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?

  • yoichi@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    5·
    1 year ago

    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

    • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
      21·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • yoichi@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        6·
        1 year ago

        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

      • Wreckronomicon@lemmy.world
        3·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • sahqon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          1·
          1 year ago

          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…

          • Wreckronomicon@lemmy.world
            1·
            1 year ago

            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.

      • sahqon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        2·
        1 year ago

        What do you mean “can”? It can only be turned off for a month, max, then they force update it for you.