Use Windows Vista legally without Activation for a year

♦ March 24, 2007 ♦ Leave Your Comment

Brian Livingston, a Windows expert has revealed to users of windows that it is possible to use Windows Vista legally without Activation for a year. Though, Microsoft has labeled this a ‘hack’ to signify that it is illegal, it stated just a month ago that this process would not be a violation of the End User License Agreement (EULA).

Livingston revealed that a one-line command lets users postpone the activation up to three times. Combine this with the 30 day grace period that Vista comes with, and you have 120 days to activate the operating system. In fact, Livingston claims that Microsoft has built a feature in Vista that allows users to postpone activation not just three times but many times more.

Microsoft documented the key and described it as SkipRearm and describes it as follows:

SkipRearm specifies whether to run the Windows Software Licensing Rearm program.Rearming a computer restores the Windows system to the original licensing state. All licensing and registry data related to activation is either removed or reset. Any grace period timers are reset as well.

Values

0 Specifies that the computer will be rearmed, restoring the computer to the original, out-of-box state. All activation-related licensing and registry data is removed or reset, and any grace period timers are also reset. This is the default value.

1 Specifies that the computer will not be rearmed and the computer will not be restored to its original, out-of-box state. All activation-related licensing and registry data will remain and will not be reset. Similarly, any grace period timers will not be reset.

Livingston says that, ‘by changing the SkipRearm key’s value from the default “0″ to “1 , “slmgr -rearm” command can be used over and over. He however has not been able to find where Vista stores the SkipRearm count; conceivably, that count is what restricts its use to a maximum of eight. If someone was to find the count location, however, and manage to change that as well as the SkipRearm registry key, users might be able to postpone activation forever.The problem as he sees it is that custom computer builders can use this feature to install Windows Vista on multiple computers with the same key while avoiding the activation process. By the time the innocent user realizes that he/she has been duped, it is too late to do anything but buy a fresh key for the operating system from Microsoft.

The original article can be found here

Buffer
GetSocial