No I didn't use a crack lo*der. Yes I've done activation manually by SLP before so I'm no stranger, just the modding the Bios part. Both the key and certificate told me it was success (the command not the activation). I restarted the PC to save the change and still didn't activate. I've used slmgr.vbs -ilc command fyi I'm off to bed so if you post a revision I'll try it later tomorrow.