No, they totally charge you +$100 for windows, for otherwise identical machines. E.g. https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadt/th...

Which is less than the $140 that Microsoft charges for Win 10 Home, but it's still substantial: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/b/windows

Really, why wouldn't they? If you can't get it cheaper, they have no reason to sell it cheaper. Easy profit.

Companies are not buying machines this way, but through resellers with drastically different pricing models (even CDNow). Outside of Office 365, I have never paid more than 50-75% MSRP for a Microsoft product using a corp reseller account, including SQL Server licenses.

This is a thread about the cost of gaming computers, on an article about Steam games on Linux.

I don't think business-targeted sales are particularly in-scope. And even if they are, that only makes it worse, as it implies they're getting an even more significant profit margin.

As someone that was looking to buy a Windows key, finding a legitimate reseller is a non-trivial task.

I don't know how you tell or care why a seller is legitimate, but it's very easy to find working windows 10 pro keys for a few dollars on http://www.allkeyshop.com/.

> I don't know how you tell or care why a seller is legitimate

Because illegitimate keys can be banned (and the hardware using them can be blacklisted) if they are found to be stolen or acquired in some other way that Microsoft does not like.

It's also a huge liability of you're doing any professional work with unlicensed and/or potentially illegal software licenses.

you can turn off the regular key checking pretty easily...

> It's also a huge liability of you're doing any professional work with unlicensed and/or potentially illegal software licenses.

is it really? at worst it's copyright infringement

I got one from G2A a while ago but I was not at all convinced it was legit.

If you know anyone who has ever worked at microsoft they can get you a copy with a MASSIVE discount. Living in Seattle I just buy all my microsoft products through friends.

Elite controller was $99, and I laughed when it was on sale for like $150 last week as a best ever deal.

I did work at MS, will have to reach out to former colleagues :)

Oh, wait the discount also applies to former employees?

Edit: yes if you are part of the alumni network. It has a fee but it is good value. TIL.

Are there recommendations?

If you only need a single copy you are best suited buying from Microsoft directly.

If you need multiple copies you can work with a VAR (Value Added Reseller) to get better pricing.

CDW.com is the big name in VAR's but they have enormous turnover in staff. I try to build relationships with smaller VAR's. I like these guys: https://greenbeetech.com/ it's a small company with two guys running it who have decades of VAR experience (former CDW people).

Navigating the process of compliantly licensing Microsoft as you scale up is quite a job. Having a good partner to help your organization stay compliant is very valuable.

Why not go straight to the horses mouth? https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/b/windows

The statement that started the talk about resellers was:

> Similarly if you’re building it yourself you can buy for significantly less from a reseller, many of which are wholly legitimate.

The horses mouth charges $140+, which is significantly more than the $100 that was about.

Can confirm, that's the most straightforward way.