first timer here. sry in advance if the question seems stupid but.. i recently built a desktop with parts from newegg. i was wondering.. what's the best way to activate a custom pc? modded bios? emulated bios? fresh install>rearm>loop?
Use a loader - it is the easiest way and works well. If you are confident you can flash your BIOS with a modded one but make sure it is the right one or your new PC may not post. I once bricked an ASUS board (A8n32SLI-Deluxe which is different to the A8nSLI board )using the SLI one instead of the SLI-Deluxe BIOS. Luckily I knew a PC shop owner who was able to re-write the BIOS for me. Learnt a valuable lesson that day - check twice flash once.
Modded BIOS is the best solution for long-term use. As long as you don't have some ridiculously obscure model of motherboard, you should be able to find a BIOS mod or make your own without too much hassle. Loaders are easier to detect and thus may be detected in the future. Look up the BIOS modding section of the forum, or post your board model and someone should be more than happy to mod your BIOS for you. The last method will only allow you to rearm a certain number of times - once you're out of rearms you're SOL.
i know exactly what you mean. i always remind our techs to almost always bypass upgrading bios on our laptop/desktop repairs since it's not covered in our liabilities form. well, i was thinking about setting up 2-3 different partitions. 1) OS, 2) data, and 3) ghost image.. have my user profile relocated to d: and keep my OS specifically for apps. but then i realized that reformatting after the rearms are done were TOO much work. --- i really apprc8 the feedback, guys. i think i'll go w/ a modded bios since i have a pretty common asus mobo.
Using a modded bios you can actually activate Windows 7 with low probability of being catched? I didn't know that... I will search here, but are there any mods for Gateway laptop series? Also, these loaders just installs something at the HD to make it activated or does it works by changing the bios, or any system files that I can't get rid of after installed? I'm asking that because I have a Windows 7 Home key, but I'd like to have the Ultimate version, but doesn't want to spend more just for an upgrade... Thanks!
I will look at it, didn't know there was a section for it. Do you know the answer for this? "Also, these loaders just installs something at the HD to make it activated or does it works by changing the bios, or any system files that I can't get rid of after installed?"
A loader patches the ACPI in RAM but therefore it needs to install a file often called grldr on your hd ( %systemdrive% ). This file/bootloader gets loaded before Windows so it can do it's work...
Despite all the paranoia about M$ catching loaders we know that they haven't done anything about loaders in all the time since Vista came out. Their only responses to Vista piracy were to de-activate Timerstop, Paradox's Royal.sys and change SLIC from version 2.0 to 2.1. When I saw the same royalty OEM activation system for 7 as for Vista which had been "cracked" almost from day 1 I knew they really don't care too much about piracy.
Kinda takes the fun outta it huh?.... apparently windows 8 has a special WAT task team assigned... so we'll see what transpires in a few years time regarding WAT EDIT:Just had an idea.... Maybe they will be called S(pecial) W(indows) A(citivation) T(echnologies) team!
Got it, thanks for caring. But in general, it means that the loader does in fact install (patch) archives that later are not removed with a simple format, is that it? I don't understand too much about it, but that's what I got when you said that it patches the ACPI in RAM. I don't mind installing or not illegal copies, the problem here is that, although I have the original copie of 7 Home Premium (which came with my laptop, and I can't find it to download nowhere I look), I can't even make a simple clean install (I can make a recovery DVD, but it simply install all the unwanted programs and such), all thanks to the fact that they do not provide a simple DVD of the OS, now that's annoying.