software in a way that pisses off the Business Software Association, of which Microsoft is a member, is something that ends in me being unemployed.

 

Your local store. Any particular reason why you chose 7 pro? 10 home would be cheaper.

 

The R620 is a dual socket 8 core Xeon E5-2670 that is running headless in a rack with many other machines.  While 10 Home does offer up to 128GB of RAM and multi socket support, it still lacks Remote Desktop support so you can't remote into it.  There's also an issue of driver compatibility.  Being a Dell Server, it's got some wonky crazy stuff in there, but drivers are provided for Server 2008 R2, which shares it's kernel with Windows 7, so all the drivers are cross-compatible.  Windows 7 makes life easier, basically.  I mean, we COULD use Server 2008 R2 as well, but we don't have the need to shell out for that.

[Speedbird]

Yeah, this is for where I'm employed.  Buying software in a way that pisses off the Business Software Association, of which Microsoft is a member, is something that ends in me being unemployed.

 

 

The R620 is a dual socket 8 core Xeon E5-2670 that is running headless in a rack with many other machines.  While 10 Home does offer up to 128GB of RAM and multi socket support, it still lacks Remote Desktop support so you can't remote into it.  There's also an issue of driver compatibility.  Being a Dell Server, it's got some wonky crazy stuff in there, but drivers are provided for Server 2008 R2, which shares it's kernel with Windows 7, so all the drivers are cross-compatible.  Windows 7 makes life easier, basically.  I mean, we COULD use Server 2008 R2 as well, but we don't have the need to shell out for that.

Ah, I see. When buying for a business, always buy from a reputable place that gives you a physical certificate of authenticity (CoA).

[AshleyAshes]

Ah, I see. When buying for a business, always buy from a reputable place that gives you a physical certificate of authenticity (CoA).

 

We bought it refurbed from a place in Texas, the company uses a third party to sell Windows licenses with their WORKSTATIONS, but when I asked, their contractor said putting Windows 7 on the server wasn't something they could offer and selling the license not reinstalled was an issue.  Shame too, they only wanted $50 USD.  Not sure what the problem was, I was able to install Win 7 Pro SP1 off a USB key without issue.  As 'weird' as it is with it's crazy server bits, it's still just an x86-64 IBM PC.