What makes the license keys so cheap is that they’re gray market at best.
Some sites, like Kinguin, specialize in digital software sales-to buy Windows 10, you’ll find the Windows 10 Home OEM or Windows 10 Pro OEM listings, pick a seller, then add their product to your cart and check out. Platforms like eBay and Kinguin allow buyers to purchase product keys from third-party sellers. But this approach comes with a salt mine of caution. Scoring Windows 10 at an 85-percent discount (or more) is possible, and it’s not even difficult.
Microsoft has historically been kind about such situations, however you can usually call to reactivate the license after replacing a fried mobo. If you build a system but roll a new one four years later, you can’t transfer the license to the new machine.Īlso, if the hardware used to identify your system fails-namely, the motherboard-Microsoft’s registration servers won’t recognize your license as valid after you replace the dead part.
In exchange for a lower price, you get to use the license key on only one PC, period. The process for activating a Windows 10 OEM license is the same as for a retail license.