Buying Windows 7

[jimfromPA]

Greetings, all.  Need to purchase some Windows 7 Pro x64 licenses, and was wondering what my best bet is.

Option 1: Buy a retail license.  There are still a few available here and there, but time is running out.  Plan on spending over 300 USD. [!]  This may be the best option, because then I can re-install it on a different machine if I want to.

Option 2: Buy an OEM copy from a legitimate retailer, such as Walmart [yes, they have it].  Plan on spending around 200 USD.  This seems pricey for an OEM license.

Option 3: Buy an OEM copy from one of the many Ebay or Amazon sellers that offer it.  Plan on spending anywhere from 5 USD [MUST be bogus] up to around 50-60 USD [MAY be bogus].  Other people's experience doing this varies widely.  Some people report getting a legit copy, others get counterfeit bunk.  Supposedly, a  lot of these are from people [illegally] selling off bulk license keys from an enterprise package, which will probably be flagged by MS at some point after you install it.

Buying a legit OEM disk will save around 100 bucks per license over retail, but if the smoke leaks out of the machine you install it on, you are SOL.  Many people claim in online forums that MS was willing to re-cert an OEM license after an mboard replacement, but I am not sure I can count on that.

What do you folks buy when building a Win 7 box?

Jim
==================================================
Speaking from a secure undisclosed location.

[dencorso]

I, for one, only buy original, seal unbroken, boxed FPP, with no geo limitations on activation. YMMV, though.

[Nomen]

Does a technet subscription still get you a bunch of licenses for Win-7 (and a bunch more other stuff)?

 

[Tripredacus]

Technet should be gone by now. I think there is only MSDN subscription service left.

[i430VX]

My friend has had one success and one failure with the $5 ebay keys. He got his money back on the scam though.

As stated, YMMV.

[erpdude8]

Newegg does still sell some legit OEM versions of Windows 7 Pro

Edited October 24, 2018 by erpdude8

[quadriped]

I'd like to know why they're still charging $140-200 for a 9-year-old system.

[dencorso]

Because it's real good?
Because there is demand for it,actually? 

[Tomcat76]

I recently bought three digital licenses for Windows 7 for about 80€ in total.  You just need to get the media yourself.

Edited November 13, 2018 by Tomcat76

[Jody Thornton]

I got two Windows 8 Pro licenses - the first for $60, and the second for $40.  I wonder if he still has any of them left.

You can get Windows 7 Pro loaded on refurbished decent machines easily enough. 

 

[quadriped]

12 hours ago, Jody Thornton said:

I got two Windows 8 Pro licenses - the first for $60, and the second for $40.  I wonder if he still has any of them left.

You can get Windows 7 Pro loaded on refurbished decent machines easily enough. 

Not so easy. The store closest to me, MicroCenter, has only 1 refurb Win7 machine for $200. Anywhere else I would have to pay a huge amount of shipping.  Cheaper for me to buy a license and install it on my triple-core Vista machine.

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Edited November 14, 2018 by quadriped

[aurgathor]

If you subscribe to Visual Studio (starting at $1200, used to be called MSDN) you'll get 5 keys for most every Win 7 SKUs, as far as I can see.

It's not cheap, but the keys are guaranteed to be legit.  

 

[Destro]

1200 dollars for some win 7 keys no thankyou.  Go on Ebay and try to find legit Licenses they are on there be careful.  Make sure you are getting a Ultimate edition key as all other versions are inferior.

Edited December 26, 2018 by Destro

[Tommy]

1 hour ago, Destro said:

Go on Ebay and try to find legit Licenses they are on there be careful. 

Yep, just be careful because if it sounds too good to be true, most likely it is. There's no way a reputable company would sell Windows 7 keys for $5-$10, not even this late in its life. Heck, even Windows Server products that are out of date run a pretty penny on eBay. I'd say even for Windows 7 Home Premium, a fair price would be about $39.99 for a key only.