No need to break the bank to take advantage of the latest version of Windows or the famous Office office suite: (very) affordable solutions exist, they are legal.
Have you just purchased a brand new laptop for work or study, and want to take advantage of the full Microsoft Office suite? Or have you just built a gaming PC piece by piece and need to install Windows on it? No need to squander any more of your precious savings, because you can legally purchase lifetime Windows and Office licenses for just a few cents.
Why are these official licenses sold for a pittance? Most of the time, they are bought in bulk and at low prices from companies which are renewing their IT equipment… or which have unfortunately gone bankrupt. They can also come from OEM license bundles (Original Equipment Manufacturer), those used by PC manufacturers, which would not have been used.
These licenses are therefore perfectly legal, do not come from theft or piracy, and acquiring them does not expose you to any prosecution. Their resale is certainly located in a sort of “gray area” of the legislation, but they are sold in complete transparency on large e-commerce platforms (Rakuten, C-Discount), by companies that have been established on the street for years. (DA-Licenses, K-Licenses).
To find them, nothing could be simpler. Simply go to one of the merchants mentioned above, do a search with the words “office 2021” or “windows 11”, then choose an offer from the results, for example one with many positive reviews. Payment is made as for any other item, and you will receive your product by email usually within an hour.
Your purchase will come in the form of an activation key and step-by-step instructions for downloading and installing the chosen software. For one of the versions of the Office suite, the confirmation email will therefore contain a link to retrieve the application from Microsoft’s servers, and another to a guide detailing the procedure to follow to activate it once installed.
Operation is simple and only takes a few minutes. This involves calling a free and automated telephone switchboard, managed by Microsoft, which will provide you with a “confirmation ID” in exchange for an “installation ID”, which you will have obtained by entering the product key bought a few cents. We strongly advise you to call from your mobile, which will allow you to finalize the operation on an official Microsoft page, via a link which will be sent to you by SMS.
Strict warning: you will obviously be asked for no personal information, and even less banking information, for the activation of Windows or Office. If by chance someone asks you for this information by telephone, by email or on a web page, it would then be a scam and you should absolutely cut off all exchanges.
Once the activation procedure is completed, you will be the lucky holder of a lifetime license of Windows or Office, and you will benefit from the same functions and updates as with a fully purchased version. However, there is a limit to keep in mind: these low-cost licenses are single-use and often expire after a while if you do not use them.
We purchased four such licenses in 2022, from one of the sites mentioned. The first, which we used immediately, worked perfectly and remains active today. For the other three, we let a few months and years pass, then we tried to use them successively, unfortunately without success.
There is therefore no point in stocking up on cheap Windows and Office licenses; it is better to buy them piecemeal, when you need them. This also means that you will not be able to reuse your activation key if you completely reset your computer, and you will need to purchase a new one. But at this price, even considering that you have several PCs that you reset every year, you will still be a big winner.