- May 4, 2000
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This following personal account does not have anything to do with obviously questionable / fake / stolen $2 Windows licenses sold on places like Ebay. While they might activate, common sense would dictate a legitimate seller would charge more than such a small amount for a Windows license. I personally DO NOT recommend going that route. Those licenses are very likely not "grey market", but instead "black market".
I am not recommending any particular marketplace or seller, I simply went with Kinguin due to the two articles linked to in my personal experience below. Do so at your own risk.
One of the most common questions I've seen asked over the many years I've been on here is "Can't I save money and just buy "grey market" software and games. The answers that follow are a mixture of "I do it all the time, and there hasn't been any problems", to "That cheap key will likely activate, but at some point the company will flag the key and you'll be out the money you spent".
Upgrading my PC recently, I was intrigued enough to try it out. Previously, I had purchased a retail copy of Windows 10 Home at Best Buy, so I could transfer that license to my new PC without any worries. However, I really wanted my new PC to have Windows 10 PRO for features like being able to "sandbox" suspicious links or programs. Microsoft offered me that very option in my settings, all for the low price of $99. Conversely, on "grey market" sites such as Kinguin, I could buy an entire Windows 10 PRO license for around $30 from individual sellers, along with the option to pay an additional $5.50 to Kinguin for some sort of protection that if my license would not work (or if it was deactivated in the future), Kinguin would ensure I would receive another working license.
After reading these articles from Tom's Hardware and Polygon, I decided to try it out and see how it worked, and what my experience would be. At worst, I would be out around $40. After reading the article, what initially had me sold about purchasing a license this way and saving a fair amount of money was this explanation from the article:
Within a few minutes, I received an email from Kinguin letting me know my Windows key was now available in my inventory, and they also sent me an image of my license key. After going to my Kinguin account, I noticed they had a guide concerning activating the product key:
I figured I would activate it the way they recommended, so I proceeded to follow their directions and typed SLUI 04 on the PC I was activating the license for, and instead of receiving an option to activate it via phone with the installation ID, all that would come up was a box where I could enter the product key. With this being a 1903 build of Windows 10 PRO, I figured Microsoft must have changed their activation options, so I entered my product key only to be greeted with this:
On the very small chance that there was some type of internet / server error, I proceeded to click on the "Troubleshoot" option, and this is what it returned:
At that point, I went back into my Kinguin, where I had an option to send a message to seller asking for help / letting them know the product key did not work. While waiting to hear back, I wondered if I had incorrectly typed in a wrong character, so I attempted to activate it again online (and making sure I typed everything correctly). This time, I received another frustrating result:
At this point, I was pretty irritated, and sent another message to the seller explaining the latest developments on getting the key activated. Once again, while waiting for a response back, I looked at the FAQ section of Kinguin, and saw that for them to get involved, I had to have an internet chat with a Microsoft agent, and I had to provide them with a screen shot of that agent telling me the key was not a valid / legitimate key. At this point I was not a happy customer and I wished I just spent the $99 directly with Microsoft, as I would not be encountering all of these activation issues. While waiting to get a response back from the seller, I noticed that I now had the option to "Activate by phone" in my settings. As you can see in the first activation attempt above, that option had not previously been there. I figured "What the hell, I guess I should do it so I can prove to Kinguin the key is not activating". I clicked on the option, selected my country, and it gave me an installation ID to provide. After answering a few questions via my phone buttons, I was connected to a customer support agent (likely in India). She asked for my installation ID, and I provided it to her. After that, she provide me the new ID and it finally activated.
So, the million dollar question is: "Is it worth it?" and "Would I do it again?". Honestly, I'm not sure if I would as it was not exactly a very smooth process, and it wasted a fair amount of time. I like saving money as much as most people do, but I also like knowing that things I buy will work as they are described.
The pros are that they keys sold on there are much cheaper than buying from places like Newegg and Amazon. As long as a person selects a reputable seller on the the various marketplaces, they appear to be legitimate keys. It should be noted, from what I was able to determine, the key I purchased was labeled "RoW", which means "Rest of World", so it is likely the keys were intended to be sold to people living in other countries. The Microsoft agent never asked me where I bought the key, she just wanted my installation ID. At a minimum, someone who decides to buy one of these licenses shouldn't expect to receive a response from the seller. If there are activation issues like I experienced, be prepared to spend some time trying to get it all sorted out. Finally, if you decided to pay via credit card, be aware that almost all of these "grey markets" are located outside of the U.S., so you would want to see if your particular card will process orders from outside of your country.
I am not recommending any particular marketplace or seller, I simply went with Kinguin due to the two articles linked to in my personal experience below. Do so at your own risk.
One of the most common questions I've seen asked over the many years I've been on here is "Can't I save money and just buy "grey market" software and games. The answers that follow are a mixture of "I do it all the time, and there hasn't been any problems", to "That cheap key will likely activate, but at some point the company will flag the key and you'll be out the money you spent".
Upgrading my PC recently, I was intrigued enough to try it out. Previously, I had purchased a retail copy of Windows 10 Home at Best Buy, so I could transfer that license to my new PC without any worries. However, I really wanted my new PC to have Windows 10 PRO for features like being able to "sandbox" suspicious links or programs. Microsoft offered me that very option in my settings, all for the low price of $99. Conversely, on "grey market" sites such as Kinguin, I could buy an entire Windows 10 PRO license for around $30 from individual sellers, along with the option to pay an additional $5.50 to Kinguin for some sort of protection that if my license would not work (or if it was deactivated in the future), Kinguin would ensure I would receive another working license.
After reading these articles from Tom's Hardware and Polygon, I decided to try it out and see how it worked, and what my experience would be. At worst, I would be out around $40. After reading the article, what initially had me sold about purchasing a license this way and saving a fair amount of money was this explanation from the article:
First, I created an account and looked at their payment options. They stated they accepted several forms of payment, including credit card and Paypal. I decided that since I wasn't sure how everything would turn out, I went to a local store and purchased a $40 prepaid Master Card (along with an additional $5.95 activation fee). I then proceeded to look at the individual sellers, and I went with a seller that had a 99% satisfaction rate, and almost 46,000 orders. After inputting all of my info, I placed my order, only to have the transaction denied by the bank who issued the prepaid Master Card. After looking at the fine print of the card, I discovered that it could only be used in the U.S, and with Kinguin located outside of the U.S., it was a no-go. Now being down the $5.95 activation fee I paid for the card, and debating if I wanted to try another payment option, I decided I would use my Paypal account. I proceeded to place another order, and this time it worked just fine.
Within a few minutes, I received an email from Kinguin letting me know my Windows key was now available in my inventory, and they also sent me an image of my license key. After going to my Kinguin account, I noticed they had a guide concerning activating the product key:
I figured I would activate it the way they recommended, so I proceeded to follow their directions and typed SLUI 04 on the PC I was activating the license for, and instead of receiving an option to activate it via phone with the installation ID, all that would come up was a box where I could enter the product key. With this being a 1903 build of Windows 10 PRO, I figured Microsoft must have changed their activation options, so I entered my product key only to be greeted with this:
On the very small chance that there was some type of internet / server error, I proceeded to click on the "Troubleshoot" option, and this is what it returned:
At that point, I went back into my Kinguin, where I had an option to send a message to seller asking for help / letting them know the product key did not work. While waiting to hear back, I wondered if I had incorrectly typed in a wrong character, so I attempted to activate it again online (and making sure I typed everything correctly). This time, I received another frustrating result:
At this point, I was pretty irritated, and sent another message to the seller explaining the latest developments on getting the key activated. Once again, while waiting for a response back, I looked at the FAQ section of Kinguin, and saw that for them to get involved, I had to have an internet chat with a Microsoft agent, and I had to provide them with a screen shot of that agent telling me the key was not a valid / legitimate key. At this point I was not a happy customer and I wished I just spent the $99 directly with Microsoft, as I would not be encountering all of these activation issues. While waiting to get a response back from the seller, I noticed that I now had the option to "Activate by phone" in my settings. As you can see in the first activation attempt above, that option had not previously been there. I figured "What the hell, I guess I should do it so I can prove to Kinguin the key is not activating". I clicked on the option, selected my country, and it gave me an installation ID to provide. After answering a few questions via my phone buttons, I was connected to a customer support agent (likely in India). She asked for my installation ID, and I provided it to her. After that, she provide me the new ID and it finally activated.
So, the million dollar question is: "Is it worth it?" and "Would I do it again?". Honestly, I'm not sure if I would as it was not exactly a very smooth process, and it wasted a fair amount of time. I like saving money as much as most people do, but I also like knowing that things I buy will work as they are described.
The pros are that they keys sold on there are much cheaper than buying from places like Newegg and Amazon. As long as a person selects a reputable seller on the the various marketplaces, they appear to be legitimate keys. It should be noted, from what I was able to determine, the key I purchased was labeled "RoW", which means "Rest of World", so it is likely the keys were intended to be sold to people living in other countries. The Microsoft agent never asked me where I bought the key, she just wanted my installation ID. At a minimum, someone who decides to buy one of these licenses shouldn't expect to receive a response from the seller. If there are activation issues like I experienced, be prepared to spend some time trying to get it all sorted out. Finally, if you decided to pay via credit card, be aware that almost all of these "grey markets" are located outside of the U.S., so you would want to see if your particular card will process orders from outside of your country.
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