Okay, a conclusion to all this. Windows 7 64 bit arrived, and performed exactly as wanted (SSDs are wonderful too, at least as a boot drive!). Thankfully, aiming for an apparently precarious price of £100 instead of £150 (or even some extortionate £200 offers), paid off. And yes it is the full retail version of Win 7 Pro.
I now exit this thread still somewhat confused over the price inconsistency, but happy :)
If you post the link - you never know, someone else may benefit from it - now you know it's legit.
The 'link' was basically people/companies going through Amazon's shop (uk in my case). Thus others may have less favourable experiences if you're unlucky. One would click the new button (go 2nd hand if you want too). At the moment it says:
New (21 [offers] from £128.99)
Not quite so good now. I was somewhat lucky I guess to get around the £100 margin. If you wait again, another £100-ish offer may arise.
Last edited by twinbee; 28 Oct 2010 at 14:18.
I feel it's my duty to provide the new sorry conclusion to this.
A couple of days ago (3 months after buying), I saw the message in the bottom right of my desktop "Windows 7 Build 7600 - This copy of Windows is not genuine". It hasn't locked me out, but the desktop's gone black, and I can't receive normal Windows updates.
After contacting microsoft, they said I have a 'volume license' version which is meant as a discount for businesses etc.
I'm not going to name the seller, as he has given me a prompt apology and refund (apparently, he got it from another source, thinking it was genuine).
Moral of the story, be very careful about going for these "somewhat-cheaper-but-still-expensive versions" (apx. £160 -> £105). I'll probably now need to rebuy, and then format my HD, and reinstall all over again (thankfully, I have most of my data on a 2nd HD, and mostly Windows stuff on the main HD - I would also advise others to keep the Windows stuff on a separate small 60-100GB SSD for speed and to allow easier recovery if one of the drives should die).
And you bet the version I will buy this time will cost about £160 give or take a few pounds.
I think what also annoys me is that Microsoft didn't say this was a 'volume license' version when I first installed Win7. That would have made this conclusion a lot quicker. It would be so easy for MS to add this simple message.
Last edited by twinbee; 01 Feb 2011 at 06:23.
Twinbee,
Could to hear that the retailer stood behind what they sell! As they have always said, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Thanks for taking the time to post your story, it's a good warning to others.
Hi there
another alternative might be (but read the EULA) to take out a TECHNET subscription -- especially if you can find a promo code which gives you a discount.
With say a decent discount a 175 EUR subscription allows you access to loads of W7 systems including Enterprise (Multiple keys allowed), Office 2007/2010, servers, XP systems etc.
You can get 5 keys (used to be 10) for each product which can be installed up to 10 times on different machines.
W7 Enterprise both 32 / 64 bit version --as many keys as you want or need.
Cheers
jimbo
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