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Comment by wongarsu | Hacker News Reader

A second-hand Windows 10 Pro license costs like $25 (and used to be $5). That's a pretty small price for a substantially better experience.

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This is false. A pirated Windows 10 Pro license costs like $25. These are not legitimate licenses, they're overprovisioned enterprise keys being sold in violation of the license agreement. And yes, they register differently in Windows, and can be easily detected. (Command is slmgr /dli)

Like, if you want to pirate software, go pirate software. If you're going to pay someone on a per-install basis for pirated keys, I'm gonna laugh at how easily you're being taken advantage of.

For $25 I can get a legitimate Windows 7 Pro license sticker that works like any Windows 10 license, which is perfectly legal all the way through.

But depending on your jurisdiction, the $5 enterprise keys can also be entirely fine. Sure, in a way that's outsourcing piracy. But the law doesn't have to see it that way. There's nothing illegal about buying enterprise keys, and if they are overprovisioning keys that's between them and MS, I can't even know if that's the case.

It's not perfectly legal, but reasonably more legal than the alternative (a key bought from a reseller). Those stickers are meant to be affixed to a machine sold by a reseller, and is only meant to be used for that machine. If the machine is destroyed and the sticker/key is kept, then it can be used, and it does register Windows Professional/Home installation rather than an Enterprise/Education installation, but is in violation of the TOS that it's provided under.

That being said it is difficult to shed a tear for Microsoft of all companies over this practice.

Wait, are free pirated keys that work as reliably as paid technically-pirated enterprise keys and don't require downloading some probably-comes-pre-botnetted "hacked" Windows installer, but work flawlessly with the installer downloaded straight from Microsoft, readily available? Asking for a friend.

Cheap key allows you to activate windows and to bind valid windows license to your hardware, so you won't have to enter any product key anymore. Using cracks is just not safe for most people. I'd recommend to buy cheap key over crack any time.

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