jnelsoninjax, on 28 April 2012 - 19:17, said:
My father just discovered a website called Windows Key Shop they are selling activation keys for dirt cheap, his question (and mine) is are these legit? Can this be trusted? Understand that even with a student discount windows 7 costs $65, where as this site is selling the key for $25, I would appreciate anyone's input on this site!
Keys are very easy to pirate and you should be extreamly careful of whom you buy them from. Without the COA sticker, the only thing you're buying is the assumsion that the person selling you them is legit. Retail or OEM, the person providing you the key should beable to at least forward you a photo of the COA that should be really be attached to the PC the key was activated on.
However, OEM pcs from the likes of Dell don't have their keys on the COA activated when they ship to the customer. So these keys can be copied and sold on, but that is illegal and will fail if they are used to activate at a later point....
Activation hash of the hardware per key is reset every 4 months, so while your key might work now since the actual real owner hasn't re-installed for 4 months when they come to reinstall they might find its not worked and will call MS up to get their hardware hash reset. Doing this too many times and MS will see the key is leaked and blacklist it. This becomes even more a problem if they are staging the release of the same keys over a long period 4+ months. Meaning you could be sharing the same install key with 3-4 people in one year if there are no complants back to them that the key is already activated.
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