Reading the comments on our built videos, you would think that half of our audience works in Microsoft's licensing department.
But what about Windows Linus? Are you stealing Windows?
And okay, I get it. Multi-billion dollar corporations are precious and must be protected at all costs.
But for the average user, throwing 10% of your PC budget at an operating system that then
turns around and spies on you and crams ads down your throat, it's kind of a tough pill to swallow.
Especially with your throat full of ads. So, what are the alternatives here?
Well, as it turns out, there are at least a dozen different ways to buy, or not buy,
Windows, ranging from free to almost $200. And we tried all of them so you won't have to.
We also tried to tell you about our sponsor. Before I get myself into any trouble here, I want to make it clear that as a business,
we absolutely pay for the software that helps us make money, including Windows.
So, with that in mind, let's start with the most official of sources, Microsoft.com.
Where, huh, I guess even they can't believe anyone wants to actually pay for Windows,
so they bury the link way down here in, what? $140? That's gotta be the Canadian price, and no?
How is it that the download license direct from Microsoft is the exact same price as the full
retail version, one that has to absorb both the retail markup and the included USB stick?
And what is Windows 11 family? Oh, I see. It's French.
Nous sommes une famille. Why did we buy French Windows?
It's all they had in stock. I see. Well, that's fine. We can just install it en franÃ§ais, and then add a language pack.
By the way, here's a neat little trick. Microsoft likes to pretend that you can't
install without an internet connection, but if you hit Shift F10 once the installer gets
past the first reboot, you should get a command prompt where you can type in ubi backslash bypass
NRO with no spaces and hit Enter. The system will reboot again, and this time you can tell it you
don't have any internets, and you can use a local account instead of being forced to sign into a
Microsoft account. When you're doing something stupid, like installing Windows over and over
again from different sources for a YouTube video, that's going to save you a ton of time
that you would otherwise burn waiting for updates. Once we booted up Windows 11 family,
as expected, it activated without issue, bringing us to method number two, buying retail Windows from
a retailer. In this case, Best Buy. It was still 140 US dollars, but at least we got free shipping,
and they had it in English. It's worth a mention, by the way, that just like with Windows 10,
you don't actually have to punch in your product key to get through the installation process.
That way, you can quickly set everything up, install all your drivers, and then only punch in
the product key once it's time to activate. As before, we had no issues authenticating with
Microsoft servers, and the only difference is that this box made an extra stop at a store
before reaching our hands. Now, I couldn't help but noticing, guys. I haven't really saved any
money yet. Ah, that's more like it. If you've spent any time building computers, you'll probably
recognize this system builder or OEM envelope. These are meant to be sold to system builders
that are assembling new PCs for resale. The advantage is that the system builder saves a few
bucks on the license, but it does come with some trade-offs. For starters, that integrator is now
the one responsible for user support, so if you have one of these, you don't get to call Microsoft.
But hey, I mean, at least it comes with this sick coaster. Microsoft really think people are
installing Windows from a DVD in current year. Oh, that must have taken a while.
The other trade-off with this sort of license is that it is bound to the first computer it's
installed on. The retail license, by contrast, can be moved to an entirely different machine
if you need to. Now, a lot of shops will just sell these to anyone that asks, sometimes with a rule
that you have to buy a piece of hardware with the license, but it tends to be pretty poorly
regulated, which is probably why the discount isn't that deep on it anymore. It cost us about $120
on Amazon, which seems a lot higher than it used to be back when we got them from our distributors
at NCIX. On the subject of things being a better deal, I'm getting kind of tired of spending money
here. You probably are too, so come on over here. Did you know that you can install and use Windows
11 indefinitely without spending a dime and you don't need a special hat to do it?
That's right. Anyone with a licensed copy of Windows 10 on their PC can upgrade to Windows 11
for free, provided that you meet Microsoft's hardware requirements. And in most cases,
you can even make it work if you don't. We're going to link to an article in the video description.
Also, until recently, you could even activate a fresh install of Windows 11 using a Windows 7
or a Windows 8 key, and you can still do a fresh install using a Windows 10 key. The only caveat
is that they have to be the same addition. Speaking of keys, why not keep yours on one of our
wristlet keychains from lttstore.com? We've got four different colors, and with a metal latch,
they last for a very long time. So convenient. But, Linus, you might say, I don't have a Windows
10 system or a product key, and I already bought one of those cool keychains. Well, remember how
we said you don't need a product key to install Windows these days? Well, that's kind of all
there is to it. You can download everything you need to make a USB installer for Windows for free
directly from Microsoft. Then, when you're installing it, just click, I don't have a
product key while you're installing. We did a whole video about this a while back,
blowing several million minds in the process. And all these years later, Microsoft still
hasn't closed the loophole, leading me to the conclusion that they are well aware of it,
and have decided that the advantages of remaining the dominant PC software platform
outweigh the cost of not collecting that sweet, sweet licensing money, at least from home users.
Now, there are some trade-offs, of course. For starters, most of the personalization options
are grayed out, so you'll have to use a clever workaround to change your desktop background,
and you can't use the settings app to modify colors, themes, the start menu, taskbar,
lock screen, fonts, and so on. You can't even turn on dark mode, which is a bit of a bummer,
and you'll eventually get that activate Windows watermark in the corner that many
of you are so quick to comment about. But big deal, you might say. I can put up with that to save
some cash. Unfortunately, it has other downsides, the biggest one being that you may miss out on
some of the less critical Windows updates, and that little watermark that you are going to ignore
may actually cause problems with graphics performance, including interfering with G-Sync
and variable refresh rate gaming. I sincerely doubt that's something that Microsoft has done
intentionally, but there are plenty of reports of these issues out in the wild,
so they are something you want to look out for. Now, everything we've looked at so far
sits in at worst a moral gray area. But that's about to change, so if your virgin ears can handle it,
best click away. Fetch me tricorn hat. If it's piracy-e-be after, the tool you're looking for
be called Microsoft activation scripts. Sorry, let's drop the accent. I was shocked when I found
out how simple it is to pirate Windows 11. You just paste a one-liner into PowerShell,
insert standard disclaimer about never blindly trusting random commands you find on the internet,
confirm a couple of options, and that's it. Activated Windows. It's not official, it's not
Terms of Service compliant, and, depending on your jurisdiction, it could be outright illegal,
but there is no obvious difference as far as we can tell between the legit Windows that we
activated and this one in terms of features or performance. And if you're worried about this
script doing questionable things to your computer, you can review all the code for it yourself right
on GitHub, which, you may recall, was acquired by Microsoft back in 2018, meaning that they could
have removed this tool at any time, but not only have they not done that, there's even
anecdotal evidence to suggest that Microsoft Support has used NAS to fix customer activation issues.
Alright, I'm getting rid of the hat. I get it, I get it. You're upstanding citizens,
you don't want to pirate anything, you just want to pay a little less for the privilege of
handing your personal information over to a giant corporation. Alright, how's 20 bucks sound?
What about 10? One dollar? As it turns out, there are a ton of third-party websites selling
Windows licenses at pretty much whatever price you are willing to pay. We tried three of them,
the Boing Boing Store, G2A.com, and AllKeyShop.com. Boing Boing Store seems to be selling licenses
from a Microsoft partner in France, while G2A and AllKeyShop aggregate offers from multiple
sellers that have far less clear origins. We were able to activate all of these keys without any issues,
but that doesn't mean that we're going to endorse any of them. While the activation keys
themselves may be legit, the means of obtaining them often isn't, and by supporting these kinds
of marketplaces, you may be supporting organized networks of credit card thieves and fraudsters.
Frankly, I'd be a lot more comfortable if you just pirated Windows, and it kind of seems like
Microsoft feels the same way, given that they have offered the download and don't bother registering
option for years now. By the way, while we're at it, I would strongly recommend against using
any Windows installer that you obtain anywhere other than Microsoft's website. There are some
cool ISO hacks out there. In fact, we've featured them before that will do things like strip out
extra bloat, but it just feels like an unnecessary risk unless you 100% know what you're doing or
you're just installing it to tool around with like we did. Coming back on topic, if none of the
options we've given so far are right for you, Goldilocks, I can give you a couple of more.
If you're a student or teacher, you can talk to your IT department. You may be able to get a license
for cheap or even free depending on your school's agreement with Microsoft, though that license might
expire once you graduate. And if you're buying for an organization rather than for yourself,
you may want to look into volume licensing and key management systems to make your life
a little bit easier. Finally, if you're the kind of person who enjoys the bleeding edge,
you may want to check out the Windows Insider program. Some of the features they roll out are
pretty cool, and some of them never even make their way into the mainline build. So it can be
the only way to see Microsoft's vision for the future of Windows and keep your fingers on the
pulse of the development process. The second final option, C Intro One Liner, I got to it,
is to not install Windows. Try out Linux. Don't worry about which distro you picked the first
time. No matter which way you go, it's probably not going to be quite right and someone's going
to be waiting to tell you all the ways you're wrong and how your choice reflects on you as a person.
But give it a shot. As for me, I'm waiting for Valve to release that new Steam OS before I dive
down that rabbit hole again, which should be any time now. Well, this is getting awkward.
While we wait, why don't you check out our sponsor? If you guys liked this video,
why not check out our look back at Windows 8? Was it really as terrible as you remember?
Your best click away. Fetch me tricor. Dammit, I put it on backwards.