Soldato
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There are so many places don't know which one is best? Doing a fresh windows 10 install
Cheers
Cheers
Best place to get a windows 10 pro key?
- Thread starter Simon Belmont
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Soldato
Look on steam key websites....
Someone will pop and say that you can get them for £10 from ebay. And you can and they will work (probably) but this does not make them 'legal'. Most are volume licences, and reselling to end user are against terms and conditions. They might work for years, or they might not. Get it from reputable source.
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That's what I'm asking. where? Microsoft sell them for super high prices on there web site and read they are the same keys that you can get for OEM.
Whilst both allow activation to one PC at a time, the main difference is when you change/upgrade your PC.
OEM keys are meant to be locked to one PC. If you change PC then you need a new key. Upgrades to motherboard are normally seen as changing PC and you will be asked to contact MS to activate the key. Mostly this is quick and fuss free.
Retail means you can use reuse it on a new PC after deactivating it on old PC, or going through activation steps.
If you expect to change PC every couple of years then retail might be way to go, otherwise OEM will be fine.
OEM keys are meant to be locked to one PC. If you change PC then you need a new key. Upgrades to motherboard are normally seen as changing PC and you will be asked to contact MS to activate the key. Mostly this is quick and fuss free.
Retail means you can use reuse it on a new PC after deactivating it on old PC, or going through activation steps.
If you expect to change PC every couple of years then retail might be way to go, otherwise OEM will be fine.
Don
No Microsoft sell them for the actual retail price of Windows 10 - anything less than that is likely a grey area key as already mentioned.
Even if they do Activate, it doesn't make them "legal" in the sense of complying with the actual Windows 10 License - meaning they are no better than a pirated copy.
Soldato
Just stick with the grey area ones,..... Been using them for 10 years no problems
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Ok, which place is best?
We're not really allowed to tell you bud, it's against the forums terms and conditions as it's essentially advertising a competitor and as has been mentioned it's a bit of a grey area from a legal perspective.
If you have a W7 key sat around you could probably use that to activate W10.
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I found a good place. There are many scam sites selling keys. Looking through trust pilot helped. Cheers everyone
Associate
I personally go bargain hunting in local charity shops. Most dying windows 7 laptops have keys you can put into windows 10 and be fine with.
Officially either the OCUK store or the Microsoft website are "right" ways.
Officially either the OCUK store or the Microsoft website are "right" ways.
Kapow....holy smokes batman..?!! I don't think the member that posted below you got it either
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I got a Win 11 Pro key a few weeks ago, was £32 from a key site and a real pain to get to activate, failed at first so had to contact support and send them a list of numbers for the install id, they then sent me a list of numbers that i had to enter and the key now works. It was a real pain though! I must have 20 win 10 pro retail keys attached to my account but every time I upgrade have to deal with this MS BS, I refuse to pay £170 or whatever it is after I have paid it more than once already
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Permabanned
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I got a Win 11 Pro key a few weeks ago, was £32 from a key site and a real pain to get to activate, failed at first so had to contact support and send them a list of numbers for the install id, they then sent me a list of numbers that i had to enter and the key now works. It was a real pain though! I must have 20 win 10 pro retail keys attached to my account but every time I upgrade have to deal with this MS BS, I refuse to pay £170 or whatever it is after I have paid it more than once already
Microsoft phone activation? Gosh haven’t heard of that since XP!
And support as in a Microsoft or Support as in where you got the key from? I bet they did a Microsoft support automated Phone call to have it activated.
It was support from the key site not MS, also had two VM's, one activated and the other refused so I deleted it and setup a Linux one instead. I am switching everything I can over to Linux just to reduce all the MS $£”$£”$. There is a lot of good MS stuff, but I would prefer to just get rid of MS completely if I could.
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You got ripped off, you can get a Windows 10/11 Pro key for £4.99 without phone activation from other sites.I got a Win 11 Pro key a few weeks ago, was £32 from a key site and a real pain to get to activate, failed at first so had to contact support and send them a list of numbers for the install id, they then sent me a list of numbers that i had to enter and the key now works. It was a real pain though! I must have 20 win 10 pro retail keys attached to my account but every time I upgrade have to deal with this MS BS, I refuse to pay £170 or whatever it is after I have paid it more than once already
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