OEM Keys

Hi folks! First off, a shout out to EasyRecycle....through a bit of fortune I happened to be enlisted to drive a moving truck to Dallas for a buddy of mine....which afforded an excellent opportunity to throw 60 lbs of power supplies, a box of Li batteries and fans, and about 50 lbs of motherboards aboard and take them straight to him sans shipping costs.

My only regret is that I did not bring more. The true definition of an entrepreneur, this guy is living a charmed life. He obviously works his butt off, but it is also obvious that he loves what he is doing. DIY technique to the max. I don't know if any of you have hooked up with him in person, but you should know you are in good hands when he rolls up in his truck with the caged bulk liquid container in the back. A short conversation later I learned that he spends two hours a week filling it with used veg oil, and then his guy comes and trades it for a different one half filled with filtered bio fuel....he fills up his truck with it and then sells the rest. So yeah, this guy is the real deal. He gave me a good price for what I sold, and even shocked me by sending me home with a stick of RAM worth much more than scrap that we couldn't test on the spot. I had no idea...he could have just held onto it and I would have been none the wiser. So yes....deal with Easy with confidence, he is the kind of guy I will go the extra mile to conduct trade with.

Back to the topic.....in some systems I have stripped recently, the OEM key (XP Pro) is on a piece of hard plastic that can be removed from the system. I also have unopened disks for them, but they are GATEWAY specific. I also have many sealed Office 2003 disks with keys. As I personally stripped these systems, and received them from a business that had controlled access to IT storage areas, I feel confident that no other systems are using these keys.

I see keys being sold on ebay, but I am hesitant to get back into ebaying....it seems like its a headache these days, especially since per ebay rules, I would have to include an original component from the system in order to sell the key to the OEM software......what a pain. It could be a way to unload some of these keyboards I have piling up, i suppose....

Anyway, just picking your brains. I have sold a whole bunch of cases with OEM stickers as shred because I didn't think I could do much with them and the stickers are a pain to keep intact....but having these keys on hard plastic along with a bunch of disks makes me reconsider................



Below is a huge blurry pic. I sat a p4 cpu on part of the key since the pic is floating around the interwebs now, but you get the point....

The rules as of now are that you have to include some kind of OEM equipment if you are selling operating systems that were included with PC software bundles. Microsoft has their own staff of goons that search eBay looking for these kinds of listings to make sure that the rules are being followed. For a while we were able to get away with not including a piece of hardware but then they caught us and took down our auctions. So we have gotten into the habit, like Mike said, of including an IDE cable or something along those lines with the auction. It can be something small, including a cover plate for the PCI cards, but it should be there to keep the auctions from being pulled.

OEM keys are illegal to install on any other hardware than what they were originally assigned too. Selling them you must include an original piece of hardware from the PC to be "legal" However the person receiving that licence is unable to install it legally. But you can let them worry about that.

The best way to ship keys is

Tape it to a piece of paper, tape on a jumper from the mother board. Then it is light enough to fit up to 50 in 1 envelope if you trim the paper on one 42 cent stamp.

Awesome. Any neat tricks to remove stickers from junk steel tower sides?

Originally Posted by easyrecycle

A very sharp blade (razor) with a small AMOUNT of heat....it will lift right up. Sell the code to computer shops. They buy them to use on desktop that they reformat.

Enoch43 thank you for that post where you stand behind our company and that you put that much thought. I do hope that you where able to sell that ram for a good amount of money. If there is anything I can do to help you please let me know!

Easy another outlet that i have found and have gotten more for my xp codes than ebay is accounting firms. I got $75 per for 4 codes last week because many accounting firms are downgrading win 7 to XP because they have so much software that is not compatable.

Traded a buddy a win 7 code for an XP code last week. Still trying to decide if im going to upgrade my wife or sell it. She's still running ( Nag and Annoy 3.1 )

ok guys we are all allowed a stupid questioin every 100 posts or so, so, here goes. What the he-- are ya'all talkin about. bear in mind im a complete computer idiot, so ya have to explain it in okie/redneck language, I dont speak spanish or geek.

Let me see if I can help olddude. they are trying to get the vin plates of the computer for its opererating system. When they say XP they mean like a 2000 chevy. Win 7 is like a 2010 chevy and 3.1 is like a 57 chevy just not worth anything. Ubuntu is like a smart car. Its not some big company trying to sell you a cookie cutter but a bunch of people working together to make their own program. When drozenski was talking about selling to a company that was downgrading to xp thats cause they have all them parts for a 2000 chevy so they trading the 2010 chevy for the 2000 one. Hope that helps hillbilly out

Originally Posted by olddude

ok guys we are all allowed a stupid questioin every 100 posts or so, so, here goes. What the he-- are ya'all talkin about. bear in mind im a complete computer idiot, so ya have to explain it in okie/redneck language, I dont speak spanish or geek.

When you buy a computer that has windows on it, part of the purchase price covers a fee for the software. When the computer is no longer useful, that does not mean that the software is not still good. The key for this software is sometimes stickered to the computer.

Originally Posted by wdaddy

Check Microsoft's document on this:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...gVmztg&cad=rja








No, this loophole has been closed years ago. This is now illegal.



Not a good shop. Breaking the law and selling stolen property. If MS catches them they will go under trying to pay all the fines. MS are a$$'s about their software and money.



If these people had a good IT staff they would know you can downgrade vista and windows 7 keys to xp. IE. you can legally install XP on a machine that has one of the other stickers. You can downgrade the license.

How do I know this? I was slapped by MS and Ebay for doing this. I sold Unopened, unused Windows ME licenses stickers, booklets, and Disks - with with a piece of hardware.. just as the rules said. Didn't work very long. Got quite the nasty-gram from both Ebay and MS. Scared me straight.

Actually, it's even illegal to sell rebuilt computers with valid license keys unless you include a copy of that software.

You are really required to buy a new key if you upgrade your motherboard. You don't have to if you repair you computer by getting a new motherboard.

Now, do people get away with selling these on ebay? Yep, they do. Is it legal? Nope. Will MS catch you eventually and could they fine you? Yep. Can you loose your Ebay account? Yep. I don't do it... I have worked to long to build up my account to get in poor standings. Each to their own I guess.

Funny how some on here are so against taking trash without asking, they talk about how illegal railroad iron is, are so against tweakers pulling wire from abandoned homes, but if they want to bend MS's software rules they see nothing wrong... :confused:

Not true you can no longer downgrade your windows 7 licence. That was an additional fee. XP is no longer sold.

The only way you can get XP legally now is to buy windows 7 Pro or higher and install it as a virtual machine. It uses the same licence as your windows 7 box

Originally Posted by drozenski

Not true you can no longer downgrade your windows 7 licence. That was an additional fee. XP is no longer sold.

The only way you can get XP legally now is to buy windows 7 Pro or higher and install it as a virtual machine. It uses the same licence as your windows 7 box

Hmmm... good to know. I have been out of the hardware side here for long enough I don't know all the specifics any longer. Maybe it's our licensing agreement but we are still rolling out xp here in the company. We are in constant contact with MS and won't take a chance to break their rules. We have over 1000 active pc's here and rolling out 10-20 per week.

Glad I'm out of that roll now.