Safe to buy a win7 key from ebay?

[Demonatas]

Tell me about it. Ahh well, problem solved anyway.

[phate]

It was probably a key from some kids MSDN Academic subscription he got through his school. Apparently they deactivate the keys when the schools semester ends.

Had that happen to a friend recently, Suddenly found that his Win7 Pro install was no longer valid even though he used the key from the MSDNAA.

[sonik]

Sorry to hear that.
My key still works. Tested it today.

[hl718]

It was probably a key from some kids MSDN Academic subscription he got through his school. Apparently they deactivate the keys when the schools semester ends.

Had that happen to a friend recently, Suddenly found that his Win7 Pro install was no longer valid even though he used the key from the MSDNAA.

Either that or it was sold from a TechNet account and MS caught the seller doing it.

If you sell keys in violation of your license your TechNet account gets closed and the keys get killed.

There's really no point to buying grey market keys. It if doesn't come on official Microsoft stock, you're at risk of it getting deactivated at any time, not to mention chances are good that the key is being used in violation of the license agreement anyway.

At that point, you might as well just use one of the pirate hacks out there. Same difference as neither method is a legit activation.

-hl718

[sonik]

My windows key stoped working today too.

[Trenton_net]

If your brave enough, now is a pretty good time to give Linux a test run. I was hesitant at first, but after giving it an honest go I can say I couldn't be happier. (^_^);

[sonik]

Linux? Argh!!!! :-P

I need Windows to run Visual Studio.
My older PC had linux (Ubuntu) installed on another partition. Used it mostly to browse the web.

[rso]

Try Code::Blocks instead. Granted, it's not quite as good, especially in the autocompletion department, but it's close enough.

I've switched to Gentoo when I got a new laptop some years ago, which came with Vista (eew!). The only things I haven't found comparable (or, in a lot of cases, even better) alternatives for are Photoshop, Visual Studio and GreatNews (a news aggregator highly dependant on IE). Not missing anything else.

Btw, I got a couple of XP keys from the MSDNAA program, which still work fine (for fresh installs) even years later, so maybe the deactivation isn't done by Microsoft, but the institution that's given out the keys? If so, there's still a chance one might get a working one.

[Trenton_net]

Because I generally wipe out all the stuff that comes with hardware so I can install my own stuff, I probably have loads of spare keys just floating around being unused. I guess I should try to track them down.

[sonik]

I've got a refund from the seller.
He doesn't seem to know why the key stopped working.

[Demonatas]

Good to see you got that lucky.

[PrOfUnD Darkness]

Take care, Microsoft can blow some fuses on your pc ;)

[KIWIDOGGIE]

lol, Yea my Win7Prof MDSN key got deactivated. I just bought a retail, not OEM so me and my bud share 1 key.

[phate]

Btw, I got a couple of XP keys from the MSDNAA program, which still work fine (for fresh installs) even years later, so maybe the deactivation isn't done by Microsoft, but the institution that's given out the keys? If so, there's still a chance one might get a working one.

XP keys don't work quite the same way as vista/7 keys. XP keys are actually hard coded into the OS (well the algorithm is at least). That's why they still work. MS would have to release a patch for xp to kill your keys.