Hi all, I found something out that might be useful for others. Basically the Developer License does not care about the hardware hash of your system. I created a Windows 8.1 VM, activated the developer license and then made a snapshot of the entire install using clonezilla. I then went onto my offline computer, set the date in the bios to that of my clonezilla snapshot and then restored the VM image onto the actual hardware. Windows knew it was on another machine (it went through that fullscreen "Welcome" thing), however I could confirm that my developer license was still active when running "Get-WindowsDeveloperLicense" and running a quick metro test project. So I have 30 days to be able to run my own developed software. However you can get a 90 day developer license if you sign up to Microsoft's store and I believe the same thing will work. Luckily setting the time back and restoring the clonezilla image is a very quick process so you can keep on getting another 30 / 90 days without the machine being online ever). Tbh, I generally reformat my development machine every 180 days anyway. The following is an overview of what I use: 1) Windows Enterprise 180 day trial 2) Visual Studio 2013 30 day trial 3) Microsoft Office 30 day trial 4) Developer license 30 day activation An as long as you dont mind restoring a snapshot every 30 days (it honestly isnt that bad if you add it to a memory stick with a few scripts around clonezilla to automate the process), then this is a satisfactory way to get around the stupid DRM found in all Microsoft products. No cracks needed either and since I do own licenses to all this software, getting round the DRM in this way should be 100% legit. I feel this is important for digital preservation. Now in ~50 years it should be possible to develop and run Metro software even when Microsoft has closed the Windows Store. (Enterprise domain joining only allows you to run Metro apps, not debug / develop them). Edit: I cant wait for nested virtualization to be properly available, this should eliminate the ability for DRM to hold hardware hashes against us! That way, even if Micorosoft do change the developer activation system to make the experience even worse, then this technique will still work.