Web Talk

If you don’t want to buy Windows Vista because you want to give it a try first, then you may be interested in these couple of tricks which let you temporary activate Vista and extend its grace period for 120 days (4 months with three re-arms to perform after a specific lapse of time has passed by). Remember, these methods don’t violate any of the Vista End User License Agreement (EULA) and can be applied to all of Vista versions. Here are the tricks

Use Vista for 120 days

1. Click Start.
2. Type CMD on the Search Bar.
3. Press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER to open the DOS window with Administrative rights.
4. In the DOS window type: slmgr -rearm and press Enter.
5. After a few seconds a window confirming the command will appear on the screen inviting you to reboot the computer.
6. Reboot the computer.
7. Rearm again when the remaining activation grace period timer goes to 0 days.

Rearm and extend grace period automatically (it also works in Windows 2008)

If you don’t want to rearm the activation grace period every time, just follow this other trick:

1. Open Notepad.
2. Copy and past this piece of code:
3. <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-16″?>
   <Task version=”1.2″ xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/windows/2004/02/mit/task”>
   <RegistrationInfo>
   <Date>2007-09-17T14:26:04.433</Date>
   <Author>Microsoft Corporation (My Digital Life)</Author>
   </RegistrationInfo>
   <Triggers>
   <TimeTrigger id=”18c4a453-d7aa-4647-916b-af0c3ea16a6b”>
   <Repetition>
   <Interval>P31D</Interval>
   <StopAtDurationEnd>false</StopAtDurationEnd>
   </Repetition>
   <StartBoundary>2007-10-05T02:23:24</StartBoundary>
   <EndBoundary>2008-09-17T14:23:24.777</EndBoundary>
   <Enabled>true</Enabled>
   </TimeTrigger>
   </Triggers>
   <Principals>
   <Principal id=”Author”>
   <UserId>domain\alias</UserId>
   <LogonType>Password</LogonType>
   <RunLevel>HighestAvailable</RunLevel>
   </Principal>
   </Principals>
   <Settings>
   <IdleSettings>
   <Duration>PT10M</Duration>
   <WaitTimeout>PT1H</WaitTimeout>
   <StopOnIdleEnd>true</StopOnIdleEnd>
   <RestartOnIdle>false</RestartOnIdle>
   </IdleSettings>
   <MultipleInstancesPolicy>IgnoreNew</MultipleInstancesPolicy>
   <DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>true</DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>
   <StopIfGoingOnBatteries>true</StopIfGoingOnBatteries>
   <AllowHardTerminate>true</AllowHardTerminate>
   <StartWhenAvailable>false</StartWhenAvailable>
   <RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>false</RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>
   <AllowStartOnDemand>true</AllowStartOnDemand>
   <Enabled>true</Enabled>
   <Hidden>false</Hidden>
   <RunOnlyIfIdle>false</RunOnlyIfIdle>
   <WakeToRun>true</WakeToRun>
   <ExecutionTimeLimit>P3D</ExecutionTimeLimit>
   <DeleteExpiredTaskAfter>PT0S</DeleteExpiredTaskAfter>
   <Priority>7</Priority>
   <RestartOnFailure>
   <Interval>PT1M</Interval>
   <Count>3</Count>
   </RestartOnFailure>
   </Settings>
   <Actions Context=”Author”>
   <Exec>
   <Command>C:\Windows\System32\slmgr.vbs</Command>
   <Arguments>-rearm</Arguments>
   </Exec>
   <Exec>
   <Command>C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe</Command>
   <Arguments>/r</Arguments>
   </Exec>
   </Actions>
   </Task>
4. Change the value of USERID to match your domain and your alias, or local host name and user ID (for standalone Windows Vista user).
5. Save the file as a .xml file.
6. Click Start.
7. Click Control Panel.
8. Click System and Maintenance.
9. Click Adminitsrative Tools.
10. Click Task Scheduler.
11. In Task Scheduler, click Import Task on the right pane.
12. Select the previous created .xml file.
13. Click Import.
14. Now You should see a “Create Task” window. Click the “Trigger Tab”.
15. Click One Time, and click Edit.
16. Change the start date of the task to the day before the end of current evaluation period.
17. You can optimize the schedule so that it will rearm the activation by itself every 30 days or 60 days for instance.
18. Click OK, and get out the Task Scheduler.