windows product keys. How to deal with them?

[Jbcourt]

There is a computer repair shop near my house and the man running the place has a box full of windows product key lables. That he or someone ealse pealed off desktops and laptops.
He seems to give a Product key to anyone he does a clean install or reinstall for.
Is that legal? And how should I deal with the product keys?

 

[vdub12]

No its not.

OEM copy's of Windows are not transferable to a new machine.

With that said if you install on a new system and it fails activation you can call Microsoft and they will more then likely help you out.

 

[Alan22]

Drop a dime on that shop. You shouldn't have to compete with this sort of illegal nonsense.

 

[rivo99]

That doesn't make sense... Why would he "give" a product key to someone when he's doing a reinstall? Is he doing a new build with a used COA?

 

[iptech]

he or someone ealse pealed off desktops and laptops.

That doesn't make sense, the COA's are destructive labels, i.e. they cannot be peeled off without being being permanently damaged.

Do you know he has this 'box' or is it just what you've heard? If you are genuinely concerned then report him to Microsoft for their investigation, but if you or anyone does a legitimate reinstall then there's no reason, fiscal or otherwise, not to use the original product key.

How should you deal with the product keys? Is he supplying you from his 'box'?

There's a clearly defined path for identifying legitimate product keys from Microsoft, anyone who operates outside of these parameters should be regarded as "dodgy".

 

[Alan22]

That doesn't make sense, the COA's are destructive labels, i.e. they cannot be peeled off without being being permanently damaged.

They can be peeled off without damage. Sharp razorblade does the trick. I had some old cases that I recycled w/ XP COA's. I didn't want the product keys to be reused, so I removed them. Took less than a minute and the COA came off intact.

 

[Jbcourt]

I have never seen anybody peel off a W.P.K. sticker. But I have seen his box of them. I know he give them to customers.
He's sells me new hardware at his cost. I dont want to Drop the dim. Plus what if I am wrong about what he is doing? How would I feel then? He would never talk to me again.

 

[@ncient geek]

That doesn't make sense, the COA's are destructive labels, i.e. they cannot be peeled off without being being permanently damaged.

Just heat them up a little with a heat gun or a hair dryer, they will peel off nicely with a plastic spatula.

The OEM licence thingy has been in discussion for as long as I remember, at least since Windows 98. There never has been a satisfactory decision/solution to this problem.
Things are quite clear in the US, OEM licences are NOT transferable in any case, INCLUDING changes of motherboards (e.g. you can change ANY piece of hardware on any given OEM computer, BUT if you change the mobo you void your licence). Actually, MS has been sticking to this policy more or less strictly in the beginning, but there is no difficulty re-activating OEM COAs via Internet in the last several years if you respect the 60 day limit of activation.

Outside the US things are quite different, apparently, as legally you can not link software to hardware. In most countries software licencing is regarded as personal acquisition, meaning that licences are linked to a BUYER, and this nominatively ! Courts have decided MANY times that it is perfectly legal to pass OEM licences from computer to computer as long as there is only ONE computer with the given OEM licence in activity at any given time. Some countries have even admitted that the same licence can be used in several different geographical locations, e.g. home/work.

To illustrate this even further, several years ago we installed a mega system in Mumbay and duplicated this system in Buenos Aires. The auxillary systems were all using OEM XP Pro CALs from HP and these were identical on the two sites. When one of the sites shut down for the night, to other started it's activity. We had MS check the licensing at the time, naturally, and they themselves found the setup to correspond to the valid EULA in the respective countries.

You can see on Ebay that there is quite an active resale for OEM and Retail licenses going on. Several companies are selling such licences very freely, MS is not shutting them down. Many companies are buying these licences and truely this licensing is holding up in court in the several instances where MS has tried.

 

[MrUnknown]

Things are quite clear in the US, OEM licences are NOT transferable in any case, INCLUDING changes of motherboards (e.g. you can change ANY piece of hardware on any given OEM computer, BUT if you change the mobo you void your licence).

Microsoft's official stance on this is that the motherboard or CPU can be replaced so long as it is an OEM approved equivilent. You can check this in the OEM FAQ on the Micrisoft OEM Partners website.