I’m gonna be honest, I’ve never cared about activating Windows. Yeah, if you’re a new PC builder, please know that you don’t have to activate Windows. It’s not a hard requirement. Before you build your PC, use whatever working PC you do have to. Go to the create a Windows 11 installation media page on Microsoft’s website. This will walk you through setting up a USB drive so you can use a legit, unactivated version of Windows 11. You then install Windows and just like the option that says you don’t have a Windows key right now. And after it’s installed, Windows will be running perfectly fine. And after a while you’ll eventually see an unactivated Windows watermark in the bottom right hand corner corner. This does go on top of games and whatever else you’re running. It’s not just on the desktop. You’ll also lose some tiny features like the personalization tab in settings and other small little things. Even as somebody that takes those key reseller sponsorships, I’m telling you that you don’t have to activate Windows as long as you’re okay with that watermark. Or you could choose to just get one of those super cheap keys from somewhere. Like keys fan with discount code Z a C fifty in the link in my profile. You’ll instantly get a key that you just paste into the activation settings and then boom, that watermark will go away and you’ll have access to every Windows feature. Totally not required, but If you do wanna activate it, that’s how I would do it.