Software Licensing Explained: OEM vs Retail vs Volume

Three license types, three different price points, three different rule sets. Here's the plain-English breakdown.

AUTOLINK_PROTECTED_0 — Original Equipment Manufacturer

What: licenses sold to PC builders pre-installed on hardware.

Price: cheapest of the three.

Restriction: tied to the first PC the key activates on. Can't be transferred to a new build.

When to buy: you're building a single PC and won't migrate the OS to a different machine.

AUTOLINK_PROTECTED_1

What: licenses sold direct to consumers in shrink-wrap or download form.

Price: 2-3× OEM.

Flexibility: transferable between machines (deactivate old, activate new).

When to buy: you reinstall often or build new PCs every couple of years.

AUTOLINK_PROTECTED_2 (MAK / KMS)

What: bulk licensing for businesses, schools, or government — single key activates many seats. Sub-types: MAK (one key, many activations) and KMS (a local server activates clients on a private network).

Price: variable. Per-seat cheaper than retail but requires institutional purchase.

Why it matters for you: surplus volume keys (over-purchased seats) often flow into the discount marketplace at deep discounts. They're genuine, but legal status of resale varies by jurisdiction. EU "exhausted licenses" jurisprudence (UsedSoft, 2012) generally allows it; US is murkier.

Decision matrix

You're...	Buy
Single-PC builder, low-budget	OEM
Frequent reinstaller / multi-PC user	Retail
Business / school	Volume
Just want cheapest, single PC	OEM via /best/cheap-windows-keys

Where discount keys come from

Most "70% off" Windows keys you see on discount marketplaces are surplus or region-priced volume / retail keys. Genuine, activatable, but the publisher would prefer you paid full retail. Buyer protection comes from the marketplace's refund policy, not the publisher.

Bottom line

OEM is the cheapest legitimate option for a single PC. Retail is worth the premium if you reinstall often. Volume is for institutions. Browse /best/cheap-windows-keys for current discount prices.