"Your OS is getting better again"

Literally the first time I've heard someone say that about the recent state of Windows outside of Microsoft PR.

I assume you're surrounded by people who don't use Windows? Not meant as a snark - most people I know use Windows and they all think 10 is the best one yet, except a few who're (rightfully) angry about the telemetry stuff.

Personally, for me it's just Windows 7 with better looks and great touch screen support. I know no better OS with decent touch screen support. I really like using the touch screen. You Macbook people don't know what you're missing (but I guess that OLED touch-bar thing is going to get you halfway there, pretty cool).

My laptop is basically an iPad Pro but with a much more powerful OS (for stuff like development, especially).

Maybe general consumer opinion is that it doesn't suck as much as Windows 8. I was only considering what I've heard for people in IT. I make a living working on the MS stack and I agree it's a pleasant platform for development, but only for the MS stack. It's inferior for development of just about everything else. I now run Windows in a VM, I don't want it anywhere near my personal things. It's not specifically the telemetry that's so appalling, I expect typical software companies to include it, and I can even forgive it being on by default. It's the fact that users are _not allowed_ to, along with a huge selection of other "features", disable or remove it. Windows is becoming more like iOS, not less, it will eventually leave you just as powerless if it hasn't already.

While things have been a bit buggy since the anniversary update, Microsoft have been improving Windows a lot in the last 4-5 years.

Sure, there have been some "1 step forward 2 steps back" moments, but in total the general reaction from actual users have been quite positive.

I'd worry about those licenses being real. Are the places you found them reputable? I'd be willing to be they are not.

There's plenty of ways to find out if a webshop is reputable. This one in particular mostly sold games and had tons of good reviews on a Dutch gamer site.

​It's more than reputation, though. I bought Office 95 for -- forgive me if I'm off on actual numbers here; it's been a long time -- $200, when the going price was $400. I wanted to be legit, and this was supposedly the "OEM" price. The jewel case had the inserts with the holograms and the CD's had the etching, and everything looked genuine. The key worked just fine. They even shipped it with a CD audio cable, as was the custom to "legitimize" "OEM" sales. Everything about the purchase seemed legal and legitimate.

Right after that, my Fortune 250 bought a Select Agreement, and a sales rep came in to explain it and answer questions. I asked why the best price the company could buy Office 95 for was $400, when I could buy it online for half of that, and she explained that it was illegitimate. She explained that it HAD to be. Microsoft simply did not sell that software any cheaper than an A-level Select Agreement (or whatever it was).

I didn't have someone's copy of a CD with a hand-scrawled black marker label. I had an actually-stolen physical product. I realized I couldn't trust anyone online, really. Selling it for half price, with the cable, instead of, say $20, was the key to making it look legitimate.

It was the last of a lot of straws. After this, I made Linux my desktop OS, and ran it for 19 years, till I switched to Mac a few years ago.

Where I work, the PC are bought with Windows preinstalled, the disks are wiped and Windows enterprise is installed. Maybe there is a market to sell and buy the unused original license ??

The "unused original license" is an OEM license. An OEM license lives and dies with the hardware it comes with. Quite often it is even tied to the hardware, so you cannot even install it on PCs of a different brand and/or model.

NO, it does not. It is PERFECTLY legal to sell your oem software in EU, ask Oracle.

http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&doc...

Well first of all we were not talking about Oracle but about Windows licenses.

Second I did not touch the legal aspect, just stated what the EULA contains and that it might be enforced by technical means. The law has its differences all over the world, so let's not go down that rabbit hole.

What is EULA if not legal aspect? And according to highest EU court EULA is toiled paper and does not nullify your rights. Not to mention specifying its about windows license like that would change anything?

Here is another (regional) EU court result concerning exactly OEM Microsoft licenses, Microsoft didnt appeal further.

https://www.usedsoft.com/assets/Law/usedSoft-PM-Urteil-LG-Ha...

As of windows 7, the license is quite literally tied to the hardware, as it's in the bios rom.

http://www.guytechie.com/articles/2010/2/25/how-slp-and-slic...

That's not to say there aren't ways around that, but it might be on a different level than just selling an OEM license.

> As of windows 7, the license is quite literally tied to the hardware.

Dates back to at least XP with Windows. The string that was checked in XP was very simple and later versions were digital certificates. Windows 10 OEM (started with 8 iirc) use per machine fingerprinting and have individual keys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Locked_Pre-installation

System builder licences are fairly cheap but the EULA for them state that they are for putting on a new machine and selling that hardware on, if your building a machine for yourself you need a standard licence.

As for the cheap licences found on sites such as Kinguin. Speculation is a number of keys on these sites come from stolen CC's. Buy keys from legit sites with stolen Cc, sell the codes on Kinguin/G2A. Legit store is hit with charge back once CC holder realise they had their card has been used. It's been a fairly regular complaint in the indie games industry http://tinybuild.com/g2a-sold-450k-worth-of-our-game-keys

"Software Assurance" requires that OEM license.