Hi all, I've read all the stickies about activations, and I understand that activation requires three things if modding BIOS: Quote "HotCarl" from MyDigitalName's thread: "1) A SLIC 2.1 enabled BIOS (whether from a modded BIOS, or from a loader that loads up right before Windows 7 starts and emulates a SLIC 2.1 enabled BIOS, or hopefully pre-installed on the BIOS that your laptop will come with (check with RW-Everything)) 2) A matching certificate (you need to install an OEM certificate that matches the OEM vendor of the SLIC that you have "installed" on your system; e.g. if you have Samsung SLIC in your BIOS (or loaded up via GRLDR prior to windows start) you need to install a Samsung certificate...) 3) An OEM SLP key (the key's vendor does not matter, you can use a Dell OEM SLP key with a Samsung SLIC 2.1 enabled BIOS and a Samsung certificate...)" So my question is: if I buy a new Lenovo T400 with Vista Home basic (or Win7 home basic when it's out), and install the Lenovo OEM version of win7 ultimate on that machine (via upgrade), is it automatically activated? 1) It should have the SLIC2.1 bios 2) It should also have the certificate. 3) I will use a random Lenovo OEM SLP key. About point 2), I now have this Lenovo T61 and it had home basic when I bought it, I then downloaded and burned Vista Ultimate recovery disks for T61 and did a system recovery with them, and Vista was activated. During the steps I never had to install a certificate. So presumably all OEM machines already have the certificates in them when they ship? Or were the required certs installed during the recovery? Has anyone tried this before? Or maybe I should just wait until downloads of recovery disks become available? that way it'll be the same as Win7 Ultimate out of factory.
All the machines where come with a proinstalled OS have a certificate. For Vista most machines have a bios with SLIC 2.0 In your case you must check with Dump SLIC Toolkit, what bios you have. If you have bios with SLIC 2.1, then you need only an OEM SLP key. If you have bios with SLIC 2.0, then you need a modded bios with SLIC 2.1 and the same certificate of the new modded bios and an OEM SLP key.
1) It should have the SLIC2.1 bios maybe it will if being shipped with win 7 on it but if you get one with vista it will probably have 2.0 on it. I have a dv3t HP that is litteraly less then a month old and only had 2.0 but these wonderful modders here have modded the bios with 2.1 and running win 7 ultimate now. 2) It should also have the certificate. Maybe as well. If you get an oem disc from Lenovo that has there oem brand should have the cert already in it but if you download a generic 7 or oem one it may not have it and you will need to install it manually but easy enough with a single command. Given you copy cert to root of hard drive run this command slmgr -ilc c:\LENOVO.xrm-ms and it will put it in 3) I will use a random Lenovo OEM SLP key. Any oem SLP ultimate key will work. they are not brand specific like it says at the top of slp key sticky
I remember seeing somewhere that most computers shipped after June or something have SLIC2.1 in preparation for win7 free upgrade. I could be wrong.
It should be... because it's an OEM DVD. 1). It's possible. Depends if the laptop manufacturer allows free upgrades to Windows 7. 2). Probably, from the looks of it, many 2.0 Certs work with 2.1 SLICs, so you might end up with a 2.0 Cert. 3). Any OEM:SLP will activate your version of Windows. Keys aren't bound to a SLIC/CERT. Currently there is only 1 Lenovo key out, and I'd be slightly hesitant to use it. There are plenty of other keys out now, and will be more as we get closer to, and pass October 22nd. Should be just like Vista... if you get the OEM DVD I'd wait for the recovery DVD to be available. Though there are instructions here on how to build your own OEM DVD.