Buying windows 7

[samyfitz5]

is it possible to buy a retail version of windows 7 home premium for £70 and which is better download or disk?

 

[Hawkeye22]

It may be hard to find a retail version for that price, but if you are a student, you can get a copy of Pro for around 41 pounds. I beleive microsoft does this for students in all countires.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/pd/productID.216644200?Icid=Student_HUB_4up_Windows

 

[wr6133]

http://www.cclonline.com/product/55272/GFC-02050/Operating-Systems/Microsoft-Windows-7-Home-Premium-64-bit-SP1-/SFT0066/

For that price OEM version on disk

 

[Emerald]

are you sure it is not the OEM or Retail Upgrade version?

 

[13thmonkey]

Personally I'd go for a disk version over the download, as 99% of the time the disk is the way you need to install/repair anything.

 

[dodger46]

I shop here, so if you don't mind your machine thinking it's a Dell and OEM is good enough...
http://www.sofway.co.uk/products/windows-7-home-premium-64bit-oem-dell-branded

 

[13thmonkey]

I shop here, so if you don't mind your machine thinking it's a Dell and OEM is good enough...
http://www.sofway.co.uk/products/windows-7-home-premium-64bit-oem-dell-branded

and thats what we call illegal.

Its meant to be brought with a dell machine, not separate to it.

 

[dodger46]

and thats what we call illegal.

Its meant to be brought with a dell machine, not separate to it.

Well, I was a bit sceptical at 1st, but it seems to be a genuine outfit with a registered company etc etc. They supply a Dell mouse with each copy and I assume it's ok with Dell as they are quite open about their operation. It appears to be a genuine Dell disk and you get a COA sticker. The only informative discussion I could find was here
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1646655
Not found any complaints thus far and they have been trading for a while...

 

[13thmonkey]

I wasn't suspecting that there was no product being sold, just the license legality point of view.

 

[dodger46]

I wasn't suspecting that there was no product being sold, just the license legality point of view.

Accepted, it looks like they are exploiting a loophole with the free mouse, and it appears both Dell and M'soft licencing don't seem to mind... at least it comes with a genuine COA sticker which the real cowboys are unabler to provide. (Family member went down that route, bought a key which activated ok but was rejected when someone bought the legit one some months later...) Actually when you factor in the VAT there's no great saving over Amazon etc.

 

[wr6133]

£15 more for your PC not to think its a dell . I'm pretty sure those guys are breaching licence I think to make that even vaguely legit they would need to send you a motherboard not a mouse.

 

[dodger46]

They must source them from Dell to be able to supply them in any quantity so someone must have tested out the legality somewhere along the line! I've only used one Win 7 licence from them for a machine i built for a neighbour, 6 months on it's still fine.

 

[13thmonkey]

its £5 more for a 'proper' oem disk although the white label in the middle of the hologram doesn't look right to me. And pro or ultimate for 70/115 doesn't seem right to me. I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.

 

[donkzilla]

hi, I work for Sofway.

A couple of corrections:

1. Usually we supply the product key on an orange label, not as a COA label. This is 100% legal, COA is not a legal requirement in the EU, you're fully legally licensed without COA. We do however sell COA labels as a separate product. Note that selling COA labels without disk is legal in the EU but illegal in the US.

2. Dell licenses are fully legal on any machine inside the EU. I think the same is true for the US. Dell's UK lawyers recently tried to stop us selling Dell software without Dell hardware and failed - EU law is firmly on our side. We stopped giving away free mice as a result (our lawyer's bills were covered by the savings, sorry we can't afford to give away any more free mice).