Win7 Without Activation

How to Use Windows 7 Without Activation

Most of you might be aware of the fact that it is possible to use Windows 7 and Vista for 120 days without activation. This is actually possible using the slmgr -rearm command which will extend the grace period from 30 days to 120 days.

However, in this post I will show you a small trick using which it is possible to use Windows 7 without activation for approximately an year! Here is a way to do that.

Step-1: Go to “Start Menu -> All Programs -> Accessories“.

Right click on the “Command Prompt” and select “Run as Administrator“. If you are not the administrator, then you are prompted to enter the password, or else you can proceed to step-2.

Step-2: Now type the following command and hit Enter:

slmgr -rearm

Step-3: You will be prompted to restart the computer. Once restarted, the trial period will once again be reset to 30 days. You can use the above command for up to 3 times by which you can extend the trial period to 120 days without activation.

Step-4: Now comes the actual trick by which you can extend the trial period for another 240 days. To do this, open the Registry Editor (type regedit in “Run” and hit Enter) and navigate to the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SoftwareProtectionPlatform

Step-5: In the right-side pane, change value of SkipRearm to 1.

Step-6: Now, you should be able to use the slmgr -rearm command for another 8 times so that you can skip the activation process for another 240 days. So you will get 120 + 240 = 360 days of free Windows 7 usage.

120 days using “slmgr -rearm” command before registry edit

+

240 days using “slmgr -rearm” command after registry edit

=      360 Days

I hope you like this post. Please pass your comments…

Change Windows Product ID

How to Alter Windows Product ID

If you are running a Microsoft Windows operating system on your computer, then you are most likely aware of the fact that your PC will have a Product ID. This Product ID is a system specific alphanumeric code which is derived/calculated based on the Windows product key you use and the hardware configuration of your Computer. In simple words, Product ID is the alphanumeric code that you see when you right-click on the My Computer icon and select the Properties option.

Ever wondered how to alter the Windows Product ID?

It is possible to alter the Windows Product ID and change it to what ever you like. For example, you can change the Product ID and put your nickname in place of the formal Product ID displayed by the Operating System. This hack is too easy and can be done within minutes. The screenshot showing the altered Product ID is given below:

Windows 7 PC showing Original PID:

Windows 7 PC showing Altered PID:

As you can see from the above screenshot it is simple and easy to make your Windows display what ever you want in the place of the real Product ID. Here is a step-by-step procedure to alter your Windows Product ID (works on Windows XP, Vista and 7):

1.    Go to Start -> Run and type regedit in the Run dialog box

2.    After you open the Registry Editor, navigate to the following key:

HKey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version

3.    On the right hand side, you can see an entry by name ProductID listed under the heading Name.

4.    Double-Click on ProductID, a dialog box will pop-up showing your Windows PID. Now you can delete the original PID and enter anything of your choice.

5.    Once you are done, just click on OK and close the Registry Editor. Now you can see the altered Product ID in the Windows Properties window.

NOTE: The above trick will let you change only the Product ID that is being displayed on Windows Properties window and not the actual product ID stored in the registry. In order to change the actual product ID, you will have to change the Windows product key used.

You can change the Windows product key as follows:

For Vista and Windows 7:

In the “Run” dialog box type SLUI 3 and hit Enter. You should see a pop-up window where in you can enter the new product key. Just follow the screen instructions to complete the procedure.

For Windows XP:

1.    Open the Registry editor (Type regedit in Run and hit Enter)

2.    In the Registry editor, Navigate to the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\WPAEvents

3.    In the right side pane, locate OOBETimer, right-click on it and choose the option Modify.

4.    Change at least one entry in the Value data text box and click OK.

5.    In the Run dialog box, type the following command and hit Enter:

%systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a

6.    You will now see a pop-up window saying “Let’s Activate Windows”. Choose the option “Yes, I want to telephone a customer service representative to activate Window”s and then click Next.

7.    You should now see an option to change your product key. Type a new valid Windows product key in the field and click on the “Update” button.

This should change the product key of your Windows there by resulting in a new Product ID. I hope you like this trick. Pass your comments. Cheers!

Identify Safe Websites

4 Ways to Identify Safe Websites On the Internet

On the whole Internet, there are approximately more than 150 million active websites up and running. As a result, it often becomes a real challenge for the users to identify safe websites that are trustworthy and reputed.

Have you ever wondered to know the reputation of a website before placing the order? Need to know whether a given website is child safe? Well, here are some of the ways to identify safe websites on the Web.

1. WOT or Web Of Trust (www.mywot.com):

WOT is a great place to test the reputation of your favorite website. WOT gives real-time ratings for every website based on the feedback that it gets from millions of trustworthy users across the globe and trusted sources, such as phishing and malware blacklists. Each domain name is evaluated based on this data and ratings are applied to them accordingly.

·         Trustworthiness signifies the overall safety of the website. A poor rating may indicate that the site is associated with threats like Internet scams, phishing, identity theft risks and malware. For more information on phishing, you may refer my other post on howto identify and avoid phishing scams.

·         Vendor reliability tells you whether a given site is safe for carrying out buy and sell transactions with it. An excellent rating indicates superior customer satisfaction while a poor rating indicates possible scam or bad shopping experience.

·         Privacy indicates about “to what extent the site respects the privacy of it’s users and protects their personal identity and data”.

·         Child Safety indicates whether the content of a given site is appropriate for children. Site contents like sexual material, nudity and vulgarity will have a poor Child Safety rating.

In most cases, the WOT ratings are found to be highly accurate. To check the reputation of any given website, just visit www.mywot.com type-in the address of your favorite website and click on “Check now”. This tool alone can tell you a lot about the reputation and safety level of a website. However, in addition to this, I am giving you another 3 handy tools to identify safe websites on the Web.

2. McCafee SiteAdvisor:

McCafee SiteAdvisor is a free tool that is available as a browser add-on. It adds safety ratings to your browser and search engine results. You can download it from www.siteadvisor.com.

3. StopBadware:

Using this tool, you can check whether a given site is said to have involved in malware activity in the past. To check this, go to SB Website Clearinghouse and enter the URL or domain name of a website and click on “Search Clearinghouse ”. If the search does not return any result, that means the site was never involved in any of the malware activity in the past.

4. Google Pagerank:

Google PageRank is another great tool to check the reputation and popularity of a website. The PageRank tool rates every web page on a scale of 1 to 10 which indicates Google’s view of importance of the page. If a given website has a PageRank of less than 3, then it is said to be less popular among the other sites on the Internet.

However, PageRank will only tell you how much popular a given website is and has nothing to do with the safety level of a website. So, this tool alone cannot be used to evaluate a website’s safety and other factors.

PageRank feature is available as a part of Google Toolbar. You can download the Google Toolbar and install it to avail this feature.

I hope you like this article. Waiting for your comments…