SOLVED Can I Buy Win 8 Pro With My Son's Student Status and Use It At The Office?

I need to build a new computer for the office and I'm thinking of installing Windows 8.1 Pro. Windows 8.1 Pro for Student only costs $69.99 compared to the regular version costing $199.99. Directly from M$ Store, of course.

Firstly, are they the same?

Secondly, is this okay? Will the office computer be legit?

Thanks guys/gals.

Alright, I know I'm a cheapskate. But hey, I save $130.

I'm guessing that if you check the EULA for that license, it can't be used for business. All the licenses I get for free through my school explicitly say this.

However, are they going to know? No.

Thanks Thideras.

In Hong Kong we have inspectors randomly knocking on office doors and checking if the offices are using legit software. I'm wondering if they would find a problem if they checked the computer using my son's copy of Windows 8.1 Pro?

It will be a Retail copy, so it will be 100% Genuine and legit

sobe said:

It will be a Retail copy, so it will be 100% Genuine and legit

Click to expand...

Thanks Sobe.

Now waiting for M$ to confirm my son's student status (3 - 5 working days). When M$ confirms me I'll buy Windows 8.1 Pro for Students. The great thing is I can use my son's name to buy a max of 5 copies (5 X $130 = $650).

thideras said:

I'm guessing that if you check the EULA for that license, it can't be used for business. All the licenses I get for free through my school explicitly say this.

However, are they going to know? No.

Click to expand...

I'm in a similar situation. Finishing the last of my classes this coming week, and I asked my boss (I work at the IT dept. here) what the deal was on the copies of Windows 8 they sell to students, as they're not free but heavily discounted, thinking I'll pick up a couple copies for my desktops and laptop. He basically said something similar - "the licenses offered through the college are for student use and student use only as long as they are enrolled."

Will anyone tell the difference? Probably not. It'll authenticate with Microsofts servers just fine. I got Windows 7 through the same system, it doesn't ask for any special student email address or anything, it's a full on copy of Windows.

Either buy direct from your school or just buy it direct through Microsoft with your .edu email.... Fact of the matter is, it is for YOUR personal use as a student. You will be using it for your personal machine.... right, not using it as a copy for your registered business(meaning business, not personal use)? Don't know why everyone is so reserved that they say it is for STUDENT use... meaning personal use..

sobe said:

You will be using it for your personal machine.... right, not using it as a copy for your registered business(meaning business, not personal use)?

Click to expand...

Though the business is mine I think I'll only get 1 student copy for my own personal computer at work. And maybe another one for my notebook.

Everybody else in my office are on Windows 7, which I have a lot of excess licenses (due to a lot of machines having been retired).

I know about retiring old workstation PCs.

Just had a HDD fail on a HP9000 710 workstation and also on a server which is only about a decade old.

LOL. Funny how different enterprise level equipment is from consumer grade.

Actually, I don't see any difference between an HP/Dell workstation and a build-it-yourself computer. If anything else, I find that parts used in a build-it-yourself are always of a better quality and much cheaper on the whole. But then, I'm not GM or 3M.

neo668 said:

Actually, I don't see any difference between an HP/Dell workstation and a build-it-yourself computer. If anything else, I find that parts used in a build-it-yourself are always of a better quality and much cheaper on the whole. But then, I'm not GM or 3M.

Click to expand...

I think they do it just to have a single point-of-contact for support. Sure, you get longer individual warranties and cheaper prices doing it yourself, but you have to keep track of a lot more inventory that way. Instead of "Dell 7010", you have to say "2x 4GB Crucial RAM modules, i7 3770 CPU, 320GB Hitachi SATA drive, Lite-On slim DVD, low-profile ATX case, 400 W power supply" etc.

On topic, I took full advantage of what used to be MSDNAA (now rolled into Dreamspark) while I was at school and have a few dozen licenses to various versions of Windows and SQL Server. IIRC, the license text explicitly states that you can continue to use them after you are no longer a student, but that they are non-transferable, and for non-commercial use only; using it at work is against the license. Not sure if the free MSDNAA/Dreamspark license text differs from the paid-but-discounted "Student Edition" license text.

petteyg359 said:

I think they do it just to have a single point-of-contact for support. Sure, you get longer individual warranties and cheaper prices doing it yourself, but you have to keep track of a lot more inventory that way. Instead of "Dell 7010", you have to say "2x 4GB Crucial RAM modules, i7 3770 CPU, 320GB Hitachi SATA drive, Lite-On slim DVD, low-profile ATX case, 400 W power supply" etc.

Click to expand...

This would be true for really big and complex organizations like GM. For small/medium enterprises they'd probably do their own servicing in-house, like us. When we retire old machines we strip down the parts and put them in the storeroom. If a workstation goes bonkers we just swap out the faulty part and replace it with what we have in the storeroom. Or, just build a new machine with the parts we have. Maybe, buy a new CPU or HDD and that's it.

When we buy a new machine we put them in our books at cost and apply a straight line depreciation. So the parts in our storeroom really have no value.

whos to say you werent a student who open a business.. hell i got windows 7 pro for 15 bucks when i went to school... so yeah it could be done..

M$ confirmed my son's student status yesterday (that was quick) and I was able to buy Windows 8.1 Pro for Students last night. M$ emailed me the Product Key which is needed to start installation and I downloaded 8.1 from M$ website. I was then able to make an ISO file which I then burned to a DVD.

I used the DVD to do a fresh installation of 8.1 Pro on my son's computer. From what I can see, it is the same as the other 2 Win 8.1 Pro I'm already using at the office. But the Desktop seems to have a new wallpaper.

After it was fully installed I checked "System" and saw it was already activated. This must have been done during the installation process. IMO, I should be able to use this at the office with no problems.

I'll let my son play with it for a while. If he likes it I'll just leave it on his computer. I like Win 7 better anyway.

Thank you everyone.

I think they do it just to have a single point-of-contact for support. Sure, you get longer individual warranties and cheaper prices doing it yourself, but you have to keep track of a lot more inventory that way. Instead of "Dell 7010", you have to say "2x 4GB Crucial RAM modules, i7 3770 CPU, 320GB Hitachi SATA drive, Lite-On slim DVD, low-profile ATX case, 400 W power supply" etc.

Click to expand...

Also, if your computer breaks, you don't have to spend a few hours trying to figure out what's wrong with it to decide which component to RMA (which would not be very efficient use of IT resources). You can just ship it back to Dell and tell them to fix it. If you have a reasonably experienced (better paid) IT person, $$ savings will quickly be eaten up by salary for the IT person to debug the machine.