Welcome to the activation repo. This will have some info on Windows 10
activation methods and related stuff. Start below.
Preliminary info:
- TBV means "To Be Verified" and is a placeholder for when I don't have time to verify something at the time of writing.
- In some places the words "licensing" and "activation" might be used interchangeably. This is incorrect but try your best to ignore it if you really care or actually know the difference.
Most of the things I will be writing about here are about Windows 10 activators. All of the work I've been involved with had to do with Windows 10 activators. Nothing about Office, 8, 8.1, 7, Vista, XP or anything else so don't expect me to write anything correctly about those things.
This is not a guide for purchasing Windows either. Licensing is described mainly in terms of product keys (more on them in due time) associated with its types and not meant as an article on "the nuances of volume licensing". That would be boring.
Windows has seen a lot of activators in its time. Instead of fixing the problem once and for all Microsoft went for uninventing the wheel with Windows 10 and made fraudulent activation as easy as possible. (As to why they did it, the reason is likely very simple - they want you to keep using Windows. That's it.)
Windows 10 was, for a time, offered to everyone as a free upgrade from Windows 7, 8 and 8.1. This meant everyone who had an activated copy of those could (and still technically can) get it free of charge forever.
But first, it might be useful to get a vague understanding of what Windows licensing even looks like in the first place.
Windows has different types of licensing for different types of customers. The most familiar names might be:
- Retail
- OEM
- Volume
Microsoft's Retail customers are treated as royalty, they chose to pay Microsoft for their product directly after all.
The retail license entitles a single user to use Windows on whatever machine they like for as long as they like. If the user so desires, they can move their activation onto a different machine but the limit of simultaneously activated machines is always (in theory) just one.
Original Equipment Manufacturers, through an agreement with Microsoft are able to sell Windows with their hardware. Customers who buy computers with Windows preinstalled will be licensed to use it only on the hardware they bought it with and are not entitled to official Microsoft support.
There are multiple types of keys that will accompany OEM licenses. Those are:
- OEM:SLP (System Locked Pre-installation)
- OEM:NSLP (Non-System Locked Pre-installation)
- OEM:DM (Digital Marker)
The differences between them are pretty extreme but ultimately do not matter that much. In short, SLP keys do not require Microsoft's activation servers to activate - the OEM marks a machine as activated during manufacturing, DM are the "BIOS keys" you might have seen/heard about and NSLPs are for when the OEM doesn't want to bother with activation during manufacturing. In terms more people might understand, NSLP is analogous to COA.
Microsoft's bigger customers that "need" more licenses for more computers can opt in for an easier way to manage and pay their Microsoft overlords for their OS needs. Volume licensing offers two ways to activate Microsoft products: via the internet (or by phone if you're weird) and using KMS servers.
There are three types of keys that will matter for volume licensing. Those are:
- Volume:GVLK (Generic Volume Licensing Key)
- Volume:MAK (Multiple Activation Key)
- Volume:CSVLK (Customer-Specific Volume Licensing Key)
Generic keys are installed on all machines that are to be activated by a KMS server. Those keys are not specific to customers and are not special in any way; in fact, every volume licensing cusomer on the planet uses the same GVLK keys. Because Generic keys are generic, they do not activate the system by themselves; they need a KMS server to do that. The KMS server is "created" by installing a CSVLK key on a machine. This KMS server will grant activation to all its configured Generic-key subordinates that ask for it for a period of 180 days and report your activations to Microsoft so you can pay for them. Basically, very flexible and manageable license management with some setup required.
MAK keys are an alternative to this when you don't need or don't want a KMS server. When paying for a MAK key you are buying a specific amount of activations it can be used for. You can "spend" the key's activations wherever and whenever you like. Very easy to use, requires no setup but could be hard to keep track of.
All this licensing crap surely doesn't mean anything to the regular user, does it? Well.. yeah..
When activating Windows as all normal people do - using an activator - you don't really pay attention to the tricks behind the scenes. You end up with an activated system and that's it. Some more attentive users might notice that during activation there are specific words and incantations thrown around, including (but not limited to) spells like "installing product key", "patching gatherosstate", "generating ticket", "activating Windows", "setting KMS server".
In this repository I will be trying to describe all the activation methods and answer all questions that might arise from hearing those weird incantations above. But first, we need to know what activation methods there even are.
For Windows 10 there are four main types of activation. Those are:
- Emulated KMS activation
- KMS38
- HWID / Digital License
- Buying it legally (lmao)
Generic information about activation processes.
HWID method.