WEBVTT

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reading the comments on our build videos you would think that half of our audience Works in Microsoft's licensing

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department but what about Windows lus are you stealing Windows and okay I get

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it multi-billion dollar corporations are precious and must be protected at all

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costs but for the average user throwing

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10% of your PC budget at an operating system that then turns around and spies

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on you and crams ads down your throat it's kind of a tough pill to swallow

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especially with your throat full of ads so what are the Alternatives here well

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as it turns out there are at least a dozen different ways to buy or not buy

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Windows ranging from free to almost

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$200 and we tried all of them so you

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won't have to we also tried to tell you about our sponsor hetner they now take

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payments in dollars instead of just Euros so you can access their cloud and

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dedicated servers without the messiness of currency conversion learn more about

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how to access their North American servers with our link down below and use

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code lt24 to get $20 off before I get

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myself into any trouble here I want to make it clear that as a business we

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absolutely pay for the software that helps us make money including Windows so

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with that in mind let's start with the most official of sources

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microsoft.com where huh I guess even they can't believe anyone wants to

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actually pay for Windows so they bury the link way down here and what a

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$140 that's got to be the Canadian price and no how is it that the download

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license direct from Microsoft is the exact same price as the full retail

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version one that has to absorb both the retailer markup and the included USB

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stick and what is Windows 11 Fami oh I

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see it's French

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new why did we buy French Windows it's all they had in stock I see well that's

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fine we can just install it and then add a language pack by the

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way here's a neat little trick Microsoft likes to pretend that you can't install

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without an internet connection but if you hit shift F10 once the installer

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gets past the first reboot you should get a command prompt where you can type

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in UB back slash bypass nro with no

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spaces and hit enter the system will reboot again and this time you can tell

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it you don't have any internets and you can use a local account instead of being

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forc to sign into a Microsoft account when you're doing something stupid like

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installing Windows over and over again from different sources for a YouTube

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video that's going to save you a ton of time that you would otherwise burn waiting for updates once we booted up

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Windows 11 FEI as expected it activated without issue bringing us to Method

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number two buying retail Windows from a

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retailer in this case Best Buy it was still

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$140 but at least we got free shipping and they had it in English it's worth a

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mention by the way that just like with Windows 10 you don't actually have to

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punch in your product key to get through the installation process that way you

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can quickly set everything up install all your drivers and then only punch in

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the product key once it's time to activate as before we had no issues

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authenticating with Microsoft servers and the only difference is that this box

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made an extra stop at a store before reaching our hands now I couldn't help

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but noticing guys I haven't really saved any money yet Ah that's more like it if

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if you've spent any time building computers you'll probably recognize this

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system builder or OEM envelope these are meant to be sold to system builders that

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are assembling new PCS for resale the advantage is that the system builder

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saves a few bucks on the license but it does come with some trade-offs for

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starters that integrator is now the one responsible for user support so if you

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have one of these you don't get to call Microsoft but hey I mean at least it

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comes with this sick coaster does Microsoft really think people are

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installing Windows from a DVD in current year we did oh that must have taken a

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while yep the other trade-off with this sort of license is that it is bound to

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the first computer it's installed on the retail license by contrast can be moved

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to an entirely different machine if you need to now a lot of shops will just

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sell these to anyone that asks sometimes with a rule that you have to buy a piece

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of Hardware with the license but it tends to be pretty poorly regulated

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which is probably why the discount isn't that deep on it anymore it cost us about

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$120 on Amazon which seems a lot higher

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than it used to be back when we got them from our Distributors at

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NC on the subject of things being a better deal I'm getting kind of tired of

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spending money here you probably are too so uh come on over here did you know

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that you can install and use Windows 11 indefinitely without spending a dime and

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you don't even need a special hat to do it that's right anyone with a licensed

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copy of Windows 10 on their PC can upgrade to Windows 11 for free provided

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that you meet Microsoft's Hardware requirements and in most cases you can

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even make it work if you don't we're going to link to an article in the video

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description also until recently you could even activate a fresh install of

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Windows 11 using a Windows 7 or a Windows 8 key and you can still do a

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fresh install using a Windows 10 key the only caveat is that they have to be the

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same addition speaking of keys why not keep yours on one of our wristlet

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keychains from LTT Store.com we've got four different colors and with a metal

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latch they last for a very long time so convenient but lonus you might say I

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don't have a Windows 10 system or a product key and I already bought one of

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those cool keychains well remember how we said you don't need a product key to

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install Windows these days well that's kind of all there is to it you can

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download everything you need to make a USB installer for Windows for free

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directly from Microsoft then when you're installing it just click I don't have a

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product key while you're installing we did a whole video about this a while

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back blowing several million mines in the process and all these years later

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Microsoft still hasn't closed the loophole leading me to the conclusion

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that they are well aware of it and have decided that the advantages of remaining

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the dominant PC software platform outweigh the cost of not collecting that

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sweet sweet licensing money at least from home users now there are some

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trade-offs of course for starters most of the personalization options are gray

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out so you'll have to use a clever workaround to change your desktop

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background and you can't use the settings app to modify colors themes the

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start menu taskbar lock screen fonts and so on you can't even turn on dark mode

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which is a bit of a bummer and you'll eventually get that activate Windows

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watermark in the corner that many of you are so quick to comment about but big

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deal you might say I can put up with that to save some cash unfortunately it

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has other downsides the biggest one being that you may miss out on some of

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the less critical Windows updates and that little Watermark that you were

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going to ignore may actually cause problems with graphics performance

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including interfering with g-sync and variable refresh rate gaming I sincerely

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doubt that's something that Microsoft has done intentionally but there are

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plenty of reports of these issues out in the wild so they are something you want

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to look out for now everything we've looked at so far sits in at worst a

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moral gray area but that's about to

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change so if your virgin ears can't handle it you best click away fetch me

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try corn hat if it's piracy you be after

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the tool you're looking for be called Microsoft activation scripts sorry let's

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drop the accent I was shocked when I found out how simple it is to Pirate

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Windows 11 you just paste a oneliner

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into Powershell insert standard disclaimer about never blindly trusting

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random commands you find on the internet confirm a couple of options and that's

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it activated Windows it's not official

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it's not terms of service compliant and depending on your jurisdiction it could

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be out right illegal but there is no obvious difference as far as we can tell

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between the legit Windows that we activated and this one in terms of

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features or performance and if you're worried about this script doing

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questionable things to your computer you can review all the code for it yourself

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right on GitHub which you may recall was

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acquired by Microsoft back in in 2018 meaning that they could have removed

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this tool at any time but not only have they not done that there's even

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anecdotal evidence to suggest that Microsoft support has used Mas to fix

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customer activation issues which what about window what about

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Windows I'm getting rid of the Hat I get it I get it you're upstanding citizens

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you don't want to Pirate anything you just want to pay a little less for the

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privilege of handing your personal information over to a giant Corporation

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all right how's 20 bucks sound what about 10

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$1 as it turns out there are a ton of

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third-party websites selling Windows licenses at pretty much whatever price

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you are willing to pay we tried three of them the boybo store g2a.com and allkey

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shop.com boyb store seems to be selling licenses from a Microsoft partner in

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France while g2a and all key shop aggregate offers from multiple sellers

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that have far less clear Origins we were

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able to activate all of these keys without any issues but that doesn't mean

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that we're going to endorse any of them while the activation keys themselves may

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be legit the means of obtaining them often isn't and by supporting these

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kinds of Market places you may be supporting organized networks of credit

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card thieves and fraudsters frankly I'd

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be a lot more comfortable if youjust pirated Windows and it kind of seems

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like Microsoft feels the same way given that they have offered the down load and

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don't bother registering option for years now by the way while we're at it I

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would strongly recommend against using any Windows installer that you obtain

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anywhere other than Microsoft's website there are some cool ISO hacks out there

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in fact we featured them before that will do things like strip out extra

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bloat but it just feels like an unnecessary risk unless you 100% know

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what you're doing or you're just installing it to Tool around with like

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we did coming back on topic if none of

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the options we've given so far right for you Goldilocks I can give you a couple

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of more if you're a student or teacher you can talk to your it Department you

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may be able to get a license for cheap or even free depending on your school's

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agreement with Microsoft though that license might expire once you graduate

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and if you're buying for an organization rather than for yourself you may want to

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look into volume licensing and Key Management Systems to make your life a

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little bit easier finally if you're the kind of person who enjoys the bleeding

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edge you may want to check out the Windows Insider program some of the

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features they roll out are pretty cool and some of them never even make their

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way into the mainline builds so it can be the only way to see Microsoft's

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vision for the future of Windows and keep your fingers on the pulse of the

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development process the second final

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option C intro oneliner I got to it is

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to not install Windows try out Linux

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don't worry about which Dro you picked the first time no matter which way you

00:11:26.079 --> 00:11:31.279
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

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and how your choice reflects on you as a person um but give it a shot as for me

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I'm waiting for valve to release that new Steam OS before I dive down that

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rabbit hole again which should be anytime

00:11:43.320 --> 00:11:47.720
now well this is getting awkward uh

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guys liked this video why not check out our look back at Windows 8 was it really

00:12:38.880 --> 00:12:46.720
as terrible as you remember your best click away fetch me TR corn damn it I

00:12:43.360 --> 00:12:46.720
put it on backwards