Use Vista without activating for at least a year
Let’s not mistaken this as another crack. This time, Microsoft has made life easy for pirates by allowing them to modify the Skiprearm registry entry.
This tweak will allow you to extend the activation deadline of Vista for at least a year in just 7 easy steps. For those who are unfamiliar with the slmgr -rearm techinque, this basically allows you to run a command in command prompt that allows you extend the 30-days grace period indefinetely.
In short, this is how you can use Vista legally for at least a year without activating:
1) First, we will use the well known slmgr -rearm method. When you have 1 day remaining to activiate, Click on the Start Pearl and access command prompt by typing cmd in the Search bar. Make sure to press Ctrl + Alt + Enter to access it in Administratve mode.
2) Then type slmgr -rearm and press Enter. In about 45 seconds, you will be prompted to restart your computer. After that, you have succesfully resetted the activation timer to 30 days. This will only work 3 times, giving you 120 days, but… we’re about to change that.
3) Open the registry editor by clicking the Start Pearl and typing regedit in the Search bar.
4) Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ Currentversion \ SL
5) Right click SkipRearm and modify the value to 1.
6) Click on the Start Pearl and type cmd in the Search bar to access the command Prompt. Make sure you press Ctrl+Alt+Enter to run it in Administrative Mode.
7) Once in Command Prompt, type slmgr -rearm like you would when extending Vista by 30 days. Now you can use Rearm 8 more times, giving you a total of 360 days.
I guess I lied since you’ll be getting 5 days short of a year instead a year without activiating Vista, but with such a nice tip, who can complain.
Source: Ghacks
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March 16th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Nice tip, but will this let us install 1 copy of vista on multiple computers for a year.
March 16th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
In order to do this, you would have had not to input a CD Key during installation. So yes, it would work
March 16th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Thanks, I’ll give it a try as soon as i get my upgrade.
March 20th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Did someone tried this tip ? Just running 8x slmgr -rearm could be enough to be sure this tip works.
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:16 am
Good trick…
Microsoft will bypass soon i guess..
Anyways there are lotta bugs in Vista… im tired usin it for around 5 moths for now…
Ill switch back to Xp soon…
March 28th, 2007 at 11:33 am
this way for me not run and show error
March 28th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
what kind of error. Make sure you run cmd in administrative mode. At first I forgot to do that, and almost went crazy =P
April 3rd, 2007 at 8:10 pm
How do you use this tip if the activation deadline has passed. On my laptop this has happened. I have no start button as windows is locked. In reduced funtionality I can only buy a key. No other programs will run. Please help!
April 3rd, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Try this. I assume you can access Internet Explorer. Once in there, type C:/ and allow Windows Explorer to run. From Windows Explorer, type C:\Windows\System32\Taskmgr.exe
Once you open task manager, go to Process tab. Right click and end explorer.exe
After that, click on file, and run explorer.exe again
You should be able to run your desktop fine and then try the slmgr -rearm trick
April 7th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
[...] Click here (Follow Steps 1-3 to reset the activation period to 30 days. However, this can only be done 3 times. [...]
April 12th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
[...] you do this. 5) You may then reset the activation period to 30 days by inputting:slmgr -rearm 6) For more info about extending activation, click here (Follow Steps 1-3 to reset the activation period to 30 days. However, this can only be done 3 times. [...]
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Great — but why in your right mind would you want to use Vista?
Does anyone else see a problem that you need all this processing and graphics power just to run an OPERATING SYSTEM? Just so it can do what the other OSes has been able to do on less than 1/4 of a system for years?
Personally, I much rather have my OS not take as much resources so that I can my applications & games run at optimum speeds.
I have been running Vista since the first day it was released to MSVL on November 15th… I am removing it this week to go back to XP - ’nuff said
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Here is an interesting & eye-opening article about VISTA that everyone should read…
http://aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html
-I like “PCLinuxOS”, -probably the easiest, friendliest Linux that there is.
-Joel A. Burdick
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:33 pm
this is really interesting and works really fine, I just tried it on my wife’s PC. By the way I translate your article to spanish and is on http://www.dyohanan.com/windows/windows-vista/utliza-vista-sin-activarlo/ if you don´t mind but if you want I can delete it. Sorry for not ask before.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Just some info!
if you don’t know if you running cmd admin.
if you running admin it will show “C:\Windows\system32>”
if not if will show “C:\user\user name>”
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:05 pm
You are aware that -rearm is slated to be removed for the newer versions of Vista … I also have been told that
-rearm will be disabled (somehow) in the current versions of Vista … I assume that will be by some “PATCH”.
May 28th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
FOr some reason i do the cntrl, alt, and then press enter but it still says C:\User\Nolan instead of C:\Windows\system32…why can’t i get it to work?
May 28th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Nevermind, i found out a different way to run it in administrator. Great Tip by the way
May 28th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Sorry for the sapmming but its still not working. I ran it in admin, and it told me to restart. When I restarted my computer it came up still asking for the activation key. What did I do wrong?
June 27th, 2007 at 4:51 am
here’s an idea Nolan……. BUY A FLIPPING CD KEY… If you want vista to bug you with the UAC, not have voice chat in Yahoo rooms and you want to have an all around hunk of crap OS with pretty eye candy.
But, if you want a free OS that can do everything winblows can for FREE, use Linux. (debian, fedora core, suse, slackware, ubuntu…. etc etc)
Gotta love GPL/GNU
Only reason I’m on windows xp is because Macromedia Fireworks and Ulead PhotoImpact do not play well with WINE
July 14th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
tried wot you said. my ativation had 27 days to expire. wen i re booted i looked and it still had 27 days to expire so i am asuming it didnt refresh the ativation period. maybe it only works when you got 1 day left. any ideas?
August 16th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Windows Vista 64-bits…. cd key during installation… what can I do to activate??
September 16th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Levit…. does Photoshop work with Ubutan?
September 17th, 2007 at 7:31 am
Microsoft Windows Vista
RTM (Release to Manufacturing) Build 6000 x86 (32-bit) MSDN
As many of you may know, Windows Vista has been released to MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) subscribers and select Connect beta testers. I am proud to bring you a legitimate MSDN DVD. Please take the time to read over and print these instructions before you attempt to install Windows Vista.
How to Install Windows Vista
Turn on your PC (or restart if it’s already on) and boot into your BIOS (usually hitting the key before initialization; otherwise refer to your instruction manual).
Set the date to December 31, 2099 (December to prevent accidents from happening when setting the year back to 2099 for any reason; as Vista keeps the most amount of days you passed the time you installed it, so if you pass the 30 days after you install it and boot up Vista, it will remember that every time you reboot and not allow you to log on).
Save & exit the BIOS and install Vista, leaving the product key textbox blank and un-checking the “Automatically activate Windows when I’m online” checkbox.
When Windows shows the time settings when you’re setting it up, do not change anything (not even the time zone), just click “Next” and finish. Now Windows will test your system performance.
After it finishes, log on. Click on the time on your taskbar, click the “Change date and time settings…” link, go to the “Internet Time” tab, hit the “Change Settings” button, and uncheck the “Synchronize with an Internet time server” checkbox. Then set your date back to today. Also, you can set the time zone to your own.
Plug in your PC’s Internet connection and download updates as necessary.
Now the 30-day trial period will last until year 2099. You will not be able to activate Windows, but WGA still works and you can download anything from Microsoft just like a legitimate copy of Windows can. This trick goes the same for Windows XP. The activation status in System Information (Control Panel ( System) will say 30 days.
Other Notes:
If you type “slmgr.vbs -dli” in the Run window, you will get a pop-up telling you how many minutes you have left. I have not been able to get it to 43200 minutes; much less get it frozen at 43200 minutes. (My suspicion is because after Vista finalizes the installation, my screen turns black with the mouse pointer still active. Then after about a minute my screen shuts off and the red LED on the front of my Microsoft optical mouse turns off until I click a button on it. I must push the reset button on my computer to get to the account setup screen.) Upon reboot, however, the timer resets itself to my maximum time (43190 is the time I see if I check it the second after I log on).
The reason I see 43190 minutes the most is because Windows remembers at most how much time I have ever gone after the 30 days at the time it boots up. I have set my date back to 17 days after I installed it in year 2099, and the system told me I had 17 days left. Even when I set my date back to 2006, it still counts down from 17 days every time I boot up. This is a “changes will take effect when you restart your computer” kind of thing.
Enjoy! (
- OliverTheMaN -
November 7th, 2007 at 1:41 am
good tips but in this page you going to see how permanently-activate-windows-vista http://tech.commongate.com/post/Permanently_Activate_Windows_Vista
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Whatz Expert, what entice you to post an article on ista without activating for at least a year at Vista Rewired? This article was extremely interesting, especially since I was searching for thoughts on this subject last Thursday.
July 14th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I got an error, help!
“Error: 0xC004F025 Access denied: the requested action requires elevated privileges”.
Yes, I made sure I was in administrative mode too.