Run Vista for a Year without Activation

[mas]

How to run Vista legally without activation ... for at least a year

Gregg Keizer March 15, 2007 (Computerworld)

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9013258

Windows Vista can be run

for at least a year without being activated, a serious end run around one of

Microsoft Corp.'s key anti-piracy measures, Windows expert Brian Livingston

said today.

Livingston, who publishes the Windows

Secrets newsletter,

said that a single change to Vista's registry

lets users put off the operating system's product activation requirement an

additional eight times beyond the three disclosed last month. With more

research, said Livingston, it may even be

possible to find a way to postpone activation indefinitely.

"The [activation] demands that Vista

puts on corporate buyers is much more than on XP," said Livingston.

"Vista developers have [apparently] programmed in back doors to get around

time restrictions for Vista activation."

Microsoft promptly labeled the registry

change a "hack," a loaded word that is usually synonymous with

"illegal."

"Recently it has been reported that an

activation hack for Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system has been

identified," said David Lazar, the director of the company's Genuine

Windows program, in an e-mail. "Although these reports are purely

speculative at the moment, we are actively monitoring attempts to steal

Microsoft intellectual property."

"This is not a hack," Livingston shot back when Lazar's e-mail was read to him.

"This is a documented feature of the operating system." To back up

his view, Livingston pointed out links to

online support documents where Microsoft spells out the pertinent registry key.

Nor is it speculative; Livingston demonstrated

the procedure live via a Web conference session today and claimed "we have

run this dozens of times."

Livingston last month revealed that a one-line command lets users postpone Vista activation up to three times. Combined with Vista's

initial 30-day grace period, that meant users could run Vista

for as long as 120 days before they had to activate the OS. At the time,

Microsoft seemed unconcerned with the disclosure and flatly stated that using

it would not violate the Vista End User License Agreement (EULA).

"The feature that I'm revealing today

shows that Microsoft has built into Vista a function that allows anyone to

extend the operating system's activation deadline not just three times, but

many times," Livingston said.

Microsoft documented the key on its support

site in a description of what it calls

"SkipRearm". In it, Microsoft explains that "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."

By changing the SkipRearm key's value from

the default "0" to "1," said Livingston,

the earlier-revealed "slmgr -rearm" command can be used over and

over.

In tests with several editions of Vista

purchased at different times, Livingston found

that copies of Vista Ultimate and Vista Home Premium obtained at the end of

January would accept the SkipRearm change only eight times. Together with the

three postponements made possible with slmgr -rearm and the opening 30-day

grace period, which would give users nearly a year (360 days) of

activation-free use. A copy of Vista Home Basic bought March 14, however,

ignored the SkipRearm registry change.

"Microsoft has slipstreamed something

into Home Basic and Home Premium," Livingston

said. "But from my reading of the support documents, Microsoft needs to

keep this feature in its business editions, Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate. It seems that

Microsoft is sympathetic to enterprises' difficulty in rolling out Vista within the activation deadlines."

Lazar did not answer several questions

e-mailed to him today, including one that asked why Microsoft had included the

SkipRearm feature in the first place. However, he indicated that the feature

could be blocked if Microsoft desired. "It is important to note that these

hacks are, at best, temporary. Microsoft has systems in place to detect and

block piracy."

"This is somewhat of a threat to

Microsoft," Livingston said. "But

the extent to what it can retroactively patch, I don't know. Maybe they will

want to change this. But that would only call more attention to activation and

perhaps reveal the mechanism Vista is using to

count SkipRearm."

Livingston 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, said Livingston.

"The problem I see with this is that

unscrupulous system builders will use it [to install counterfeit copies of

Vista], but that Vista will start demanding activation a year or more out, when

the guy is long gone with your money," said Livingston. "And then the

activation key wouldn't work because he would have used it on hundreds or even

thousands of systems and Microsoft would have blocked it."

Microsoft introduced product activation in

2001's Office XP and also used it in that year's Windows XP. Activation was

toughened up for Vista, however. After the

grace period, nonactivated PCs running Vista

drop into what Microsoft calls "reduced functionality" mode. In

reduced mode, users can only browse the Web with Internet Explorer, and then

only for an hour before being forced to again log on.

Livingston's work-around, however, may do away with activation

altogether. "[Activation] has become so convoluted, the way Microsoft has

implemented it, that it's more of an irritation to legitimate users than a

worthwhile antipiracy measure," Livingston

concluded.

Naturally, Microsoft's Lazar sees it

differently. "The new antipiracy technologies in Windows Vista are

designed to protect customers and prevent the software from working correctly

when it is not genuine and properly licensed," he said. "Systems

utilizing these hacks will not provide the benefits of genuine Windows, nor

will they work as expected."

How to run a legal copy

of Vista for 120 days without activation

Microsoft's

Windows Vista can be used for as long as 120 days without agreeing to its

product activation anti-piracy software, the company confirmed Friday. That's

four times longer than the 30 days the company has widely used as the maximum

time span the operating system can be used before it shuts down.

Several bloggers and Windows

experts, including Brian Livingston, who publishes the Windows Secrets

newsletter, have posted details on how to extend the 30-day grace period a

maximum of three times, for 120 days. "All versions of Vista allow a

30-day period without activation, except the corporate-oriented Vista

Enterprise, which supports only a three-day trial," said Livingston

in the latest issue of his newsletter.

"If you know the secret, however, you can extend the activation deadline

of editions such as Vista Home Premium and Vista Business up to four months

past the original install date."

The one-line command of "slmgr

-rearm" changes the activation deadline to 30 after the current date, Livingston said.

A Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed the

feature and command on Friday. "Yes, 'rearm' can be run up to three times

from the release media from Microsoft," she said in an e-mail response to

some questions. "This means [that] a total of 120 days total time is

available as a grace period to customers that take advantage of rearm."

Microsoft has documented this option on its

Vista Volume Activation 2.0 support site. Although the bulk of the technical

information posted is aimed at corporate administrators, the sections dealing

with repeated activation also apply to consumer users of the operating system.

Extending the grace period, the spokeswoman

continued, is not a violation of the Vista End User License Agreement (EULA).

Microsoft

introduced product activation in 2001's Office XP and next used it in that

year's Windows XP. The feature was toughened up for Vista, however; after the

grace periods, non-activated PCs running Vista drop into what Microsoft calls

"reduced functionality" mode. In reduced mode, users can only browse

the Web with Internet Explorer, and then only for an hour before being forced

to again log on.

Some critics have argued that the new

activation rules and reduced functionality combine to make what's essentially a

"kill switch" -- a way for Microsoft to disable PCs running

counterfeit copies of Vista. Microsoft has

repeatedly rejected that characterization.

[Guest " "]

Risky buisness running a windows operating system with out final activation....too many horror stories of folks lossing data due to not being able to get into the system.

As an enterprise network security manager I would highly advise anyone who is considering this to do a risk assestment on what they stand to loose under a worst case senerio.

[mas]

As stated, this is a MS documented procedure, albeit not one they wanted YOU to know.

Simple solution in any regards, you activate it.

In fact, here is the link to MS Technet page that documents the SkipReArm procedure (and a copy is printed below):

http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/aefc41f4-a3ec-4f98-a1dc-88a0d045172b1033.mspx?pf=true

"Risky business running a windows operating system with out final activation..."

Hmmmm. "Without final activation"??? How about "at all"?

After all, a sure way to lose data is to run a fully activated MS system and MS' OneCare! ...Then try to figure out what heaven or hell your Outlook and other files have gone too as the application deletes them.

http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_Engineer_Attempts_Daring_OneCare_PR_Rescue/1174054909

http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,61996363,00.htm

http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?newsID=8209&pagtype=all

The sad thing is that you don't need to make things up about problems with MS and Windows, the challenge is to keep up with the latest news!

The real solution is to move to OSX and run MSxxx as a VMWare VM. Or better yet, create 2 MS VMs, and share the resources between them, Then when one inexplicably goes south, you can hopefully access your data from the other. You simply blow away the first screwed up image (the one that doesn't work, I guess I should have been more precise!) and recreate it with a copy of the image first created - a "file" in VMWare - MUCH simpler than trying to restore a 'regular' MS backup image!

[seti]

Run Mac OS X no activation necessary. Oh yeah and it don't need no anti virus anti spyware software because it ain't got none.