Shall I buy windows 10 on pcspecialist ?

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
If it's for a PCS machine, then PCS only recommend the OEM keys that come with their machines.

PCS won't offer support if you install your own-sourced copy.
 

melocolic

Active member
OEM will do the job unless you feel that there's a chance that you may want to transfer it to another machine (motherboard) in the future. In that scenario you might want to buy a retail licence.
 

AgentCooper

At Least I Have Chicken
Moderator
And beware of buying online, there’s many a dodgy site or seller purporting to sell genuine licenses that are nearly always dodgy. If it’s less than around £80... it’s too good to be true. I’d personally only buy direct from Microsoft.
 

melocolic

Active member
OEM licenses can be assigned to your Microsoft account afaik, so can be moved to another machine, however they may only ever be used on one machine at a time
Last week I tried to do exactly this - deregistered from the old OEM machine with my digital licence being held with Microsoft. It wouldn't activate the licence on my new machine and after 2 hours of arguing the toss with Microsoft I had to give up in the end. Meant I had to buy a retail copy and I was on Pro before (but only found Bitlocker useful there)
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Last week I tried to do exactly this - deregistered from the old OEM machine with my digital licence being held with Microsoft. It wouldn't activate the licence on my new machine and after 2 hours of arguing the toss with Microsoft I had to give up in the end. Meant I had to buy a retail copy and I was on Pro before (but only found Bitlocker useful there)
Interesting. Thanks for this. We've had many people successfully activate what was an OEM license via a digital license on a new PC.

Microsoft talk about an OEM digital license being useful if you change hardware, and whilst it doesn't say that can be a new PC it doesn't say that it can't either.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Last week I tried to do exactly this - deregistered from the old OEM machine with my digital licence being held with Microsoft. It wouldn't activate the licence on my new machine and after 2 hours of arguing the toss with Microsoft I had to give up in the end. Meant I had to buy a retail copy and I was on Pro before (but only found Bitlocker useful there)
You don’t deregister it from the machine, you log into your Microsoft account and delete the associated device. Then it’s free to be moved.

De registering it is only for volume licensing.

I’ve done it with an OEM licence to 3 devices so far.
 
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