Find a discounted Windows 10 Pro license under $2.
Find a discounted Windows 10 Pro license under $2.
Hey there, I checked eBay in India and found several listings for Windows 10 Pro at around 150-200 Rs, which is about two dollars. At first I doubted it, but since the site offers a guarantee, I bought one key. Usually I use Kinguin or Scd keys for Windows or Office, but a Windows 10 Pro key there costs roughly 20-35 USD. The key from eBay worked fine for me, though—I had to reinstall Windows and spent a lot of time on it. I’m curious about how these sellers manage such low prices. If they’re distributing 300 keys through volume licensing like Kinguin does, does that suggest their pricing is actually higher? Any insights? P.S. On eBay, each key is sold to just one account.
3 options exist:
1) Stolen from original retail versions. (unlikely, but not impossible)
2) Purchased in bulk for businesses and now resold on an unregulated site. (most probable)
3) They've bypassed Windows' key generation process. (very improbable)
Regardless of the scenario, the product is being sold illegally and violates Microsoft's policies. Your decision depends on your priorities—proceeding may not result in legal consequences due to the seller's reputation, but it also raises ethical concerns.
Windows 10 is completely free with the Insider Preview. The trade-off is that they gather user data to enhance their services, a practice they also do on regular retail copies, just slightly less transparently. If this worries you, consider using Linux instead.
I previously had Windows 10, now I upgraded to the Pro version using an insider preview key. I noticed some issues with it being a bit unstable, and it seems unfair not to pay for this upgrade. Also, I can't use the Pro edition in that way.
Personally, I find Windows buggy anyways. If you upgraded to Pro, I assume you did so for a reason and needed the extra functionality though. Personally, I don't like funding corporations that violate privacy like crack. Hence why I suggested Linux. There is no reason not to use it, unless you need Windows for a very specific reason (to run a certain program - I'm not big on Wine). Yeah that's an instant turn off for me. If I'm running it on a personal machine, I expect full functionality of the OS. I don't expect people selling these keys cheap to be big bad evil criminals in the typical sense. But yeah funding them isn't a good thing either.
It’s highly probable that if the keys aren’t stolen, they’re just OEM keys sourced from discarded electronics. They’re probably mostly Windows 7 versions. Be aware that using OEM keys—even if they work—means you won’t get any support from Microsoft. TBH unless you require Pro features such as RDP, BitLocker, Hyper-V, etc., there’s no need to upgrade your Windows 10 license.