Buying a Windows 10 licence. Are these sites legit?

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Buying a Windows 10 licence. Are these sites legit?

Post by Baldo »

Ok, being a good honest citizen, I want to get a legit Windows 10 licence.
The official microsoft site wants to charge me about $140. But even that is proving difficult because I have US bank accounts so my location is not matching my store settings etc etc.

I have come across these sites and they are offering Windows 10 licences for abaout €40. Are they legit? I dont want to end up with a cracked copy of W10 and find microsoft kick my a**.

https://mrkeyshop.com/en/windows-10/24- ... roduct-key

Did a quick google search and Tomshardware had a good article on this.

Just wondering if there are any users here with any experieince of these places.

Many thanks
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Re: Buying a Windows 10 licence. Are these sites legit?

Post by Eddy Deegan »

I think there is a grey area within which a number of these sites operate. They are not necessarily scam sites (though there are plenty of those too) but the keys they are selling are invariably not intended for retail purchase even though they usually work initially.

Historically, Microsoft have provided keys to Technet users and other 'insider' channels, and many of these keys never expire. Neither are they supposed to be resold.

I'm not saying the site you linked to works this way but personally, I'd avoid it, buy a known good key from MS or an authorised retailer and pay more, knowing that the key I've got is not used by other people, doesn't come from an illegal source and will always be valid for support purposes etc.

Buying a cheap key from an unauthorised source would make me nervous insofar as if I had cause to contact MS for support then they'd probably know the channel from which the key came and if someone else is using the same key and does something they shouldn't, or if the key is unauthorised for retail use and comes to the attention of MS then it could be reverted at any time and you wouldn't have any recourse at all.

More info on some of the caveats of buying cheap keys here: https://www.howtogeek.com/392080/cheap- ... they-work/

My recommendation would be to just buy it direct from MS for the retail price.
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Re: Buying a Windows 10 licence. Are these sites legit?

Post by The Elf »

If you have to ask, then I think you probably know the answer...
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Re: Buying a Windows 10 licence. Are these sites legit?

Post by ef37a »

Microsoft will probably kick your @ anyway IME!

I have a had a decent W7 AMD 3K 6core desktop running for several years then one day it crashed badly. Eventually the only way I could get it going was to take out the extra SATA drives and format the C drive and re install W7.
Now, I had paid Ms over £100 for two discs, one 32 bit the other 64 bits. The computer now runs but Ms tell me the OS is bogus!

Dave.
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Re: Buying a Windows 10 licence. Are these sites legit?

Post by merlyn »

Mr Key Shop gets 4.9 on Trust Pilot. It's legit.

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/mrkeyshop.com

If you think about a license key as the same as anything else that is bought and sold $140 is the recommended retail price. We can usually do better than that, no?
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Re: Buying a Windows 10 licence. Are these sites legit?

Post by OneWorld »

merlyn wrote: Tue Mar 01, 2022 5:19 pm Mr Key Shop gets 4.9 on Trust Pilot. It's legit.

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/mrkeyshop.com

If you think about a license key as the same as anything else that is bought and sold $140 is the recommended retail price. We can usually do better than that, no?

Thanks for the heads up. Back in the day I used to lecture at university and we either got educational volume keys or buying a person copy of almost any software for buttons - eg MS Office Pro £10, Photoshop, same price, and even Cubase Pro for something like £30, I hung onto that job as long as I could, just so I could get software.
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