Cheap Windows

[mc2fool]

I've got an increasingly ancient XP Pro desktop that I want to replace with a suitable Windows 10 Pro PC. Outfits like http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk charge around £120 for putting W10Pro on a box (£89 for Home -- and £0 for no OS ).

On digging around I found https://softwaregeeks.co.uk/product/windows-10-pro/ offering W10Pro for £29.99, and on looking further found quite a few for less than a tenner! E.g. £3.99, £6.99 , £7.25, and many more.

From what I gather these give just the product key and for the software I'll have to go to http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software ... /windows10 and download and create an installation DVD/flash drive, which I'd then use to install W10Pro on the virgin disk of my new desktop, when I get it.

Sounds straightforward enough, but I can't help feeling that at those prices there's got to be a gotcha, so am wondering if anyone has any experience with this approach.

Also, at those prices I'd quite like to upgrade my Windows 10 Home laptop* to W10 Pro, but there's a confusion of information about that, with some saying these product keys are only for "clean" installs and can't be used to upgrade, whereas some say using them for W10 Home -> W10 Pro works fine. I'd have thought it could well do, as there's no software difference as W10 contains everything, the product key just determining what features get turned on, but, again, I'm wondering if anyone has any experience updating a W10 Home system to W10 Pro with these cheapo keys, and what gotchas there may be ....

* It was bought with Windows 8 and auto-updated to 8.1 then 10, if that makes any difference.

[Slarti]

I've got an increasingly ancient XP Pro desktop that I want to replace with a suitable Windows 10 Pro PC. Outfits like http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk charge around £120 for putting W10Pro on a box (£89 for Home -- and £0 for no OS ).

I'd question if an XP machine would take Win10.

A quick Google gives these specs
"These are the minimum hardware specifications needed to run Windows 10:

Processor: 1GHz or faster processor
RAM: 1GB for 32-bit or 2GB for 64-bit Windows 10
Hard disk space: 16GB for 32-bit or 20GB for 64-bit
Graphics card: DirectX 9 or later
Display: 1024x600 pixels or higher (virtually all devices have this)"

I would expect the DirectX 9 to be the killer for an XP machine And I wouldn't even try and run XP in 1GB, let alone any later operating system.

Slarti

[mc2fool]

I've got an increasingly ancient XP Pro desktop that I want to replace with a suitable Windows 10 Pro PC. Outfits like http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk charge around £120 for putting W10Pro on a box (£89 for Home -- and £0 for no OS ).

I'd question if an XP machine would take Win10.

The vital word is replace

[Slarti]

I've got an increasingly ancient XP Pro desktop that I want to replace with a suitable Windows 10 Pro PC. Outfits like http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk charge around £120 for putting W10Pro on a box (£89 for Home -- and £0 for no OS ).

I'd question if an XP machine would take Win10.

The vital word is replace

If you are going to replace the existing machine, why are you looking at someone putting Win10 on a box for you?
Surely you either buy a box with it preinstalled or build your own, buy the software and do the install.

Slarti

[mc2fool]

If you are going to replace the existing machine, why are you looking at someone putting Win10 on a box for you?
Surely you either buy a box with it preinstalled or build your own, buy the software and do the install.

Or you get a custom PC builder, e.g. https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computer ... office-pc/, to build it for you but add the operating system yourself, if you can do it more cheaply than their option to do so.

[GeoffF100]

I had a quick look on the Web. Microsoft keeps changing the rules so you would need to check with them. However, it looks very unlikely that an OEM key would work with the Windows 10 that you can download from the web, which is said to be a retail version. It is even less likely that an OEM key that has already been used on another PC would work. If you do not want to pay for an OS, you can use Linux which is free.

[Breelander]

...offering W10Pro for £29.99, and on looking further found quite a few for less than a tenner! E.g. £3.99, £6.99 , £7.25, and many more. From what I gather these give just the product ...

£29.99 is just about a plausible price for an OEM key (the sort manufacturers use) though it's a bit low. An OEM Windows is the sort you see labled 'only to be supplied with a new PC'. It is intended for PC builders to use on systems they make and sell on. Strictly speaking it is a violation of the EULA to install an OEM Windows on a system you are going to keep and use, but lots of people do it.

At under a 'tenner' on ebay it's got to be a scam. At worst, the key won't work and the seller will 'disappear' - at best they are illegally selling a MAK key, a volume licencing key only sold to business organisations. While it may activate Windows, it's possible it may deactivate some time down the line if Microsoft decide to get tough on piracy.

[Breelander]

...it looks very unlikely that an OEM key would work with the Windows 10 that you can download from the web, which is said to be a retail version...

There's a lot of confusion about licence types. An OEM key is a retail key and will work with the Windows 10 you can download for free from Microsoft. A Full Retail key is technically transferable to another machine, provided you uninstall/remove Windows from the first one before doing so. An OEM key is non-transferable, being tied to the machine it was first installed on. It is intended to be used by system builders on PCs they are going to sell on.

Then there are MAK keys and KMS keys - both only sold to enterprises. A MAK key permanently activates a business machine, a KMS key is a temporary activation, renewed periodically by contacting the enterprise's KMS server. A lot of pirated Window installs use KMS keys and a software hack to simulate a KMS server. On other boards I frequent we're continually having to explain to victims why their bargain PC has suddenly said it's not activated any more, usually three to six month after purchase.

Transferability is a bit of a grey area though. Once you have a PC activated for Windows 10 with a digital licence on Microsoft's activation servers you can link it to your Microsoft Account. Once linked, the activation servers do not differentiate between a Full or OEM retail licence - effectively they become indistinguishable and transferable.

[Infrasonic]

^^ Thanks for that, I'd always wondered how 'grey' it is with these super cheap eBay keys, nice to get something definitive.

[mc2fool]

If you do not want to pay for an OS, you can use Linux which is free.

No, Win 10 Pro is what I want, but if I can get it for £30 instead of £120 all the better

£29.99 is just about a plausible price for an OEM key (the sort manufacturers use) though it's a bit low. An OEM Windows is the sort you see labled 'only to be supplied with a new PC'. It is intended for PC builders to use on systems they make and sell on. Strictly speaking it is a violation of the EULA to install an OEM Windows on a system you are going to keep and use, but lots of people do it.

At under a 'tenner' on ebay it's got to be a scam. At worst, the key won't work and the seller will 'disappear' - at best they are illegally selling a MAK key, a volume licencing key only sold to business organisations. While it may activate Windows, it's possible it may deactivate some time down the line if Microsoft decide to get tough on piracy.

It does all have a too-good-to-be-true smell about it, hence the post to see if anyone has had any first hand experience. The £29.99 one (which is the best - or rather least dodgy - looking, at least superficially!) actually says it's a "volume license product key".

Some of the sub-tenner ones on eBay say they're from scrapped PCs, and this one says "you will get a broken motherboard and install media that comes with the OEM key as required to comply with eBay policy of OEM software"! Although for £3.99 it's almost worth trying....

Moving away from eBay ... Amazon (which always seems less dodgy than eBay!) also seems to have a plethora of prices for Windows 10 Pro. This one for example is £99.99 -- if you go for the USB Flash Drive version. But if you go for the download (click on "Activation Code by Email") it's £151! And search on Amazon for Windows 10 Professional and you can find, well, just about any price you like....

So, the question arises, how does one find and identify the best priced genuine article?

[Redmires]

I've got an increasingly ancient XP Pro desktop that I want to replace with a suitable Windows 10 Pro PC. Outfits like http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk charge around £120 for putting W10Pro on a box (£89 for Home -- and £0 for no OS ).

I'd question if an XP machine would take Win10.

The vital word is replace

I'm running Win 10 enterprise on an ancient Dell C521 AMD X2 Processor 3600(1.9GHz,65KW) (circa 2006) and it works fine. In fact, it seemed to give it a new lease of life.

[GeoffF100]

Thank you for that Bree. I have a friend who has trashed his HP Windows 7 machine. It may not be possible to reinstall from a recovery partition. Would it be possible to use his OEM key to download a Windows 7 ISO and reinstall from that?

So, the question arises, how does one find and identify the best priced genuine article?

This one looks a safe buy:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/store/d ... 2517-en_GB

[mc2fool]

So, the question arises, how does one find and identify the best priced genuine article?

This one looks a safe buy:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/store/d ... 2517-en_GB

Fails the "best priced" condition

[Breelander]

Thank you for that Bree. I have a friend who has trashed his HP Windows 7 machine. It may not be possible to reinstall from a recovery partition. Would it be possible to use his OEM key to download a Windows 7 ISO and reinstall from that?

You can download Windows 10 install media for free from Microsoft, no need for a key at this stage. Download the Media Creation Tool from https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/softwar ... /windows10 then run it (on any Windows, doesn't need to be W10, W7 will do). Choose the 'Create Media for another PC' option, choose 32/64 bit and language to suit the PC you want to install it on then make either the ISO or USB. If the target machine is truly trashed you may want to make the USB, you boot from that to do a clean install.

You can install and run Windows 10 without entering a key, there's an option during Setup to say 'I don't have one'. Windows 10 will install and run indefinitely, but with minor restrictions (such as not being able to set a Wallpaper). You can enter a key later to activate it. Has your friend's PC ever been upgraded to Windows 10? If so it has a digital licence on Microsoft's activation servers and will use that to automatically activate. The licence is only valid for one edition, Home or Pro. Make sure you install the edition he would have upgraded to. Win7 Pro and Ultimate got Win10 Pro, the rest got Home. https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows ... e-editions

It would be best if you can resurrect the original Win7 or reinstall from a recovery partition. The free upgrade still works, so if you can get an activated Win7 working on the PC it could still get a digital licence by upgrading it to 10. Rumour has it the free upgrade will finally be turned off on 31st December. Once upgraded and awarded a licence, you can do a clean install if you wish and it will activate.

Failing that, the free upgrade also works if you enter a valid qualifying Win7 or Win8 key, either during Setup for a clean install, or by changing the product key in Settings > Activation after Win10 is installed. AFAIK this will only accept full retail keys, it may not work with the OEM key on the COA sticker I'm afraid.

Worst case, you'll need to buy a new key to activate it.

[GeoffF100]

Thank you very much for that Bree. I found lots of misinformation on the web. My friend is not technical, so I am not getting very accurate information. He has perhaps an about seven years old Windows 7 PC that has not been upgraded to Windows 10. He says he got malware staring with a dollar sign, and followed some instructions that he found on the web to remove it. He says that the PC now says "Reload Windows" when he tries to start it. I have offered to have a look at it when I next see him. It looks like I can get the drivers from HP. However, if he does have a budget machine from seven years ago, he might be better off with Linux anyway.

[GeoffF100]

Legitimate free Windows 10 upgrades are no longer available, unless you need assistive technologies, but Microsoft apparently does not check whether you do need them:

https://www.cnet.com/uk/how-to/microsof ... -features/

I also found an article that said that if you install Windows 10 without a product key, it now works for only 30 days.

I would not want to dishonestly upgrade someone else's machine. My quick look suggested that I would not be able to download a Windows 7 ISO with an OEM key. I expect that it is possible to buy installation media from HP, which may be the only legitimate option, apart from Linux.

[GeoffF100]

As far as the OP is concerned, full retail licences from Microsoft are very expensive. Manufacturers clearly get discounts from Microsoft to preinstall PCs with Windows. PC Specialist looks legitimate, but, if in doubt, check with Microsoft. If he buys a PC with no OS and installs a dodgy copy of Windows, his machine may stop working, with a demand that he buy a full retail licence from Microsoft. He may get away with it, but he has to consider whether he values being an honest man.

[hiriskpaul]

Against my advice that it sounded like a scam, my brother bought a W10 Pro license key off ebay about 6 months ago for less than £2 in order to upgrade an old PC. To my surprise it worked. It has remained active and to upgrade itself. He rarely uses the PC, just backs up files from his laptop to it every now and then in case something happens to his laptop. The key was OEM and supposedly from a scrapped PC. His attitude was that for £2 it was worth a try.

[GeoffF100]

I bought a PC from PC specialist. The motherboard was faulty, and I found it very difficult to contact them. I gave up, and returned the PC within 14 days, and got a full refund, less carriage. I bought another PC from Novatech, who have a fantastic reputation.

Personally, if I wanted a new Windows PC, I would buy one with Windows preinstalled. If I wanted a Linux desktop, I would probably buy a second hand machine locally. Even good spec machines can be seriously cheap. The only bare bones option that I found interesting was this one:

https://www.cclonline.com/product/17916 ... -/BRB0395/

Very small, very low power consumption, and can be bolted to the back of a monitor. Add an SSD, some RAM and Lubuntu, and it will fly.

[didds]

An OEM key is non-transferable, being tied to the machine it was first installed on.

Its even more compex that that - as we are in the territory of Trigger's broom
(FYI http://foolsandhorses.weebly.com/triggers-broom.html).

You can probably change/uadd memory to the initial machine. You can probably change a hard drive .

but the motherboard? Probably not.

So - what defines the "machine"? _probably_ the motherboard. So in effect the OEM key is tied to the mobo... So when you buy your OEM PC... hope the Mobo never dies on you. Because at that juncture you now have a doorstop even though everything inside the doorstop aside form the mobo works.

didds