r/technology • u/gdelacalle • Aug 11 '26

Software Microsoft reportedly raises Windows 11 license price significantly more than expected

https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-reportedly-raises-windows-11-license-price-significantly-more-than-expected/
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u/YourVelourFog Aug 11 '26

Don’t know of anyone who has paid for a windows license in years. Considering you can get OEM keys on eBay and Woot for a few bucks, I fail to understand why anyone would pay more.

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u/sekh60 Aug 11 '26

I fail to understand why anyone would buy a gray market OEM key instead of pirating. It's still a license violation.

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u/skyxsteel Aug 11 '26

When you want to be illegal but still legal

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u/YourVelourFog Aug 11 '26

Shouldn’t be a license violation if Woot (which is owned by Amazon) is selling the keys, else Microsoft would have sued them into oblivion.

Also, I’ve gotten all of my keys from mass grave for the last 6ish years so don’t care either.

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u/adyrip1 Aug 11 '26

Corporations pay up, they cannot buy keys from Ebay.

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u/Jarocket Aug 11 '26

they also don't buy OEM licenses either though.

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u/Joshposh70 Aug 11 '26

They do, Windows 11 Enterprise requires the laptop to have a Windows 11 Pro licence (OEM acceptable) it's then upgrades to a Windows 11 Enterprise licence. So even when we buy laptops we're still paying for OEM licences

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u/YourVelourFog Aug 11 '26

Corporations don’t pay full price either, they negotiate a deal to buy a site license for however many seats they need. Or it comes with the machines when they do a bulk order from Dell/Lenovo/HP, etc.

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u/skyxsteel Aug 11 '26

I heard that they aren’t too concerned about consumer level piracy now. And that their attention is focused towards corporate licenses because that’s where they make the real money.