Windows Activation
Hello people I have recently changed my CPU, Motherboard and RAMs so I was planning on reinstalling windows on my PC. Last time I installed Windows was probably or so 10 years ago and I can't remember for the life of me how I activated it.
Any recommendations on activating the new install? Or is it too much trouble nowadays and should I just buy a key?
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Buy a key from a chinese retailer. 5€ for a fully functional windows.
If you don't want to, there are KMS tools but they work for a time then they don't anymore.
This is for piracy, piracy means not buying shit.
Since when?
Uhm... Thats the nature of taking things without paying...
You don't know much about piracy, do you? Pirated stuff doesn't always mean it's free. For example, services like kino.pub - pure piracy, yet have monthly subscription. Which is worth it. I'm a pirate since early 90-s and it's a huge multi billion dollar industry. From pirated VHS cassettes sold super cheap on flea markets back in the days to illegal software keys sold online for pennies today.
Nature of pirating, lol.
They take it for free and sell it to you, they are pirates, you are not, you just know you pay for a pirated product.
Lol what? You don't take something for free. Oh man, kids these days...
You are just not understanding the therm piracy correctly.
Lol ok.
Piracy could also mean "buy shit for way less". Instead of a 200$ key you can have it for 2-5$. It kinda fits.
Plus you can have it free but it'll be a hassle or very low price and it won't be a hassle. The choice is his.
Thats not piracy then, you just buy your key from someone else, who probably got the key legally anyway.
Ok
Those keys are usually gotten via stolen credit cards. It's much more ethical to just pirate the thing.
Yeah go pay for a key that's gonna get revoked once MS figures out its being illegally resold nahhhh
To be fair, there’s an almost zero percent chance of the key being revoked. Microsoft sells (or sold) W10 keys for peanuts all over the world depending on the market. They don’t region lock. Their current strategy is monetising services, so there’s no risk they’re suddenly going to u-turn on their decade long strategy and kick off MS users.
Worst case scenario OP has to use one of the hacks explained in this submission in a few years.
Why go through all that when MAS exists. Just activate it yourself with a single script, use the same thing for MS Office as well. I'll never understand why people choose to pay for stolen/enterprise keys
Oh man, MAS is quite a rabbit hole. It basically tricks Microsoft's server to give out valid windows license.
How does it work?
In the official upgrade process from Windows 7 to Windows 10, Microsoft provides an HWID (digital license) activation for Windows 10 without any cost.
In the background, the upgrade process runs a file named gatherosstate.exe (available in Windows 10/11 ISO) and it checks the license of current Windows if found activated, it generates a valid GenuineTicket.xml ticket which is sent to Microsoft and in return, MS authorizes a license.
So if we just convince the gatherosstate.exe file that the conditions are met for ticket generation by fooling it, it will generate a valid ticket, which can be used to get the valid HWID (Digital license).
The fact that this tool is hosted in a Microsoft-owned website (GitHub) is crazy, lol. Or maybe Microsoft doesn't care and just want more people to use Windows, so they don't crack hard on this.
It's been proven over and over again that Microsoft simply does not care for individual consumers anymore. I mean, you can use any Microsoft Windows installation without activating for perpetuity and the only issue would be no customisation of the wallpaper and that pesky notice on the bottom right.
The money from Enterprise is enough to justify it
Microsoft never cared.
Can you still run windows updates when using MAS?
Yes, windows functions exactly as it would should you have used a legit key and will tie in to any MS account you have logged in to permanently activate it forever (no need to keep activating), it even allows you to upgrade your Windows edition from home to pro if you wanted to. I have been doing this for literally a decade or more and have had zero repercussions from doing so.
How do you upgrade to pro? I installed home because I was thinking of using my existing win7 key, then though better and activated the other way (because the old computer is still in use by mum - she gets my castoffs lol). But I would have installed pro if I knew I'll want to keep the win7...
Open windows poweshell - type in "irm https://massgrave.dev/get | iex" (without quotes) - when the menu comes up press "6" - in the next menu press "1" - in the next menu press the number that corresponds to the edition that you would like.
What do you mean "can"? It can only be turned off for a month, max, then they force update it for you.