Microsoft allows bypass of Vista activation
Heard about this hack on Leo Laporte’s Tech Guy show #335. As a way totally bypassing all the activation features of Windows Vista.
Why does SkipRearm even exist in Vista?
The Vista development teaam apparently inserted the SkipRearm loophole to help major corporations work around Microsoft’s new Volume Licensing Agreement. This new program, which the Redmond company calls “Volume Licensing 2.0,” requires buyers to set up a Key Management Service (KMS) host, as described by a Microsoft FAQ. Companies must choose from two types of digital keys and three different methods of activation to validate thousands of individual Vista machines within the corporate LAN.
The following describes the Registry key that’s involved.
Step 1. While running a copy of Windows Vista that hasn’t yet been activated, click the Start button, type regedit into the Search box, then press Enter to launch the Registry Editor.
Step 2. Explore down to the following Registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ SL
Step 3. Right-click the Registry key named SkipRearm and click Edit. The default is a Dword (a double word or 4 bytes) with a hex value of 00000000. Change this value to any positive integer, such as 00000001, save the change, and close the Registry Editor.
Step 4. Start a command prompt with administrative rights. The fastest way to do this is to click the Start button, enter cmd in the Search box, then press Ctrl+Shift+Enter. If you’re asked for a network username and password, provide the ones that log you into your domain. You may be asked to approve a User Account Control prompt and to provide an administrator password.
Step 5. Type one of the following two commands and press Enter:
slmgr -rearm
or
rundll32 slc.dll,SLReArmWindows
Either command uses Vista’s built-in Software Licensing Manager (SLMGR) to push the activation deadline out to 30 days after the command is run. Changing SkipRearm from 0 to 1 allows SLMGR to do this an indefinite number of times. Running either command initializes the value of SkipRearm back to 0.
Step 6. Reboot the PC to make the postponement take effect. (After you log in, if you like, you can open a command prompt and run the command slmgr -xpr to see Vista’s new expiration date and time.)
Step 7. To extend the activation deadline of Vista indefinitely, repeat steps 1 through 6 as necessary.
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