It has finally happened. HWID activation for Windows 10/11 has been patched by Microsoft after 6 years.

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 If you’re still using outdated activation methods and you missed out on this, I’m sorry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.

hogart,
@hogart@feddit.nu avatar

I tried doing a full swap from Windows earlier this year. I do a lot of local game streaming from my gaming pc to my laptop and I had issues getting this working. Didn’t have the energy to keep looking for solutions so I just went back to windows. Next time I try I will probably keep my pc on windows and only swap my laptop to Linux. One step at a time.

Xirup,
@Xirup@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Have you tried Parsec? You can download the client as a host on your gamer PC and the guest on your laptop and honestly it works very well in my opinion.

hogart,
@hogart@feddit.nu avatar

Yes I’ve been using Parsec for quite some time. Love it. Doesn’t work as host on Linux.

const_void,

Great time to switch to Linux

Polar,

Ya! And then just quit my job, since none of it runs on Linux.

8andage,

Probably shouldn’t be running pirated windows at work…

Polar,

I don’t? Are you assuming because I clicked a random post I saw on the active tab that I run pirated Windows?

ugo,

Then why would you need to quit your job if you installed Linux on your personal devices?

You are the one that brought up that installing Linux would require you to quit your job, on a post announcing that one method to pirate windows no longer works, implying that either you use pirated windows at work, or your employer has the right to fire you if you install Linux on your personal devices.

Since the latter is extremely bonkers and, quite frankly, unheard of, assuming the former seems much more reasonable. Especially considering that tons of people do indeed run pirated windows at work, and I myself witnessed as much.

Polar,

Or… Linux can’t run the software and hardware I require for my job? I literally said in the original comment.

I also have my own business. I don’t have a boss.

ugo,

So, again, you are either implying that you run pirated windows on your work machine, or you are saying you can’t install Linux on your work machine. Neither is what this is being discussed. Having a boss is completely irrelevant

Polar,

… I genuinely don’t understand how you jumped to those conclusions. You’re a troll.

InternetUser2012,

What software do you require for your job that you’re a business owner that won’t run on linux? Or are you just a troll?

Polar,

Roland Versa Studio.

Cut Master 4

Affinity Designer

Adobe Illustrator

Do you call everyone a troll that isn’t a Linux fanboy like you?

InternetUser2012,

Nope. I just call trolls trolls. I don’t care what OS you use, I prefer my OS to do what I ask it to do without watching and reporting what I do.

Polar,

How am I a troll? I literally provided you with software I require that Linux can’t run 💀

m0nky,

Lemmy has become a weird place. You’re being downvoted for being 100% correct. I have the same problem, I need Windows to use a similar suite of programs.

Yesterday, I had a similar experience, I was giving information that was 100% correct, and getting downvoted, while the other person was spreading factually false information that fitted the narrative of ‘all companies and non FOSS bad’, and guess which side the community supported.

Might be time to just go back to Reddit if the lemmy community is just going to actively support and reinforce anything that fits the hivemind narrative that is appearing regardless of truth.

AlmightyTritan,

I mean if you’re already using a Windows machine for work you’re not gonna have to switch.

I imagine unless you’re self employed, you are probably given a machine to work on with a predefined operating system picked by your employer. If someone is in a place where they’re forced to use windows and the employer is making them pay for this equipment and software out of pocket, then that’s wicked scummy of the employer.

I’m just saying this cause I imagine the original comment your replying to has some implicit context of “when possible” or “on my own machine”.

Also it’s a bummer your software doesn’t work on Linux, nothing worse than being locked into a platform.

SatyrSack,

I imagine unless you’re self employed, you are probably given a machine to work on with a predefined operating system picked by your employer.

And it’s all managed by the IT department. I use Linux on all my personal devices, but on my work computer, I don’t deal with ads, bloatware, or most other things that people complain about Windows because IT took care of that already through group policy and whatnot.

ugo,

My IT department likes to install antivirus software that makes it impossible to do your job because it will scan every compiled object file, inflating compilation times by an order of magnitude, even for distributed compilation jobs.

Or stupid “workspace management” software that will randomly uninstall work-related software and / or reboot your machine whenever it pleases.

Luckily I can use Linux at work, otherwise I’d have to either quit or tamper with my work machine to do my job.

And yes, the IT department knows. But they are always “understaffed” to fix stuff. Curiously, they are never understaffed to roll out new stuff that doesn’t work though.

merthyr1831,

I’m hoping you don’t use your work laptop for personal use 👀👀

mr_MADAFAKA,
@mr_MADAFAKA@lemmy.ml avatar

Good thing i switched to linux

DreadPotato, (edited )
@DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz avatar

I recently tried ubuntu on my laptop, every time i brought it back from sleep/hibernation my touchpad wasn’t working and i had to reboot. It’s been a few years since i used it last, i was expecting significantly better stability than that…

hemko,

I also had similar issue, after disabling track pad in bios it stopped working.

CeeBee,

There’s sometimes the odd little issue here and there with things like touchpads. The issue is that device manufacturers keep their device drivers closed sourced, and have zero interest in contributing to things like Linux. So it’s up to open source devs to develop their own drivers.

Sometimes there’s a bug or two, especially in things like laptops. If you’re using Ubuntu, you’re on an older kernel. The bug may have already been fixed but not made into Ubuntu yet.

I bet if you tried out something newer like OpenSUSE Tumbleweed or an Arch based (like EndeavourOS, I recommend it) you might find the issue gone.

DreadPotato,
@DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz avatar

It’s a 9 year old laptop, so things really should be ironed out on the HW side IMO. It didn’t have issues last i used ubuntu, think it was 18.04 i used back then.

CeeBee,

Regressions happen. One bugfix might introduce a new bug, or interfere with an old one.

Code is incredibly complex and pulling on one string can unravel another.

Polar,

How do you know if someone runs Linux? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.

Appoxo,
@Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

How do you know someone participates in pirating?
Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.

redcalcium,

I also use linux btw

mister_newbie,

btw™ is owned and operated by the Arch gang.
All rights reserved.

SkyeStarfall,

Good. Free and Open Source Software should be the standard.

Hopefully I don’t need to point you towards the endless list of enshittification for why.

ZeroEcks,

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.

giddy,
@giddy@aussie.zone avatar

what is MAS?

Blizzard,

Microsoft Activation Scripts

EDIT: github.com/…/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts

MyFairJulia,
@MyFairJulia@lemmy.world avatar

How did Microsoft not crush this project already?

ratman150,
IzzyData,
@IzzyData@lemmy.ml avatar

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.

raven,

I think they were for a number of reasons tactically “not fixing” this “bug” up to this point.

Microsoft has always been something of a free nagware business model, like WinRAR.

IzzyData,
@IzzyData@lemmy.ml avatar

I’ve managed to never pay for Windows my whole life despite using legitimate copies since Windows XP. I guess I probably paid for XP through the hardware OEM, but I got Vista from University and then Win 7 and Microsoft has somehow let me upgrade that version all the way to Win 11. 😅

But if I ever actually had to pay for it I’d likely just switch to Linux forever.

CalcProgrammer1,
@CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml avatar

Do it!

Okalaydokalay,

It’s absolutely bonkers for Microsoft to even consider that paying $99 or $199 for their ad ridden software is fair and reasonable. If you’re going to bombard me with ads, the shit better be free. You can’t have it both ways. Ads are riddled in the OS whether it be in the Start Menu, notifications area, File Explorer, Microsoft Edge, and even other paid products like Microsoft Office.

It’s so fucking frustrating seeing shit like Candy Crush being forcefully installed onto a system you paid for, especially when it’s supposed to be the “Pro/Enterprise” tier. Windows is a fucking joke and they deserved to have people using this exploit to get “free” activated copies of their OS.

Hopefully this is just another thing that pushes people to other OSes, whether that be Linux or macOS. Just get the hell away from Microsoft and take some of that monopoly power from under them little by little.

Zoidsberg,
@Zoidsberg@lemmy.ca avatar

You can’t have it both ways.

I get what you’re saying, and I agree with you, but I think they’ve proven that they absolutely can have it both ways. 99% of people just don’t care.

Okalaydokalay,

Yeah, maybe my phrasing should have been “you should not be able to have it both ways”.

Jtskywalker,

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.

joemo,

If you pay for something, you shouldn’t see ads. Ads should support free (or eh even cheaper) tiers. Fix your monetization strategy.

Auli,

Nope maximum revenue per user. Always leads to ads since it is free money. Even Apple is moving this way and wants tomincrease their ad business.

Drbreen,

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

theolodger,

Powertoys!

Drbreen,

Yep! And pin to taskbar!

ALostInquirer,

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.

thesmart1,

Doesn’t MS lose $ on Xbox hardware so ads and software is the only way to make up that revenue

ALostInquirer,

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.

Andi,
@Andi@feddit.uk avatar

Install as “English (World)” and all adverts and additional software is missed, as it doesn’t know your region, therefore doesn’t know what to serve.

If you need the Windows Store, you can change the region post install, and it’ll remain clean and the store will then populate.

NateSwift,

—-I haven’t used windows in a while, but for curiosity’s sake what are the best ways for registering windows now?—-

edit: i’m bad at reading, muses the relevant line

faede,

I’m so happy now that I’ve finally fully migrated to linux.

OverfedRaccoon,

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.

samson,

I’m still a Fedora guy, started on Ubuntu years ago, tried arch (loved AUR) and all the Ubuntu derivatives but once I hit fedora it just stuck.

sollerona,

i want to switch but acer laptops man

samson,

What’s up W it?

sollerona,

i tried installing linux there. doesn’t work. apparently needs a bootable device

OverfedRaccoon,

I made the mistake of fucking around and finding out with the AUR on Manjaro (before all the major drama). Broke it - though, it did make it 2 years beforehand, amazingly. But yeah, totally about Fedora. Fedora made me stop distrohopping.

Draghetta,

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.

OverfedRaccoon,

Cool deal. Thanks. It was just a convenient time, as I got a new SSD. So I could either clone the old drive or try something new, so I just decided to give Tumbleweed an honest go. I ended up liking it. But Fedora was truly the OS that finally got me to stop hopping every so often. I’d definitely be down to revisit at some point.

CeeBee,

you mean the centos drama?

I think they mean the recent issue with RHEL source code being closed up. It’s more of a principle thing for most people.

Draghetta,

That is not a thing. No part of rhel is closed up: subscribers can still download the source rpms, and the sources themselves are still the same as upstream. Every change they make to the sources is still pushed upstream for everybody to use.

What is broken is automated rebuilds, and if people have a principle problem because they think libre stuff should necessarily be gratis I think they have the wrong principles.

Regardless of that, the rage bait narrative that red hat is “closing down sources” is that, rage bait.

ian,

RedHat still pushes their changes upstream whenever possible, and is one of the largest OSS contributors. These changes were to make it harder for companies like Oracle who feed off of RHEL. The same reason you can’t view RH support docs any more, Oracle used to reply to their paid users (running RHEL clones) with copy/paste from the RH docs.

faede,

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.

OverfedRaccoon,

Glad you’re enjoying it. I haven’t messed with Endevour much myself, as Arch-based stuff is a little more hands on than I want to be, personally, most of the time. I think the switch to Linux is easier than a lot of people think. It really just takes some patience, knowing that it’ll be an adjustment, and accepting that you’ll need to find alternatives to some apps.

Album,
@Album@lemmy.ca avatar

RIP. We hardly knew ye.

lickmysword,

RIP HWID

FuckyWucky,

enshittification continues. windows activation is such an annoyance more than anything. one part change and your activation is gone.

astraeus,
@astraeus@programming.dev avatar

This is why I’m very happy with Valve’s efforts to port Windows functionality to Linux/GNU kernel. The clock is ticking for my main desktop to become a Linux desktop, my only holdouts are games and some of my music production plugins. I could probably abandon some if I had to honestly.

OverfedRaccoon,

People have been saying “the year of the Linux desktop” for 20 years now. I definitely think it’s closer than ever now that gaming (aside from some anticheat stuff) is mostly there thanks to Valve putting in the work, for sure. Once Win 10 hits EOL, this being the last Windows holdout I have, it’ll get Linux like the rest of them.

HRYDJPCHNMNDGBLTFIYA,

It’s definitely the year for me! I’m able to pirate Windows and Linux games alike. Just need to buy an AMD GPU to lock in my choice.

ugo,

I don’t know, I’ve been using Linux for the better part of 15 years now, on my desktop, so for me it’s been the year of the Linux desktop for a while.

Sure, there are some issues here and there, but far, far fewer than in windows. Even 10 years ago.

JackGreenEarth,

I only use Windows to test weird OS specific python bugs, but in a VM.

Melody,
@Melody@lemmy.one avatar

More major software developers should be doing this and porting everything to Linux as fast as they can. Microsoft is getting greedy these days; and pretty soon we will find ourselves in a world where too many users can’t and won’t afford Windows anymore.

astraeus,
@astraeus@programming.dev avatar

It’s like people are beginning to realize they shouldn’t have to pay for an operating system just so they can use their hardware

r00ty,
@r00ty@kbin.life avatar

Tell you a weird thing. I activated with a £5 Windows 7 ultimate OEM key on my old system. I upgraded from Intel 9th gen to AMD ryzen 7 (AM5), new mobo, ram, CPU.

Still enabled and active. I fully expected to need to activate again.

SeducingCamel,

I’m still running the same windows 7 license that I put on the PC I built almost 10 years ago, I’ve changed mobos at least 3 times as well as every other component

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • random
  • uselessserver093
  • Food
  • aaaaaaacccccccce
  • [email protected]
  • test
  • CafeMeta
  • testmag
  • MUD
  • RhythmGameZone
  • RSS
  • dabs
  • Socialism
  • KbinCafe
  • TheResearchGuardian
  • oklahoma
  • feritale
  • SuperSentai
  • KamenRider
  • All magazines