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92 Comments
- ahill7, on 10/12/2007, -2/+36Reminds me of my grade school days when in order to open CD player on Win95 you could bypass the sys admin's restrictions by going to Help and Support and it gave you access to the program.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23'cause we all know how *AWESOME* Microsoft is at patching its products.
- involution, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21@steelmaverick:
You're likely installing a corporate edition, which doesn't need activation - Ramtech, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18If you don't have the CORPORATE version.. then yeah.. you HAVE to activate...
- drjekelmrhyde, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18 RemovesWGA 1.2
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Uninstallers/RemoveWGA.shtml
and google windowxopro_keychanger by mrdude - Mugsleymug, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18uh, activating windows has nothing to do with updates or WGA...
- joshross4, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14In the end, I just activated. Now I have no more messages! I feel like a surrender-monkey.
- dignation, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11well, if it hurts microsoft, they'll be quick to patch, anything else...
- damentz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Usually if you are a normal customer, the copy you download is precracked. Mine comes with sp2 slipstreamed though, so it sounds like your copy is outdated.
- Branden, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12@realyst:
Why didn't you just call? - realyst, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13I've installed a legit education copy of Win2k3 server without immediate access to the net. It gave me 15 days to activate. Three days later I was locked out. ***** happens.
Even after it locked me out, I couldn't do net activation because prior to locking me out, the IP settings were configured incompatibly with the greater network on which it was attached. And the stupid activation software presents no option to fix it or enter IP setup(it tells you it will just detect proxy settings....). We had to pry it open and install a modem in safe mode(miraculously, the Win2k3 safe mode is damned insecure), and use modem dialing. Massive pain in the ass. But still easier then calling MS. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Based on what I've seen in Windows 2003 retail, booting into safe mode will not work either, it will ask for activation.
- 7of7, on 10/12/2007, -17/+26It's not thanks to Microsoft, it's thanks to your dumb ass for not activating it. It's not that hard.
- ZaNkY, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9hey hey hey wait a minute. No one is talking about piracy here. NO ONE is screwing MS if they can't get into their own system. Even if your system is 100% legit, you keep your Windows CD and CD key next to you all the times, and verified with WGA a thousand times that you're legit....... WGA CAN STILL MARK YOUR COPY OF WINDOWS AS PIRATED. It is a rare occurance, but it does make mistakes. Look it up buddy. It's not piracy, especially when Microsoft is screwing YOU, not the other way around.
One last question, did you read the ENTIRE EULA biggbrother? - blacklint, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8That's awesome. Much more entertaining than the setting the BIOS clock back that I had expected.
- joshross4, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I've done this for a long while. The problem is that programs will just start closing a few minutes after loading.
- remiprev, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@DiggMeUpPlsThx,
Sorry, but I just can't DiggYouUp... - gmallard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9It is absolute and utter ***** that you should ever have to 'activate' anything.
Figure it out kiddies, and switch to *something* else, almost anything Unix flavored .... - biggbrother, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12Why use windows if you don't want to activate it?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8windows: like great big holes in your walls
- damentz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8YOU WIN
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8What I meant by my original comment was they would take down the page, like they did with most of the articles explaining how to bypass activation for the IE7 and WMP11 installs. But whatever, since I've been dugg down already.
- cr125er, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Thank God Microsoft isn't in the home security business.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7'Cause the Dark Tipper HATES pirating.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+12you have to be a ***** retard to not be able to activate, you don't need to fill out ANYTHING, just click 'activate' and you're done.
so in short, after 30 days you're either a retard, or you stole your copy, either way you shouldn't be using windows - kingfoot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6mine worked but firefox is kinda slow at reading my C drive.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10if you have a problem with it, don't use microsoft on your personal hardware. it's up to MS to decide how or why they authenticate users, if you cannot understand or reject this idea, then don't buy their ***** software
- Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Most companies have back doors in their product, because their convenience is more important than your security. Tru fakt!
- gridbread, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7This has been my favorite work-around, "Would you like to visit the Microsoft blah blah whatever?" ...Sure!
*iExplore appears*
HAHA! FOOLS!
*Complete access ensues* - ZaNkY, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I think one of the main points behind this article is: What do you do if WGA screws up (Gee, has that ever happened before?) and marks your valid copy of windows as pirated? You get locked out of your own system until you cal a Microsoft Rep.
Now suppose this randomly happened late at night, or perhaps the phone lines are all busy or *some* circumstance prevents you from calling and you BADLY need a file ASAP (presentation in 10 minz: windows locks up! or something along those lines), THEN this comes in handy.
Same thing goes with activating your copy of windows. You're lazy/really busy. So you should have taken the extra 5 min to activate and you didn't. Do you really deserve to be locked out of your system? Maybe, but all your personal information too? That's Trusted Computing grounds..... - joshross4, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5You don't have to run the narrator, you just have to ask for help from IE and open up a common file dialog.
- OwenX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@Blizzok, if you don't, you use the 'Phone Activation' button.
- grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Yeah sure,
HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersion
Just set the the DWORD JustLetMeSkipActivation=0 - Caio, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5O well it worked with Windows XP Home SP1, but anyways I would rather get a Linux Live CD.
- VSKBadCRC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Something else that works that I found out is that if you simply don't log out of Windows or shut down your computer, you won't have to activate it either.
I went out and bought a copy of WindowsXP Pro, maybe two years ago. After a DVD burner firmware update Windows suddenly demanded that I reactivate my copy of Windows because my hardware had changed significantly.
I don't normally shut down my PC anyways because I've always got something running on it over night. And it wouldn't let me activate Windows because it said my copy had been activated too many times. So I left it running, the 30 days came and went, went for another month, and it never kicked me off or rebooted. It just bugged me every 45 minutes or so to activate Windows. - ahill7, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7I gave it a try and the link worked, but the damn Text To Speech engine won't shut the hell up.
- biggbrother, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4As said before, MS can do whatever they want. Get a Mac, or go to Linux, BSD, Solaris, or freedos if you don't like it.
- atrain, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Another option is to just hibernate for as long as possible... the machine can fully power down, but you remain logged in, so it allows you to continue your session.
Eventually you will be forced to reboot, or will have a power failure though. Will work for a while.. - PueSi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You are right, because everyone knows nobody use illegal copies of Microsoft.
They have the right to try to stop people from using pirate versions of Windows, it's their software.
I didn't pay for my copy of Windows but i don't complain about them wanting to stop me, it's their business they want to make as much money as they can with their products. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ ahill7
I remember aggravating the teachers by playing the "Word 97 Pinball" Easter egg lol - 4ndr3wk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2another way i think works is on the activation goto activate by phone and click on view disclaimer or something like that. that loads IE.
Just a thought... i think it works - nyrol2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2To log in, you can just boot up in safe mode with command prompt. Then log into your normal account, and type "explorer" into command prompt, and then type "exit". You'll have full safe mode functionality with the taskbar and without everything shutting down soon.
- shteinb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It was probably an OEM CD. Those will often not require a CD key if certain hardware properties are met that are unique to the manufacturer. This often happens with Dell CDs. You wont be able to use this same CD on a different manufacturers machine however.
- mesostinky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Err. BartPe, UBCDFW and almost every linux livecd out there makes this entire article a pointless exercise.
- Halvy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2just clone the bitch in hybernation mode and throw it back up... or 'Lin Nooks' :]
- ahill7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I haven't had a chance to beta test Vista. Is it the same/similar activation schema? Do you still get a little time to use the system before you have to either internet activate or phone it in?
- erikuma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Nice article! But under Windows XP SP2, it''s not working for me.
- Chris24, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Nice :-) I wonder if this works with Parallels.
- grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Vista has a reduced functionality mode which is more flexible than the XP version.
- zoom1928, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How do those of us that have a standard keyboard get to it? I haven't seen one of those keyboards that has the Windows advertisement on it in years. There's not a single one in the offices or data center where I work. I guess we could go buy one of those "Windows" keyboards to keep around, but it would be easier if there was a work-around for our customers that use our built-in KVM switches on each rack.
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