Time of death: 4:22 PM UTC September 26th
Notes, please read:
For those of you who don’t know, HWID was the holy grail for Windows activation, letting you generate licenses straight from Microsoft licensing servers, being registered as fully legitimate in microsofts servers and letting you keep the activation permanently, even after windows reinstalls being completely undetectable and with nothing on your system being modified. If you’re still using outdated activation methods and you missed out on this, I’m sorry
Existing HWID licenses are left unaffected. Only new requests are blocked, no licenses were revoked.
By the way, MAS still works and is the best option for Windows/Office activation. For permanent Office activation use it’s Ohook method (supports subscription products such as 365 as well) and KMS38 for Windows
ALL OTHER ACTIVATION METHODS ARE STILL WORKING, ONLY METHOD AFFECTED IS HWID.
All HWID activators are affected, not only MAS
Around that time, Microsoft servers unexpectedly started blocking the licensing requests HWID activation method sends to Microsoft. This was a slow rollout that spanned over a few hours, at the moment the exploit is completely dead. The best options for Windows activation now is KMS38 or vlmcsd.
Patching this would boost illegal key reselling websites which causes more harm to Microsoft than HWID exploit. We can only wonder why they patched this.
{“code”:“BadRequest”,“data”:[],“details”:[],“innererror”:{“code”:“PermanentTSLRejection”,“data”:[],“details”:[{“code”:“113”,“message”:“avsErrorCode”,“target”:null}],“message”:“The Purchase Service rejected the provided TSL; the client should destroy the TSL.”,“source”:“PurchaseFD”},“message”:“The calling client sent a bad request to the service.”,“source”:“PurchaseFD”}
TLS=Temporary Signed License=The tickets HWID activation sends. Microsoft servers are now just responding with “kill it.”
Transferring existing HWID licenses to other computers using Microsoft account is broken too.
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That is my biggest gripe with modern windows. The OS itself is pretty decent, but WHY am I paying at minimum $100 and seeing ads all over the start menu? Even with a vanilla MS sourced USB there are so many bloat apps. It didn’t used to be that way.
I set up a PC for recording in a sound system and got a fresh install of Windows 11 on a custom PC and it was still super bloated with garbage games and a video editor that watermarks footage instead of the perfectly functional basic software they used to have.
I am in the process of repairing and setting up an old macbook with Linux since it stopped getting Apple updates. When I get a new laptop I will likely go with Linux there as well.
I understand your complaint about ads in the start menu but if you’re still going into Start menu these days, you’re using Windows wrong :P
It’s absolutely bonkers for Microsoft to even consider that paying $99 or $199 for their ad ridden software is fair and reasonable.
Have you seen their Xboxes? Somehow they get by with charging even more for those with more blatant ads and they charge you to play online multiplayer.
Doesn’t MS lose $ on Xbox hardware so ads and software is the only way to make up that revenue
They do reportedly sell them at a loss and compensate via software sales and these days more than ever, subscriptions. Ads are just icing on the cake for them, I imagine, compared to the software sales & subscription revenues.
Great time to switch to Linux
Good thing i switched to linux
Now, you can’t perma-crack your new PC with a “real” HWID key, then years later reinstall Windows and keep your “real” license anymore! And you can’t upgrade anymore on that new PC either! You have to patch Windows every time!
Possibly(?) related official notice https://devicepartner.microsoft.com/en-us/communications/comm-windows-ends-installation-path-for-free-windows-7-8-upgrade
Never spent the time to figure out what KMS actually did but seems like licenses weren’t validated when upgrading from 7 -> 8 / 11
By the way you can still use a windows 7 key for windows 11, I just have an old laptop with the OEM sticker on it, works fine on every computer I ever tried. Consider just trying to find one in the trash or just take a photo of one on a computer in public that won’t likely get reinstalled.
RIP HWID
After reading through the docs on the MAS site, KMS38 still looks pretty robust. I get that it’s not ‘permanent’ but are there any major drawbacks aside from having to re-run MAS after a fresh Windows install?
I hope this means we’ll finally get activation methods that patch windows itself rather than playing along with their key system. Obviously it can be done since Windows AME has activation Functions completely removed yet it will never try to deactivate itself.
What’s that Ohook method you mentioned for office activation?
It was added a few days ago, you can read on it on MAS GitHub or website
Thanks. I’ll have a look at it.
I should really switch over to Linux full time. I basically have no uses cases that require Windows anymore. Not that this activation patch tipped me over the edge or anything. Microsoft is allowed to fix bugs in their software.
Do it!
Does the Lockbox method not work? Normally MAS uses Downlevel.
K38 still works. But yeah just switch to Linux.
I’m so happy now that I’ve finally fully migrated to linux.
What’d you end up on, out of curiosity? I was on Fedora for a couple years, but with the whole Red Hat thing (that I don’t fully understand the implications of), I switched to openSUSE Tumbleweed. Still have love for Mint, though, after all these years.
The whole red hat thing (you mean the centos drama?) has no implications whatsoever on fedora, fyi. If you liked it feel free to go back to it.
I’m using endevour os now, though I started on mint a few months ago and loved it. The wife is using mint now and just commented yesterday that it was a very seamless transition from windows. Only problems have been related to nvidia being dumb.
Why would anyone use windows
Why would anybody drive Chevy’s.
Don’t be an asshole.
Not that I like it, and I really do like certain Linux distros, but in my case I have to use some software that runs well on Windows and isn’t available under Linux. Alternatives aren’t as good, and the versions I need don’t run well (or not at all) on WINE. As far as proprietary OSs go, I find Mac OS much better than windows, both in general user interface, integration and how smooth it runs and feels, but as a choice it’s even more expensive than Windows. Better, yes, but more expensive.
When/if the software I need
findruns under Linux I’ll stop using windows, I guess.This one is just one answer to your question. I’m sure there might be some more.
Edit: runs
