Caution on buying Win7 off web

marsmimar said:

As usual, excellent information and very timely, Greg. When I bought my laptop from Dell, it had 7 Pro installed. No install or recovery disk was included, just a recovery partition. I was looking around online and found several Microsoft Certified (or Gold Certified) Partners selling 7 Pro OEM disks. Most of the companies I looked at have been in business for at least 10 years. Considering that these vendors are Certified Partners and are registered with Microsoft, is it safe (and legal) to purchase OEM software from them?

Dont waste hard earned money like that.

1) First of all, what prevents you from making a recovery disk? I just bought a dell myself and it came with Dell Datasafe software, you just need to run that software and pop in a dvd or 2 when it asks you to.

If you hate that software, just download and install Macrium reflect free. Then image the system drive to an external drive, make your rescue cd and you're set. You can also use Acronis if thats what you fancy.

2) If required, you can do a clean install from any generic Win7 disk (borrow from friend or find a clean copy on the web), then activate by using the COA key on your computer and calling MS.

With a Win 7 system, there really isn't any excuse not to have a recovery disk. Built-in to Win 7 is the ability to create a System Repair Disk and the ability to create a system image. As Bill2 pointed out, some mfrs provide software to create recovery disks and if neither of those suit you, there are plenty of 3rd party programs to do it, both free and paid.

Nowadays, they don't pack a RestoreDVD...just a rescue Partition and some means to create those DVD (s) yourself ONCE. I's been like that at least for the last 3, 4 years. If you buy a complete system "out of the box" at Best Buy you should be safe. But you could bet your butt, if my OS would claim not to be genuine one day, Best Buy would have so much *** on their hands...that's not gonna be pretty

-DG

SledgeDG said:

Nowadays, they don't pack a RestoreDVD...just a rescue Partition and some means to create those DVD (s) yourself ONCE. I's been like that at least for the last 3, 4 years. If you buy a complete system "out of the box" at Best Buy you should be safe. But you could bet your butt, if my OS would claim not to be genuine one day, Best Buy would have so much *** on their hands...that's not gonna be pretty

-DG

Actually, Dell was still giving out restore dvds till May this year. They were the last I believe.

marsmimar said:

As usual, excellent information and very timely, Greg. When I bought my laptop from Dell, it had 7 Pro installed. No install or recovery disk was included, just a recovery partition. I was looking around online and found several Microsoft Certified (or Gold Certified) Partners selling 7 Pro OEM disks. Most of the companies I looked at have been in business for at least 10 years. Considering that these vendors are Certified Partners and are registered with Microsoft, is it safe (and legal) to purchase OEM software from them?

Unfortunately as much as it would be nice to rely on something like with regards to whether a site is legit or not, that logo can and has been many times added without permission. When in doubt when you come across a site with the logo go here,

Microsoft Certified Partner

and you can look them up. If you don't find the site on the list, be a good idea to contact Microsoft about it.

Even AMAZON Full Win7 Retail Boxed Page is targetted with these same scammers who pose as other retailers under the same software barcode selling at a discount.
Majority of times you will NOT get the same barcode Full Retail Boxed version with a proper licence
So email the reseller and ask them for the serial numbers on the box and match them to what is being sold on Amazon page.

I have had a number of the crooks removed who are selling something completely different to that which is being sold on the Amazon Win7 UK page and within 24hrs they are back on under a different name!

Lemur said:

Good point. Another thing to remember is "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." You're not going to buy Windows 7 for $25.

I bought Windows 7 at a student discount for $30 and I've been using it since Oct. 2009 and it still works fine. I can't remember the site I bought it from though.

shortmantuff said:

Lemur said:

Good point. Another thing to remember is "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." You're not going to buy Windows 7 for $25.

I bought Windows 7 at a student discount for $30 and I've been using it since Oct. 2009 and it still works fine. I can't remember the site I bought it from though.

That was digitalriver, not sure whether anything like that is operative now. But MS is bringing back the Family discount pack (3 home premium licenses for $150) at least in the US, from Oct. 4 i think.

Pro Upgrade, but the price has gone up to $64.95,

Microsoft Student - Windows 7

US students only. For Canadian students you need to check here,

Microsoft® Office Professional Academic 2010

to see if your school qualifies.

Bill2 said:

marsmimar said:

As usual, excellent information and very timely, Greg. When I bought my laptop from Dell, it had 7 Pro installed. No install or recovery disk was included, just a recovery partition. I was looking around online and found several Microsoft Certified (or Gold Certified) Partners selling 7 Pro OEM disks. Most of the companies I looked at have been in business for at least 10 years. Considering that these vendors are Certified Partners and are registered with Microsoft, is it safe (and legal) to purchase OEM software from them?

Dont waste hard earned money like that.

1) First of all, what prevents you from making a recovery disk? I just bought a dell myself and it came with Dell Datasafe software, you just need to run that software and pop in a dvd or 2 when it asks you to.

If you hate that software, just download and install Macrium reflect free. Then image the system drive to an external drive, make your rescue cd and you're set. You can also use Acronis if thats what you fancy.

2) If required, you can do a clean install from any generic Win7 disk (borrow from friend or find a clean copy on the web), then activate by using the COA key on your computer and calling MS.

Actually, I got a Dell Laptop. And I did use the Dell Datasafe software... Til one Dell update self-destructed it. And then I decided, meh.

I think I did manage to make a system restore disk before it destroyed itself, but lately, the manufacturers don't bother including a system restore disk with their computers. While it is great that I don't have more filler disks that I don't need, at the same time, for a new system, I prefer to have a manufacturer's restore disk than to make one myself.

While the imaging idea is a good idea, at the same time, if you want to do a clean, unadulterated install of the OS, imaging a factory outputted, fluff filled OS is much like cloning crap.