In an other thread here came the info, that the keys will not expire after jan 2013, stated by a MS employee. They will further act as like the bought ones, you won´t only be able to get them for free. Like the upgrade offer keys fore win 8 which are retail ones too. Have only find a proof for that... Regards
That would be good news, but I guess we could only verify/test after Jan. 31, it's no point to test by setting BIOS to future because it has to activate against MS servers which are set, naturally, to the current time. College buddy since last century.
What you write has nothing to do with what I'm trying to do. ambidav inserts the full licence backup (both data.dat and tokens.dat) as well as the matching unique product key (via oobe.cmd), so that his DVD can be used to reinstall on the same system that he took the licence backup from. It is not intended for installation on new systems. What I am trying to do is to allow clean installations on new systems, and subsequent activations using new upgrade keys (one new key per new system). I am not going to insert an existing key anywhere. You are also mixing in various issues related to how many activations are possible with a single key, which is irrelevant for what I'm trying to do, but I will add some info about it anyway. A single new MS WMC upgrade key can be used to activate one new system reactivate that same system a very large (probably infinite) number of times can not be used to activate additional systems As for the January 31 deadline, for now it's everyone's best guess, but the most likely situation is that any system you activate before January 31 can be reactivated with the same key even after January 31.
Sorry I was on my way to dinner yesterday, so I made it brief: 1. store folder is in windows\system32\spp 2. to replace data.dat you need to take ownership of the file, google "windows right click take ownership" and download a small bat file from any site you like, it will be needed to handle windows system files.
And you better stop the software protection service for that moment . Code: net stop sppsvc to restart either: Code: net start sppsvc or checking success with: Code: cscript slmgr.vbs /dlv will start service though.
Worked for me! I was finally able to activate. Glad I held out, saved me from having to reinstall Windows, Woohoo!
Where do I find the WMC Key? (not the one obtainable from Microsoft). So if I upgrade to pro WMC activated via KMS activation, and later decides to reinstall via the ISO, can I just restore the activation from my KMS activation backup, then upgrade it to pro WMC with my key, will it work?
Thanks for your valuable effort ... keep us posted. And thanks for your insight about the 1/31/2013 deadline. For me I can imagine the only reason I would want to re-activate with a previously activated free-WMC-key after 1/31/2013 would be a change of harddrive (crashed or upgrade to bigger drive/ssd). Would a new SSD/drive be considered new system and prevent me from using the same free-WMC-key to re-activate even if they allow re-activation?? What do you think??
Does this mean hardware changes that force a reactivation are out of question? Or can I go the telephone route if needed? Practical example: I installed one of several WMC keys in a VM. Does that mean the key is wasted and can only activate VMs with identical hardware? Or can I activate a real system with it?
From my testing, it appears that the free WMC keys will only activate on a single system, when activating online. Trying to activate on another system you just get told that this key has already been activated on another computer. I had no problem reactivating on the first system any number of times after a clean reinstall. As for what exactly counts as being out of hardware tolerance in Windows 8 is anyone's guess. Just changing your harddrive to an SSD is unlikely to place you out of tolerance, so it would still be considered the same system, and most likely you will be able to reactivate. On the other hand, the MAC address of your network adapter has a large weight, so changing your motherboard with an integrated network adapter will place you out of tolerance. This applies to VMs as well. Two VMs with nearly identical configurations would be considered the same system. If you match the UUID and the MAC address of the emulated network adapter, you are very likely to be able to activate on both. Note that VMWare and VirtualBox both randomly generate a new MAC address for each new VM you create, so you have to manually change it if you want to match an existing system. Changing the hard disk configuration of a VM should not be a problem. So to answer TCM's question: yes, you have wasted the key on the VM, it will not activate a real system via online activation. I have no idea about phone activation, as I have never used it in my life. However, what we are talking about here is strictly what the online activation system permits you to do, and not what your legal right is. Note that the licence agreement of the WMC key makes it transferable, as long as you are transfering it together with the base system you upgraded with it. So technically, you have the right to reuse the key on another computer, as long as you removed it from the first. The online activation system is not able to take this into account, so I'm guessing you'd have to go via phone activation and explain your situation.
Thank you, I am happy to report that this indeed works! In fact I only needed to replace data.dat. I didn't use yours, instead used one from my previously activated ProWMC installation (Sharing matching data.dat and tokens.dat is a risk in my opinion). So now I have a ProWMC install DVD which allows clean install asks for product key at the end of installation, but it can be skipped accepts MS upgrade keys both during install and afterwards and results in a fully activated ProWMC.