jerryc41 wrote:
It had Win10, but I don't recall what happened to that drive. It's been a few years. It's a good computer with Core i7 and 32GB of memory and Asus motherboard. It will be all SSD when it's finished.
I can buy Win10 for under $80, so that's not too bad.
Why not tell us it runs on electricity? That'd be about as useful as saying it's a core i7, has 32gb of RAM, and that it uses an ASUS mobo. Core i7 has been around for about 15 years. Is the RAM at least DDR4? And I had an ASUS motherboard back when Moby Dick was a minnow. Are the SSDs SATA or NVMe M.2?
Now that I'm done with my critique (you make it so easy sometimes, Jerry), I'll say that I've never paid retail for a Micro$oft license. Back in the day, I got them at "computer swap meets" in the greater LA area of SoCal. After escaping Commiefornia 20 years ago, I at first got them from eBay sellers who cleverly sold a Windows license with a piece of PC hardware, such as a motherboard, to skirt eBay's restrictions against OEM license keys. But the sellers said in their listings that the accompanying hardware was not functional and that they'd have to charge for shipping. Instead, they said, a buyer could opt for no hardware and email shipping of the key only and pay no shipping charge. I bought many keys from such sellers for $5-$10.
Alas, eBay no longer allows even that. Any listing for an OEM key is now removed promptly, no matter how it's presented. But fret not. A simple online search will reveal countless OEM key sellers. Many accept PayPal, which is a wise choice when dealing with unfamiliar online entities. Even the popular YouTuber
PC Builder advertises an online OEM key seller. Going rate today is $20 or less for Windows 10 (or 11) and around $25-$30 for a Micro$oft Office suite.
For grins & giggles, I just searched eBay for a Windows 10 key. Yup, there are still sellers listing them, but they'll not complete a transaction on eBay. They know the listing will be removed in minutes, so they list their website and ask that buyers go there directly. I bought one or two keys that way a few years ago, but nowadays I just online-search for Windows keys and choose a US-based seller that accepts PayPal.