reading the comments on our build videos you would think that half of our audience Works in Microsoft's licensing
department but what about Windows lus 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 hetner they now take
payments in dollars instead of just Euros so you can access their cloud and
dedicated servers without the messiness of currency conversion learn more about
how to access their North American servers with our link down below and use
code lt24 to get $20 off 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 and what a
$140 that's got to 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 retailer markup and the included USB
stick and what is Windows 11 Fami oh I
see it's French
new why did we buy French Windows it's all they had in stock I see well that's
fine we can just install it 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 UB back slash 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
forc 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 FEI 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 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
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 does Microsoft really think people are
installing Windows from a DVD in current year we did oh that must have taken a
while yep 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
NC on the subject of things being a better deal I'm getting kind of tired of
spending money here you probably are too so uh come on over here did you know
that you can install and use Windows 11 indefinitely without spending a dime and
you don't even 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 LTT Store.com we've got four different colors and with a metal
latch they last for a very long time so convenient but lonus 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 mines 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 gray
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 were
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't handle it you best click away fetch me
try corn hat if it's piracy you 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 oneliner
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 out right 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 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 Mas to fix
customer activation issues which what about window what about
Windows 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
all right how's 20 bucks sound what about 10
$1 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 boybo store g2a.com and allkey
shop.com boyb store seems to be selling licenses from a Microsoft partner in
France while g2a and all key shop 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 Market places you may be supporting organized networks of credit
card thieves and fraudsters frankly I'd
be a lot more comfortable if youjust pirated Windows and it kind of seems
like Microsoft feels the same way given that they have offered the down load 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 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 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 builds 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 oneliner I got to it is
to not install Windows try out Linux
don't worry about which Dro 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 um 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 anytime
now well this is getting awkward uh
while we wait why don't you check out our sponsor manscaped this holiday
season make sure your ornaments are jingling and jangling freely with
manscapes performance package 5.0 Ultra
the lawnmower 5.0 Ultra is ver versatile enough to plow your driveway however you
like thanks to interchangeable trimmer and foil blades three length setting
Combs and an LED Guiding Light then you can make sure your chimneys are ready
for old s Nick with their weed whacker 2.0 and its blades that are designed
specifically for your ears and nose finally take care of your Christmas tree
with their crop Soother aftershave lotion and their crop preserver
anti-chafing deodorant plus keeping with the festive Spirit it even comes with a
few free gifts so head over to manscaped.com LT 20 and use code lt20 to
get 20% off and free shipping 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 TR corn damn it I
put it on backwards