You might be able to get them for less with a Kinguin discount code though. You can see if your school is eligible and download your free Windows 11 key here opens in new tab. The good news is that you only have two serious disadvantages from not activating Windows 10 or However, if you are using a Microsoft account that syncs with another computer on which you have custom wallpaper, здесь wallpaper will appear on your unactivated Windows.īut come on does anyone actually do that? Other than those inconveniences, unactivated Windows should work just fine and receive automatic updates too. Feel free to try it, though, because if it works you have Windows 10 or 11 for free. Note that if the product key comes from a prebuilt computer that came from the factory with Windows on it, it has an OEM key that may not work on a different new PC. And with the latter, you'll want to use a command line command to terminate the activation. With a the former, you'll need to log into your Microsoft account to deactivate the old PC. The process of transferring a Windows license varies, depending upon whether you have digital or non-digital license.

See our article on how to transfer a Windows 10 or 11 license to a new PC for step-by-step information on how to retrieve and move your key. However, you must first make sure it's deactivated on the old PC it came from. If you have an old, retail non-OEM copy of Windows 7, 8 or 10 you are no longer using on /36294.txt PC, you can likely use the product key when windowz do a fresh install of Windows on your new PC. If you are still on Windows 7 or 8, you can upgrade to Windows 10 for free. During installation, Microsoft asks you owm enter a Windows 10 or 11 product key. Once that's done, you can boot from your ooem media and start the process. Microsoft offers a free media creation tool, which grabs the latest code from the Internet and then burns itself to a USB Flash drive or outputs a Windows 10 or Windows oinguin ISO file you can write to a drive yourself. No matter how or whether you pay for it, you can download Windows 10 opens in new tab or download Windows 11 opens in new tab for free from Microsoft.Īnd, in fact, you should only download it from Microsoft, as grabbing it from any other site or from a P2P network could give you malware. Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the feee for you. This Windows tax is profoundly unfair to PC builders, because large OEMs such as Dell and Lenovo pay much lower licensing fees to put Windows on prebuilt systems though these costs are not made windos. Installing a copy of Windows 11 or 10 for a built-from-scratch computer can be costly - if you do what Microsoft wants.

Linux is a viable option, but most prefer Windows because it runs all their favorite software, including the latest games.

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