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eBay keys

Kantastic

Kantastic

Platinum Member
What's your take on buying supposedly 'legal' Windows keys off eBay?

They sell them for so cheap that even I'm tempted to buy one. One thing is I can't figure out how they're making any profit for selling them at the price they do.
 
Unless Microsoft itself is selling the Keys, I'd recommend skipping them. There's no reason for people to sell legitimate Windows software at a significant discount. You are right, they CAN'T make a profit if the software is coming from a legitimate source. Legitimate dealers make very low margins even selling at-or-near the recommended selling price.

Microsoft didn't used to sell "Keys-only" to anybody except through corporate volume licensing or subscription licensing. So a "Key-only" transaction outside those programs was considered automatically to be "piracy". MS' recent practice of offering "download-only" software is making it a bit tougher to be 100% certain whether a Key is legitimate or not.

I'd skip it and get the software from a safe vendor like Newegg, complete with disk and other proof of legitimacy.
 
i see lots of way it could be profit, i mean if they keep the keys and never use them or sell them for a few bux cuz they are not ever going to use the key or OS then.. well.. i see a profit. Like say they buy 2000 pc's that come with windows 7 but they want to run xp since some of the software they have wont run on windows 7 (ive seen this recently with some high end software) they are not going to run windows 7 so they can sell the keys,, fact of selling keys is prob not legit but ive bought splintercell from indonesia once so i could try the online gameplay with out paying 40$ (i played it once and threw it away so glad i bought the 10$ version)
 
It definitely falls into the category that the reseller is illegally selling keys...Skip it. End users aren't eligible to receive key-only licenses, from what I'm aware.

This would apply even if the reseller bought a technet/MSDN subscription, and tried selling the keys individually...Those are strictly for individual testing/evaluation, NOT for resale. I'd figure that if M$ found out what was going on, it's a simple matter I'd imagine to simply invalidate the keys and make it impossible to update the system anymore--Along with the other drawbacks an illegal/invalidated key would inherit.

Plus, the keys could be counterfeits/fakes as well.
 
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If they are Technet or MSDN keys then they are illegal keys.

Cause these keys are Not allowed to be sold.

There are even some restrictions on how the legal subscribers can use them.



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Kantastic said:
What's your take on buying supposedly 'legal' Windows keys off eBay?

They sell them for so cheap that even I'm tempted to buy one. One thing is I can't figure out how they're making any profit for selling them at the price they do.
Click to expand...
Well, those are illegal. You might end up yourself getting scammed and your money lost.
I suggest you to get a legit copy of the OS from a legit and reliable seller, and use that on your computer. This way, you are sure that it i legit and you have all the support you need from Microsoft.
 
RebateMonger said:
Microsoft didn't used to sell "Keys-only" to anybody except through corporate volume licensing or subscription licensing. So a "Key-only" transaction outside those programs was considered automatically to be "piracy". MS' recent practice of offering "download-only" software is making it a bit tougher to be 100% certain whether a Key is legitimate or not.
Click to expand...

Do MS now sell download versions of Windows 7? I've looked for this before but never found anything. I would love to be able to buy a key from MS online and install from the DVD I already have. . .seems kind of pointless to go and buy physical media again.
 
WildW said:
Do MS now sell download versions of Windows 7? I've looked for this before but never found anything. I would love to be able to buy a key from MS online and install from the DVD I already have. . .seems kind of pointless to go and buy physical media again.
Click to expand...

technet is as close to that as you are going to get. for little more than $250 year you get access to everything. i just joined in februrary and will continue to get it every year now.
 
WildW just take into consideration that if you buy a legal key from any source you might have to download a few GB DVD from MS.

Having a legal key does not mean that it can be used on any DVD of Win 7 that you might have.



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