Win10 keys on ebay

logic_187

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Hi Looking to rebuild a windows 7 laptop and putting on win10. I see on ebay you can pick up a licence for under a £5, has anyone used ebay to get reliable keys? Or is it all some sort of scam?
Thanks
 
These are OEM keys which, thanks to German law, can be removed from PCs and resold.
I have bought DVDs with the OEM keys added and they have worked fine.
If it is the key only then you have to download the right image for installation so be careful.
 
If you have a vaild win7 key it still free to upgrade if you are careful. Did this on Friday and worked fine.

Download the Windows media creation tool direct from microsft. Select the version on Windows you want.
Chose to create media (and not upgrade this pc).
Choose either to create bootsble usb ir burn to dvd.
Reboot pc.
Chose new install.
At this point it will ask for your license key. Enter your valid windows 7 license key and carry on.

All the Ways You Can Still Upgrade to Windows 10 for Free
 
@sraper thats interesting and thanks for the info....i just binary wiped the laptop lol..will reinstall win7 and try this
 
If you have a vaild win7 key it still free to upgrade if you are careful. Did this on Friday and worked fine.

Download the Windows media creation tool direct from microsft. Select the version on Windows you want.
Chose to create media (and not upgrade this pc).
Choose either to create bootsble usb ir burn to dvd.
Reboot pc.
Chose new install.
At this point it will ask for your license key. Enter your valid windows 7 license key and carry on.

All the Ways You Can Still Upgrade to Windows 10 for Free

Anyway to do that when the PC in question is very low on disk space (can't free up any space either), and (additionally) the user cannot remember the admin login
 
Boot into safe mode (F8 when booting) and you should be able to reset the admin account password.
 
If you have the Windows 7 OEM COA sticker you can just enter that product key when freshly installing Windows 10 and it will activate Win 10 to the same version (home or professional).

Even though Microsoft only advertised Windows 10 as free upgrade for a year. They still allow it as they’d rather you were on the latest platform with Windows Store etc.
 
Hi Looking to rebuild a windows 7 laptop and putting on win10. I see on ebay you can pick up a licence for under a £5, has anyone used ebay to get reliable keys? Or is it all some sort of scam?
Thanks

This is a legally difficult area. Technically, European law allows the resale of software so you can buy a key off of the internet, so long as the person selling it 100% relinquishes ownership of the software and never uses either that key or that copy of Windows again.

Microsoft itself does not put any realistic "technical restrictions" in place to stop you from doing it either. So, you could technically take a fresh computer and put a fresh copy of Windows 10 on it, and use that key and it would act exactly as if it were a store brought copy.

BUT, website that sell these keys could STILL be pulling a scam. The keys could be duplicate keys that get sold to many people or which are still being used by the company that originally purchased the OEM. In which case your key could be deactivated pretty much on a whim by Microsoft if it decided to do so. You'd have no recourse if the company was pulling a scam, as you'd have to get your money back from the website and ... they probably will tell you that you had a set period to complain and that because you waited too long you can go whistle.

If the keys were American, or the website is American, then you could also be covered by US law which says that reselling OEM keys is a violation of the original sale, in which case you're copy would be considered pirate.

Generally, any website that sells software for so much below market value is suspect. It's like a website selling last years best selling clothes for cost price. It might be a warehouse sale, but they might be counterfeit.

They could sell a legal copy for 10 times that price.
 
Sorry, but with those keys the installation process still checks with Microsoft.
 
The keys could be duplicate keys that get sold to many people or which are still being used by the company that originally purchased the OEM.
That requires the uninstallation process to release the key. Microsoft use a hardware signature for activation in order to prevent a company install the same license on multiple PCs.
 
I have used scdkeys for win 10, works fine,
buy Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM CD-KEY GLOBAL in scdkey
I have also used OEM win 7 keys off ebay. These come from decommissioned branded laptops or PCs. On the Assembly line the hard drives are imaged with a pre activated generic key. Before shipping they are supplied with the green sticker activation keys and will work for any OEM Windows 7 premium as long as they have not been activated for that machine. They are getting hard to find now that windows 7 is historic
 
scdkey and similar marketplaces have been shown to do minimal verification on their key sources in the past. Here's a good example for game keys:
The truth behind those mysteriously cheap gray market game codes

It's the online equivalent of buying something out of the back of a van, highly dodgy.

If you want to buy a second hand key then I'd either buy it directly from the individual or small business using it at the moment or from somewhere that can prove where it came from and that all the owners back to the original purchaser had the right to own and sell it.
 
That requires the uninstallation process to release the key. Microsoft use a hardware signature for activation in order to prevent a company install the same license on multiple PCs.

This won't stop them from selling the same key to multiple people. That's the thing about shady companies, they do things that are shady.
 
scdkey and similar marketplaces have been shown to do minimal verification on their key sources in the past. Here's a good example for game keys:
The truth behind those mysteriously cheap gray market game codes

It's the online equivalent of buying something out of the back of a van, highly dodgy.

If you want to buy a second hand key then I'd either buy it directly from the individual or small business using it at the moment or from somewhere that can prove where it came from and that all the owners back to the original purchaser had the right to own and sell it.

Speaking personally, I'd never buy a used OS key without also buying the original hardware that it shipped on.

I'm uncertain how Microsoft does it with Windows 10, but with other software a activation key is little more than a checksum, and software companies will often allow you to register the same key multiple times, up until a certain number of grace installations has been reached. Then they cut you off. This is because they accept that you may buy software and install it on one PC, and then buy a new PC and install it on that, and so on. Or that you might upgrade a significant component over the lifetime of the software.
 
I actually have a bunch of retail keys but I can't seem to make a post here to offer it. I've been selling it on Reddit for a while now. My retail keys come from companies that were liquidated. We buy up old PCs, cannibalize them, recycle the precious metals and resell the keys. What are the requirements to sell on the marketplace here?
 
For one thing, the prduct has to be legal to sell. My suspicion is that these, technically, breach MSs licence conditions.
 
If the laptop is one of the main brands like HP or Dell or similar then, in most cases, you don't need to buy a copy of Windows 10. The laptop should have a COA cert for Windows 7 on it somewhere. Popular places are the base and inside the battery compartment. Take a note of the code and then download the install file for Windows 10 from Microsoft directly and either write it out to DVD or pen stick. You don't need to upgrade the install,do it as a new clean install and during this it will ask for the Windows 7 COA(it doesn't need to for 8 as it is hard-coded in the BIOS).

Once done it will auto activate once connected to the internet.

Since support for Windows 7 stops in January 2020 it is well worth trying if you want to keep using the laptop(or PC) and be safe.

Please note - Check the compatability of your machine before trying. Just because it worked for the machines I tried doesn't mean to say it will work for any machine.
I actually have a bunch of retail keys but I can't seem to make a post here to offer it. I've been selling it on Reddit for a while now. My retail keys come from companies that were liquidated. We buy up old PCs, cannibalize them, recycle the precious metals and resell the keys. What are the requirements to sell on the marketplace here?
So what you are saying is you recycle branded machines and resell their keys from the stickers on the side of the PC or laptop. Well for starters those keys are not retail they are OEM and according to the licence are tied to the hardware they were first installed on. So strictly speaking you are breaking the law and yes before you tell me I know about the law passed in Germany that allows this but that is in Germany only.
Why pay for a dodgy key when my method detailed above is perfectly legitimate.
 

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