this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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You can buy a used mini PC for less than the price of a new Windows 11 license. I know there are cheaper license sites out there (unclear how legit they are) but this way you get a Windows license and a spare PC to run Linux!
There could be a bit of a caveat here. I when I purchased my laptop it had windows 10 installed. When I installed Mint, I could not reuse that key in a VM because it was “different hardware”. The license, could not be transferred under any circumstance. I had also purchased the upgrade to Pro through the windows store. That’s also lost.
I seldom run windows, even in the VM, but it still leaves one a bit bitter.
When I build a new PC, I could not transfer my old 7 pro retail license, even though it worked fine on my old PC running Windows 10 and it even said it was a digital license connected to my MS account.
So I bought a Win 10 pro key from one of the ebay resellers aber everything was fine... until it wasn't. I updated the firmware for my mainboard and Windows took that for a replacement of hardware. Troubleshooter did not show three option "I recently changed my hardware" and did not give me the option to call Microsoft's support.
Turns out it was a "one time install" key which was invalidated by changing the hardware. So it couldn't activate a second time. And since the key seller was out of business at that time (they'll change accounts every few months), I had no way of getting the key replaced.
Luckily, I still had an old Windows 7 COA with key and CD lying around from an old Dell business Workstation. That activated just fine.
But yeah, even if you have a valid license connected to your Microsoft account, there's no way of seeing it in your account, and it's not guaranteed MS will honor it.