http://www.play-asia.com/microsoft-windows-10-pro-3264-bit-oem/13/709747

Play-Asia has OEM keys for 24.99 (9.99 on sale) yet Amazon/Newegg has them for 99.99 still. I have seen posts from people on reddit who have bought other digital goods from Play-Asia, have not had any issue with itunes or PSN cards. This seems absurdly cheap that it sounds not real.

So do you think this is safe to buy (says international version) or will Microsoft flag it eventually as illegitamate?

If you have to make a forum post about it, then there's probably something shady going on.

Will it work? Possibly.

Is it shady? Definitely.

This is coming from someone who has bought multiple Windows OEM keys off reddit software swap. I'm not necessarily against this stuff, but I think every user should buy at their own risk.

They are probably just keys meant for a different region. Just like with game prices, some parts of the world pay less because most people living there can't afford to pay what we do in North America or Europe. Microsoft would rather have $20 than have everyone pirating Windows.

As long as the keys aren't region locked by IP address, then it should work. You'd definitely be gaming the system though, so I wouldn't expect any help from Microsoft if something goes wrong down the road.

Cool thanks for the info, I'm gonna give it a go this weekend to put Windows 10 on a 6 year old laptop that is just collecting dust. At 9.99 its not that big a loss and its not going on my main PC so if the key gets blacklisted later I won't care as much.

I don't think you'll get any issues with it being an illegitimate copy of Windows or anything like that, but keep in mind that a lot of special restrictions apply to OEM Windows licenses. You can't use it to upgrade from a previous version of Windows, nor transfer the license to a different machine if you want to upgrade or if the current PC breaks (which is a risk considering you said you'll install it on a 6 year old laptop).

That at least was the case with the OEM license agreeement for Windows 7, I haven't looked into if anything has changed with Windows 10.

The main problem with OEM versions of Win10 is that it gets linked to your hardware, so if you change your motherboard (or change too much of your hardware in general) you'll have to buy a new copy of Windows. OEMs are intended to be bought in bulk for installation on pre-built PCs/laptops/etc.

I generally recommend buying the retail version but I also understand that if the price of said retail version is about 10 times as much as the OEM the OEM version becomes a lot more attractive.