There has been a lot of news about a new technique to extend the activation period of Windows Vista past 180 days. It all started when Brian Livingston posted a story on his site, WindowsSecrets.com, about a registry key that can be modified to allow the slmgr -rearm command to be run more than three times. This allows you to use Windows Vista without having to activate it for longer than 180 days.
Activation has always been more of burden for licensed Windows users than an effective deterrent for piracy. There are already many cracks for Windows Vista that bypass activation completely. The end result is a bad experience for those that legally buy the product.
For me, this is an issue that I am always fighting with. I am constantly building, installing and re-configuring my two computers with multiple vista virtual machines. I don't want to deal with the burden of having to activate my legal copies of Windows Vista every time since none of my workstations seem to last for more than a few months before I reinstall. If I actually activated my Vista Ultimate licenses every time I reinstall I would already have to use the slow phone based system where you have to type in that super long code. Sorry Microsoft, that is a horrible experience that I'm trying to avoid.
Using Brian's registry key and the old 180 day trick, it is possible to setup Task Scheduler to automate these changes to extend the period before you need to activate beyond 180 days. Follow these steps to automate the registry change and activation reset using Task Scheduler:
Click on the Start Button, type in Task Manager and hit Enter....
Would you like to extend the activation period to the maximum 120 days instead of the 30 day period that is set by default? It is possible and legal to do this using the software licensing manager in Windows Vista and Windows 7. Simply run slmgr -rearm to get another 30 days at an administrative level command prompt. You can do this a maximum of three times before Microsoft blocks further extensions...
Vista Home Premium 32. Sometimes when I turn my monitor on in the morning I'm greeted by the password screen. When I enter my password Vista says "logging off" (and does log off) then Vista goes to the "log On" password screen. After re-entering PW again, I'm logged back on but all the apps, web pages and work that I had open last night are gone
This is unconfirmed but I read it on a newsfeed: Run this command: rundll32 slc.dll,SLReArmWindows. Or save as a .bat and run on system startup (put in startup folder)
I've been having this kind of problem since I installed Vista. I like Vista very much, but it brings so much problems to me than XP. I often play Age of Empires III and in every 5 minutes it hangs for a short period of time. It hangs 2-3 times and the next thing that will happen is either it will show a black screen or hangs. Windows never responds if either of these happen, so I shut down the computer improperly.
My laptop came with Vista Home Premium installed. I downloaded a Flash-BIOS update as per advice of my HP Care Centre. After it was done installing my laptop shut off (as I was told it would do). When I turned it back on, I was prompted to enter a Product Activation Key. I entered the Windows Product Key as shown on the sticker on the base of the laptop. The message I received was "The Windows Vista Home Premium product key you typed is invalid for activation" For the record, YES, I am entering the code in properly.
Starting today I tried to turn on my pc and I get the startup repair screen. It does a quick scan and says "windows cannot repair this computer automatically". It gives me the option to send the info to Microsoft or don't send, I tried both and both take to an option to finish or cancel. Finish shuts down the pc and cancel restarts. This seems like a never ending cycle, I cannot get to the desktop to use my computer.
My girlfriend said she would notice microsoft office would uninstall randomly which has never happened before, and we also keep our pc on at night and she said it recently started turning off itself. She thinks it may have started when we started putting music onto our mytouch phones with the usb wire and we charge our phones while it stays connected to the of. I'm not sure what to do. Also Im not sure of which uptdates were installed since they are automatically done.Here is a list of the problem details it gives m after the short startup repair:
I just put some more memory in my computer and now cant get past boot bios screen as I cant use keyboard to go past but I am guessing as usb is not active at this point keyboard or mouse does not work
I had used my laptop(link below) just fine in the am then when I try to sign-in in the pm it won't go past the login screen and will auto restart and again to the login screen so it becomes a vicious cycle. I have tried starting in safe mode then system restore, no luck, back to safe mode and got this error: The Recycle Bin on drive c: is corrupt or invalid. Do you want to empty ..., then tried: load thelast known good configuration, again no good.
and you can download the new Ubuntu, Karmic Koala, Ubuntu 9.10 from [url] and it's free and comes with access to thousands of free programs!
What you can do with Ubuntu:
Email Surf the web Burn CDs. Rip CDs. Listen to music using the computer. Watch vidoes/DVDs. Scan and print. Spreadsheets. Presentations Newsgroups. HTML editing. Games like Chess, Tetris, all kinds of solitaire, etc. Make videos. Download photos from a camera and organize them. Translations from one language to another. Use a dictionary program that's much faster than using a book Learn how to touch type with a touch type learning program. Edit images. Send and receive a fax. Take screenshots. Create .PDF files. Create and use a data base. Instant messaging with over 10 different programs in one including Windows Live Messenger. IRC. Bluetooth.
What you can't do with Ubuntu:
Worry about: WPA and WGA raising their ugly heads, DRM, Viruses, Root kits, Spyware, and Malware.
The reasons that Ubuntu is more secure than Windows are twofold:
1. When *anything* in Ubuntu needs updating or patching, it all comes from the same source and a little orange star appears when any updates or patches are available. It's a known fact that anti virus apps and anti malware apps can only deal with nasties that are known, not the new ones. Hence, it is very important to be updated or patched and not just the operating system but everything that is installed on the computer. Windows has no central updating source and the user has to be checking constantly for updates to their programs or face the possibility of being compromised.
2. In Ubuntu, when anything wants to install, you have to key in your password. With Windows, you have to click on "OK" or nothing at all as is evidenced by drive by malware. Unlike Windows, the Linux kernel is not intertwined with a browser like Windows is with Internet Explorer and the kernel is kept away and protected from the user account.
Alright i have a gateway laptop not too old at all. Running Vista home Prem. The back story is it froze and i hard reset it, upon restart it started to freeze on the green bar screen and wouldn't go past. Using a recovery partiton on the harddrive placed on there by gateway i attempted 3 times to restore the laptop to factory state, i got as far as the vista initial setup and it wouldnt go back to the desktop. Again it crashed doing the same green bar issues. Finally using a disc i found i deleted the partition and reinstalled vista, leaving the recovery section alone again. But it ran fine i thought i was in the good, so i started to try to get the drivers back, i installed the drivers for the webcam, touchpad, and video card. All were retrieved from the gateway support website. It crashed again the same green bar screen and not going past it. Now the issue, using F8 to get to the advanced boot screen none of the options do anything but send me back to the green bar starting the wait for nothing to happen again. i Also attempted to do a factory state repair with that recovery partition, but it sends me to the green bar. Same thing occurs wif i attempt to use the disc to just install vista, it prompts to press any key to load from cd/dvd i do so it says windows loading files loads for a good 3 mins, then just sends me to the green bar again. Also i cannot access the command prompt or i would attempt to delete the partition again. I cant figure out whats wrong and i know as far as ive gone would exceed what geek squad or most the the random computer repair shops could do. And seeing how its refusing to load a recovery from the vista cd/dvd i doubt anyone could get anywhere with it.
I haven't been able to start Windows past the green loading bar. The first couple of days when I tried to turn on the computer it would take me to an 'Error Start Up' screen where I would try to restart using safe mode or something.
Now though, it does the blue HP screen, then goes black with a grey loading bar that says "Loading Files" and then from there it goes to the green loading bar. This has happened to me once before, although, it was fixed in just a couple of days. I removed the main power cord and left it out for a day and when I tried again, it worked. I've tried doing that now, but no such luck......
My pc wont boot up past the loading bar. the bar scrolls through twice then it stops in the middle for about 2 secs then it scrolls twice or so more and then disapears and nothing else happens. just a black screen. I can boot into safe mode, I have restored the system to yesterday before I installed new graphics card drivers and I have uninstalled the last program I installed.
My system keeps telling me that my Windows-license will end in x days, though I have a valid Vista-copy. I have installed SP1 in september and from that date it says 'evaluation-copy' in the right-bottom corner. Does anyone know what the problem is?
I have an HP dv6000. I was using the computer today and it was fine and I did not download anything today. When I went to turn it on tonight it goes to the HP screen where in the bottom right hand corner I can pressesc for boot order settings for F10 for setup. Than it shuts off and does the same thing again. I try to press F8 but it's like it wont allow it, I can press F10 to get into setup but when I press F8 there is a loud beep. It seems like there is a light ticking coming from the bottom part of the lap top, about every 5 seconds i hear a light tick. I tried to reset to the default settings. take the battery out, and all of that.
I turned off my computer yesterday then turned it on again and switched it off again using the power switch repeatedly yesterday in a span of a few mins. I then went out for a day and when i came back home and tried to boot my computer again vista wouldnt load the login screen. I changed my loading screen and it gets past that alright but when it gets to the logon screen everything just turns black?
Isnt Microsoft up with technology these days? I ordered the Anytime Upgrade from Home Prof to Ultimate, its a download, and I have to wait 5 days? Is this usual?
I've been buying Dell computers for probably 10 or 12 years now and have mostly been satisfied with the results. Much more so than my first Microsoft-based machine, which was a Gateway. On it, the hard drive crashed within the first 30 days. But to give credit where credit is due, they had a replacement on my doorstep within 48 hours. Since I've been such a good customer, Dell often sends me sales brochures and on every single page is always the same phrase "Dell recommends Windows Vista Home Premium".
Based on what I've read in this forum, I have to chuckle every time I read that. I must admit that I'm one of those tech groupies who always has to have the latest and greatest. My son's friends used to call me "Mr. First On The Block". That's the main reason I bought a new desktop with the Vista OS, even though I already had two perfectly good XP machines that weren't that old and with which I was perfectly satisfied. (Well, the old desktop was slowing down quite a bit, since it only had 512 megs of RAM and a 60-gig HD). I'm just glad I'm a casual computer user and don't have to depend on 'em to support myself because I'd probably be cussin' Microsoft and Vista too.
I want to give a clone of my system (Ultimate) to colleagues with very similar hardware. If they get convinced, they would buy license keys of their own. As long as they test it, they should not run it with my license, but as a 30 days trial. Of course, my Vista is already activated. So, how can I turn its image back into an unactivatedtrial? (A clean install is no option for my colleagues, since I installed applications, drivers, tweaks and hacks, which only make the value of this particular installation.).
Is there any way to delete messages automatically after a certian number of days? I want to remove anything over a week old in my deleted item folder and have this done automatically.
i had 3 partitions on my HDD. i backed them up and deleted them to make room for a custom partition. when i finished deleting them the disk management said i had 2 unallocated partitions. i checked in disk part and it showed only my "main" vista partition existed. my vista partition is "partition 2" and i was able to extend it into "partition 3" (one of the unallocated partitions) via disk management, but i cant add "partition 1" (also an unallocated partition) to my main partition.
I am using Vista x64 with a 3ware 9650SE raid controller as a redundant raid5 data drive. I added a 4th 1TB harddrive, and I am trying to extend the volume to merge with the new space currently available. I can't seem to do that though because "Extend Volume" is greyed out, and I can't figure out what is wrong. Can anyone tell me how to fix this? Attached are screenshots that may help.
I have a copy of Home Premium 64 bit that I have yet to use. I purchased it assuming that I would want to upgrade in the future when the kinks were worked out. With the release of SP1 I am finally considering getting rid of XP altogether and going with Vista straight out. The only problem is, I mostly use my computer for gaming. I know, back when, Vista 64 was a poor option for gamers. Has anything changed with all of the updates? Are there gamers that happily run on Vista 64? How is the performance comparatively to XP 32-Bit? The main reasons I want to upgrade are obvious.. so I can utilize all of my memory, and so I can play games in DX10 mode.
I just installed Vista x64 for the first time (first time I use a 64bit Windows OS, I have used Ultimate 32bit before back in 2007) and realized updates are being installed almost EVERY day, the disc I have is already updated with Service Pack 1 so I don't understand why there are so many updates being installed all the time.
That's not the issue, the issue seems to be I'm losing around 5-10gb of hard drive space every 2 days or so, seems vista updates are HUGE, when I installed the first time (I have a 500gb drive, in reality it's 465gb) I had 451gb free fair enough, then after some updates the next day I had 440gb! where did the 11gb go? I mean 11gb in updates?Then a day later I had around 425gb! without me putting all my music, games, pictures etc etc!!, after I installed 2 games I had around 409gb which is fair considering they are big games, then I put my pictures in which is not that much, around 1gb And now, a day later without having any extra files myself I already have 398gb free!!, does Vista install something all the time that takes that much space? I know the OS after updates and such it's supposed to take approximately 15gb or so I should have (providing I had not installed my things yet) around 450gb or so.
I'll be glad if you could help me. I bought a new PC with a 500Go HD. I installed Vista Home Premium on a partition of 100Go (C. I have therefore another partition for the remaining (D:, 400Go). I'd like to avoid using third party software ; is it possible trough Windows Vista ? I read things on Microsoft website regarding the deletion and creation of partition, but never managed to find out an answer for my particular question.
I have two 500 GB HDD. I installed software, which added a secret space to my second HDD. I uninstalled software and the secret partition turned into unallocated space. My second HDD now shows 289 GB (the unallocated space is 176 GB). I have tried to extend the HDD, so that I get my 500 GB back, but the information is greyed out. I have formatted the HDD, but it changed nothing. I only use it for backups. Is there anything I can do?
I want to give a clone of my system (Ultimate) to colleagues with verysimilar hardware. If they get convinced, they would buy license keysof their own. As long as they test it, they should not run it with my license, but as a 30 days trial. Of course, my Vista is alreadyactivated. So, how can I turn its image back into an unactivated trial? (A clean install is no option for my colleagues, since I installed applications, drivers, tweaks and hacks, which only make the value of this particular installation.)
Is it possible to extend the time a screensaver shows, I know the default is 20 minutes, less the time set for close, it could be a registry adjust possibly.
how to delete a partition and extend the volume, and it seems pretty basic. I do have a question though. My C partition is 50GB, and I have a new volume E partition of 100Gb. I also have unallocated space left of 550Gb (750Gb seagate). I think I want to just want to have one big partition. Not sure if it's a good idea, but I was wondering if I need to go ahead and format the unallocated space first, or will I have an option to do it? I did right click on it, and I got an option to make it a simple volume or something similar, but thought I'd wait a bit on that.
