Is £22 for windows 10 too good to be true?

They are grey market. Supplied from possibly not quite legal sources or are against the softwares ToS. They could not work or be deactivated at any time.

AFAIK running windows 10 without a key at all only applies minor cosmetic differences. There is a watermark on the desktop background (which you can still change) and a banner on the settings window but that seems to be it.
 
Pirating Windows would be more reliable than a £20 key. I think they're often keys that shouldn't be sold, from volume licensing and such, so it's essentially piracy but you're paying for the pleasure of it.
 
If it's under £85 it's too good to be true no matter where you buy it from currently. As above if your on 7 still you can upgrade before the 31st December for free.
 
Glanza said:
If it's under £85 it's too good to be true no matter where you buy it from currently. As above if your on 7 still you can upgrade before the 31st December for free.
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Did they extend that then? I thought it ended ages ago and my parents computer is still on 7.
 
You can get keys that work for £4, if it stops working after a month buy another with it being so cheap who cares if it stops working, don't give Microsoft money imo, Bill already has over $80 billion.
 
Fairly sure the answer is no said:
Searching online I'm finding win 10 for £22 for home, £30 for pro version, with other popular sites being more like £100

Are these prices too good to be true?
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They're MSDN keys. They'll work for time, six months, a year if you're lucky, eventually they'll get blacklisted by Microsoft as the people selling them get greedy and sell them more than once. In short yes, it is too good to be true.
 
Doogles said:
You can get keys that work for £4, if it stops working after a month buy another with it being so cheap who cares if it stops working, don't give Microsoft money imo, Bill already has over $80 billion.
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By that account, why bother giving any money for it? Don't kid yourself that a grey market key is any better than pirating it.
 
Armageus said:
By that account, why bother giving any money for it? Don't kid yourself that a grey market key is any better than pirating it.
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Yeah but at least the grey area key doesn't have spyware, I'll pay the £4 just to be safe, last time I paid the full retail price for my Windows 7 key which I've since upgraded although I won't be paying for it again, I feel like it should be a one off fee for the rest of your systems. Hopefully as this is retail it'll carry over to my next motherboard but I'm unsure.
 
There are places that have been selling these for years, don't you think they would have been shut down if they were illegal?

I've used one before and would use it again, as I think it is legit.
 
gord said:
Did they extend that then? I thought it ended ages ago and my parents computer is still on 7.
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Still works. Infact the only question I was asked when I tried it on my partners laptop was "do you use any of the built in accessibility options" which she does (the magnifier) so that qualifies and we were able to upgrade her version of Win 7. :)
 
Jamesyboyjim said:
Still works. Infact the only question I was asked when I tried it on my partners laptop was "do you use any of the built in accessibility options" which she does (the magnifier) so that qualifies and we were able to upgrade her version of Win 7. :)
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My old parents will be needing the magnifier too..

Cheers all.
 
Armageus said:
By that account, why bother giving any money for it? Don't kid yourself that a grey market key is any better than pirating it.
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Grey Market isn't equal to piracy, not at all. Not strictly adhering to the means and ways a company demands your purchase their software isn't piracy or a bad thing. Grey Market goods are just taking advantage of different pricing across different regions. The end company still gets paid for their product.

The problem is that cheap keys are often volume licensing keys, or keys that shouldn't be sold, which is a different matter.
 
spoffle said:
Grey Market isn't equal to piracy, not at all. Not strictly adhering to the means and ways a company demands your purchase their software isn't piracy or a bad thing. Grey Market goods are just taking advantage of different pricing across different regions. The end company still gets paid for their product.

The problem is that cheap keys are often volume licensing keys, or keys that shouldn't be sold, which is a different matter.
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When grey market in this case means keys obtained from other channels (e.g. msdn or volume) that are being operated outside of the terms of the license, then it is pointless buying a key as it is no more legal than a pirated version.

Fact is that unless you buy direct from Microsoft, or from an authorised retailer at RRP, then it's unlikely to be a legal key.
 
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