Hi all. I'm new here. With windows 8 set to be released to all in less than a week, I have no doubt once that happens, it'll become much harder to purchase windows 7 if one prefers to do so. I personally would love to obtain volume multiple activation licenses for windows 7 while I still can. The reason I'd prefer volume license over normal retail, is that I can know how many activations I have left on the key, something no retail product will allow you to know. I currently have a volume license for windows 7 professional with 5 activations, of which I've used 1 for one of my classes. Does anyone know how I can go about obtaining another MAK volume license key for windows 7? My MSDNAA/dreamspark student account only allows me to order just 1 copy of windows 7 or any other product for that matter. And since Microsoft has in my view made technet virtually useless, I'm not sure if I can purchase a volume license direct from them in any way. If anyone can let me know of ways I can obtain volume license keys for windows 7 professional, I'd be interested. Again it's not that I hate retail channel, its just that I prefer knowing how many activations I have available to me, so for example if a friend's PC needs to be reloaded, I can do so without wondering if activation will be successful. I hope I'm not crazy in asking this question. Thanks.
I just want to be a legit legal user of windows, but want the flexibility of knowing how many activations I get. I wonder if I can have my dreamspark MAK reset if I've exhausted all 5 activations on it? I'm just curious if I can even obtain a volume license key from microsoft, and how I'd go about doing so. I don't mind paying, if that's what I must do to get a good working mak key. I'll look at that loader thing you mentioned, but I like the idea of a MAK key if I can obtain any more somehow. Thanks
I have keys from technet which give 10 activations each ( I was lucky I got my keys when each customer had 10 keys per window version) so I have enough for 100s of machines. If you want to be legit and also get windows 8 keys as well technet might be worth signing up for a year, even tho now you just get 2 keys on the lowest package its still 10 activations per key. Thats 20 unique activations, and thats per windows versions, so 2 for win7 ultimate, 2 for win7 pro and so on, then you also get keys for the N editions as well so 2 win7 N ultimate keys, so 4 ultimate keys not 2. Microsoft wont stop selling win7 keys on win8 launch, its just retail boxed editions and OEM supply that will dry up.
I do use the volume activation management tool to see how many activations remain on my win7 MAK key, and it's very handy, and why I love volume MAK keys. You just can't do that with retail. When I had technet back in 2010, I purchased it in June, obtained 3 retail keys I needed for windows 7 at the time, then thought nothing of getting more keys at a later time, since I had 7 remaining, or so I thought. Not even 3 months after I got the subscription, I went back to technet to try and grab another retail win7 key, since that's all I had access to, only to discover Microsoft had made changes, and only now gave technet standard users just 2 keys per product. I wish I'd grabbed all 10 I had access to while I could, but I had no way of knowing they were gonna do that to us paying subscribers! I did grab what keys I could after that though, and I was pleasantly surprised to see my server 2008R2 keys were MAK's with 500 activations on them. This will work out well, because next semester I'm taking a server 2008 class, and my access to dreamspark only gives me one MAK key for server 2008 R2 with just 1 activation on it, I kid you not! It makes no sense, but that's a discussion for another thread. So for sure I'm in the market for win7 pro MAK keys, and I may attempt to try and figure out how to get technet with volume license key access if possible. Does anyone off hand know how many activations a standard retail key that is purchased from microsoft but not technet or MSDN has? I'm guessing it's at least 2 but less than 5, since my volume MAK from dreamspark allows for 5.
So, I am helping a small biz who has 15-20 machines and will maybe go upto 25/30 in some time. Most of their desktops/ laptops are OEM bought with a built in variation of XP/ 7 and 8. I read that Volume MAK licenses is the way for less than 25 machines and not KMS. I am wondering how/ where could I get an idea of what would a 25 machine Volume MAK license cost?