Windows 10

I don't know the specifics but I thought last week MS said you could use an older windows 7 key to do a fresh install of windows 10. I think nobody knows, and what you know keeps changing weekly it seems.

Are those keys on Reddit legit? Where do they get them from?

They are legit-ish. It's mostly IT people being shady with volume licensing.

Ronne_sl said:

They are legit-ish. It's mostly IT people being shady with volume licensing.

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Most places...depending on your contract with Microsoft and your hardware vendors...usually you have a enterprise key that now days is self activated once you join the domain - so all your windows OS's are activated using that process and "key" - yet you are "required" to purchase your hardware to come with windows key's... just because... its "technically" saying you buy this mass enterprise key for X and all your "per user" keys we will just assume you are buying a "standard" key with each hardware box and that counts- but we don't make you import that into anything nor will there (never say never!) be an actual audit on this silly provision of your enterprise agreement...

sooooo... all those key stickers that come on your hardware while technically "used" per above - are never activated or really used and can be "actually" used and activated just as every other normal key... with that said, if MS ever called up Dell or HP and asked for all the enterprise hardware sales appropriate keys that where shipped with all of them so they could cross reference any activations outside of those environments...

that's not where all of them come from, but that is a good number of em

Alkorin_sl said:

They'd have no way of knowing once the product is out the door, unless the keys have vendor IDs baked in like they used to. Even then, that would tie them to the vendor, nothing more. The only keys that MS really hunts down with a vengeance these days are the KMS server activation keys, because KMS can activate an unlimited number of machines (as you described above), and it does not phone home, so there's no telling how many people are activating through a KMS server unless you have access to the server itself. The KMS service has to be registered, though; that's where they get you.

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Dell via support channels, and I am sure HP - knows every service code on the machine - most machines now days have their windows keys in the board/bios/chip/small ion conductor whatever for automatic key registration -- use the supplied dell/hp branded windows cd and you will never get asked a key- and it will use magically the one on the sticker. Those are all known to MS as sold to the vendor... so if they WANTED to, I am sure they could find out... and I am sure it would all eventually get back down to the vendor... I know if MS audited my work and wanted a key per key check vs what KMS has done- we would say "in compliance, all our PCs are purchased with a key...if you want those keys- go ask dell!" But as we know... that happening would be, crazy. Just saying where most likely where most of those reddit sold keys come from... and honestly - MS makes you pay X for Y "number" for your KMS and then AGAIN for those "single" keys? bah! humbug.

Don't worry, I am sure once they force KMS into Azure and Azure AD/ADFS all keys will be brokered directly in 1:1 with MS.

Alk, u upgrade your SCCM? I am now working on getting win10 IPU working as well as remote app's for our more rare and particular apps.

Cad_sl said:

Back to pre-activated torrented copies I guess. Fuck you microsoft.

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Get a pre-activated torrent copy of 7, full update, run upgrade to 10, profit. Assuming you are totally against breaking into the money bin for a legit copy. It does work.

Alkorin_sl said:

xadion, yeah, I know they are typically baked into the BIOS, but I doubt anyone is recording which key went to which customer. Who knows. I might be wrong.

Also, no one will ever "force" Azure ADFS. lol. Just no. Keeping a copy of my AD in the cloud? Allowing some third party to host my entry point into a private network? Fuck that. Might as well let them log in using Facebook.

We haven't touched SCCM, no. Still at 2007 R2 and will likely be for some time. I work in a huge (150,000+ desktops and who knows how many servers) organization. Change is slower than molasses in February for us. That said, I left my former support role and I'm in a network engineering role now, so who knows, maybe I can help change that. I doubt it, lol.

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Aww c'mon you know MS wants everyone and everything in Azure- hell you can do "hard line" phones in the cloud now!

And gratz, engineer that network yo, do it.

Tuco_sl said:

I want to reformat my wife's laptop. She uses it as a graphic design work station and I use it as an HTPC. Should I use Windows 7 or Windows 10?

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Windows 10 did away with the media center stuff though.