Microsoft glowing over realization that the slmgr activation hack that’s been so popular of late won’t really work. Keep reading →

A while back I wrote about SLMGR, the vbs script used as the Licensing Manager in Vista. I titled that article “SLMGR.vbs, Vista’s Licensing Manager Disguised as a Hack“. Ironically enough, there is now a hack available that replaces SLMGR. Keep reading →

When you run the Slmgr.vbs script on a Key Management Server (KMS) computer, you verify that the number of client computers does not increase when you add new Windows Vista-based client computers to the network. Additionally, you may see the following event in the Key Management Service event log for each new Windows Vista-based client computer that you add to the network:

Log Name: Key Management Service
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Security-Licensing-SLC
Event ID: 12290
Level: Information
Description: An activation request has been processed.
When you run the Slmgr.vbs script together with the –dli argument, the client computer count information does not increase as expected. In the following event that is logged in the Key Management Service event log, the current count remains the same:

Name: Windows(TM) Vista, Enterprise edition
Description: Windows Operating System – Vista, VOLUME_KMS channel
Partial Product Key: XXXXX
License Status: Licensed

Key Management Service is enabled on this machine
Current count: 1
Listening on Port: 1688
DNS Publishing: Enabled
KMS priority: Normal

A previous tip pointed out the SLMGR.vbs script that you can use for license related tasks in Vista. The D’ Technology Weblog points out one of the things you can SLMGR for; extend use of Vista without activation for up to 120 days. Keep reading →

In some of my efforts playing with Vista, I’ve followed instructions that had me typing in commands that started with slmgr.vbs, followed by various switches and information. This seemed strange, why would I be addressing some vbs script when doing very ‘official’ things in Vista? Was I being tricked into running something dangerous that would turn over control of my computer or some such evil? Keep reading →