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 If you’re still using outdated activation methods and you missed out on this, I’m sorry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.
deleted by creator
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.
If you pay for something, you shouldn’t see ads. Ads should support free (or eh even cheaper) tiers. Fix your monetization strategy.
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.
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
Powertoys!
Yep! And pin to taskbar!
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.
deleted by creator
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
i want to switch but acer laptops man
What’s up W it?
i tried installing linux there. doesn’t work. apparently needs a bootable device
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.
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.
I always thought microsoft allowing HWID activation was a deliberate move to get as many people to use windows and got them enrolled into windows updates, which bolster their market share and allow them to push ads/promotion for their various services to windows start menu. I think microsoft got a lot more to lose from ending HWID activation.
Great time to switch to Linux
Ya! And then just quit my job, since none of it runs on Linux.
Probably shouldn’t be running pirated windows at work…
I don’t? Are you assuming because I clicked a random post I saw on the active tab that I run pirated Windows?
deleted by creator
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.
deleted by creator
… I genuinely don’t understand how you jumped to those conclusions. You’re a troll.
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?
Roland Versa Studio.
Cut Master 4
Affinity Designer
Adobe Illustrator
Do you call everyone a troll that isn’t a Linux fanboy like you?
I’m hoping you don’t use your work laptop for personal use 👀👀
Good thing i switched to linux
How do you know if someone runs Linux? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
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.
How do you know someone participates in pirating?
Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.I also use linux btw
btw™ is owned and operated by the Arch gang.
All rights reserved.
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…
Consider trying others as well. Fedora or openSUSE Tumbleweed may fix the issues Ubuntu had.
You’d think they had hardware support for a 9 year old laptop done by now…
That’s fair. The differences are still possible though
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.
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.
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.
I also had similar issue, after disabling track pad in bios it stopped working.
enshittification continues. windows activation is such an annoyance more than anything. one part change and your activation is gone.
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.
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.
deleted by creator
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.
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.
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
I only use Windows to test weird OS specific python bugs, but in a VM.
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.
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
I guess Microsoft didn’t like that their support staff cracks Windows with HWID activation using MAS when their infrastructure breaks down for legit licenses.
K38 still works. But yeah just switch to Linux.
Sorry for possibly a stupid question, but what’s the point of activating Windows?
I never seriously used Windows, but I have a Windows 7 VM that’s not activated, and it works. Just the wallpaper is black. Also most of our school computers don’t have activated Windows, yet it seems to work fine, there’s just the watermark. And on some it shows the “You may be the victim of…” message. Same seems to be the case for Office 2016 installed on those. Other than the “non-genuine” message, it works.I guess it’s just a personal thing. I personally cannot stand the “Please Activate Windows” watermark and MAS is such an easy tool that it just makes sense to do it. It’s not like this announcement kills MAS, you can still use the other activation methods
this is even more funny since there are apps that literally target this shit and remove it. Its unregistered, and the watermarks are removed, allowing you to forget the existance you are in. (disclaimer: I didn’t do W11, but I doubt they were that good at their job)
In Windows 11 they lock down the customization/personalization options, but you can get around that with some registry edits regardless. So I guess it’s pretty straightforward to build a third party tool that replaces the internal customizer.
But… MAS was so nice and easy.
deleted by creator
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
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!
RIP HWID
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.
Microsoft is stupid, someone high up is getting greedy or desperate.
Patching HWID is annoying and doesn’t stop piracy. In fact it will break a lot of legacy systems in general; which is probably what they intended and why they are guilty of corporate greed in this case.
I hate Micro$hit but I am REQUIRED to use Windows by too many stupid fucking different idiots, apps, and games to count. Linux is still not there yet for me usability-wise; though it probably is still improving.
No; I will never accept that CLI is an acceptable end-user implementation; GUI is required; along with ease of use and the polish that comes with it. I don’t mind CLI interfaces; but I do feel they’re not user-friendly enough usually. They REQUIRE YOU to LEARN a few things to get used to them; which is the opposite of an intuitive interface.
NOTE: I am very FLOSS accepting when it meets my needs; but I will not hold back criticism. Do not try to shout me down. You will always be wrong. Windows is factually more user-friendly and application compatibility diverse than Linux.
I genuinely hope that Linux finds more ways to 100% match Windows functionally without forcing the user to compromise. We need to punish Microsoft for all these years of monopoly holding and reclaim computing more effectively.
There have been Linux distros that cover 100% of Windows functionality without the need to use CLI (and even add more functionality) for years. I think the only possible way to have problems is with Wayland and NVIDIA. Usability has never been the problem: the problem is that Windows is the industry standard, so most applications and games are developed for it, most workplaces use it, all computers come with it pre-installed…
I will never accept that CLI is an acceptable end-user implementation
This is a very terrible stance. Anytime you type something into a search engine it’s basically like a command-line. Computers used to only be terminals and users were just fine with it then.
Literally every OS (including Windows) has some things that can only be done in a command window. How about each having their appropriate uses and we use the best tool for a task?
I don’t think they mean that everything should have a GUI, but everything that a regular user is expected to do. I still haven’t been able to figure out how to create a .7z file in Linux without using the CLI, and that’s a pretty normal thing to want to do I feel
If you’re on KDE then Ark can do it for you. I do it all the time.
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?