Just remembered the´beginnings of doggie at this place, that became home since...thought i might share, others are invited to chime in. While patrolling through the forums i noticed the passed anniversary. What a long time (with some breaks). Was still a puppy then seaking for a possibility to activate shiny new Windows 8 and heard about that mysterious KMS which was promoted to be the salvation. Unfortunately information about doing that without having a university/company account was scarce. So i stumbled through several known boards and found MDL. The Windows 8 threads were a paradise for grashoppers and a PITA for the site administration. Even compared with the Windows 10 Release, the latter was a low breeze. In that time it was thrilling to log in since the Mods needed to delete threads with literally hundreds of posts, refraining questions and starting over several pages later (...rinse, repeat). Post/thanks counter could have dropped some hundred posts at once due to that. Puppy didn't need long to get a modarational advice to re-think his appearance and complied, i was a clueless smartass before the Lord. Fortunately it made me check the forums more thoroughly so i noticed the fact that all useful tools regarding Windows activation were originated exactly here. Then puppies chance came by. It appeared to be useful to create and maintain a general KMS How-To thread to link any info and downloads needed. I should note that at this time there existed no standalone solution, only nice members offering access to KMS servers via their connections. Imagine hundreds of people spamming F5 to not miss the announcement: THE SERVER IS ONLINE NOW!!!! HURRY UP!. Fiat Lux! A Prometheus arrived and handed over a Windows 7 VM with an activated KMS Host. A marvel. The bee hive started humming. First band-aid was a slimmed down Qemu machine and @heldigard proved to be the true master of slimming (i miss my broom boy). He ended up with a ~30MB standalone version, capable of activating Windows 8. Process needed sometime to boot the VM, start the server and activate the sytem, then shut all down. In the backgroung meanwhile the reversing and coding divisions were working w/o breaks to adapt the old Win 7 version to the new KMS protocol. A cat and mouse game started that estonishingly ended with Windows 10. Before, each new Win interation introduced an altered protocol with more hoops to jump through. Not any surprise the KMS Host thread was 'hot' and puppy could shine by proving to be a quite proper janitor. On a side note the thread got deleted after a while, flushind several hundred pages and an OP that was well filled. A little check box that got forgotten before the cleansing swipe. With enthousiasm and helpful members the content was restored. Since situation relaxed puppy started first steps in scripting awfully layouted stuff with lot redundant code and flaws. Later it became at least a bit better i feel. That way puppy slowly grew up to become guide doggie. The already existing tool by @CODYQX4 stayed the official MDL solution, @heldigard forked the Emulator and created his own GUI (unfortunately also the nasty installer), script solutions apperead to circumvent NET dependencies and have a lighter activator; time moved on, Windows attempted to fight the Emolators but ceased the flag and switched to annoy users via Defender/MRT and 3rd party AVs. And here we are now, 5 years later. Although fluctuating like other communities, MDL is till an amazing place. OK, enough romance, back to work! TL;DR: Nothing to see here, PLEASE move on!
Wow what a story, thank you , Tonto was there too, we were then activating Win8 wherever we could find an open server,. on the Turkmenistan, (or some such place ) customs service server, then one in the US, then one in China, it was a wild and wooley west. The first kms I remember was a full size virtual Win8 system just to run the Kms server, a 1Gb installation As you say there were some geniuses in the group , and at every step I marvelled at the shrinking KMS and tested ,tested, tested, and doggie was always there, helpful and kind but as you say doggie grew up to be guide doggie, Tonto on the other hand stayed the same just as dumb as ever. but it was fun wasn't it?. ...T