Most merchants provide you with links to Microsoft servers where the operating system can be downloaded from. Depending on jurisdiction, merchants state explicitly that they don't sell operating system licenses but only product keys. You get the product key only in these purchases.
Most keys were sent to me less than an hour after I made the payment, one arrived less than 2 minutes after I hit the payment button. First of all, the purchase experience itself was excellent for all purchases that I made (1 Windows 10 Pro, 1 Windows 8 Pro, 1 Windows 7 Pro, 1 Windows 10 Enterprise). I decided to make a couple of test purchases to verify the claims. Licenses come from third-party Microsoft resellers (which usually means OEM / system builder versions).The product key is genuine, it has never been used before.Offers make the following claims usually: Getting a Windows Product Key on the cheap If you point your web browser to the online marketplace eBay however, you may notice that you can grab product keys for less than $20. While you can pay $100 or more for a Windows 7 Pro product key, or a bit less if you pick a system builder edition instead, you'd still pay quite a bit of money for the operating system itself. There you may get copies of previous versions of Windows as well. Retailers like Amazon may offer discounts, and OEM versions on top of that, but you will still spend a considerable sum to grab a license.
