Mar 6, 2007

Paradox vista crack

What's the purpose of this release?
Bypassing the product activation requirement of Microsoft Windows Vista x86.

How does it work?

Microsoft allows large hardware manufacturers (e.g. ASUS, HP, Dell) to ship their products
containing a Windows Vista installation that does NOT require any kind of product activation as
this might be considered an unnecessary inconvenience for the end-user.
Instead these so-called 'Royalty OEMs' are granted the right to embed certain license information
into their hardware products, which can be validated by Windows Vista to make obtaining further
activation information (online or by phone) obsolete.
This mechanism is commonly referred to as 'SLP 2.0' ('system-locked pre-installation 2.0') and
consists of the following three key elements:

1. The OEM's hardware-embedded BIOS ACPI_SLIC information signed by Microsoft.

2. A certificate issued by Microsoft that corresponds to the specific ACPI_SLIC information.

The certificate is an XML file found on the OEM's installation/recovery media,
ususally called something like 'oemname.xrm-ms'.

3. A special type of product key that corresponds to the installed edition of Windows Vista.

This key can usually be obtained from some installation script found on the OEM's
installation/recovery media or directly from a pre-installed OEM system.

If all three elements match Windows Vista's licensing mechansim considers the given
installation a valid system-locked pre-activated copy (that does not require any
additional product activation procedures).

So the basic concept of the tool at hand is to present any given BIOS ACPI_SLIC information to Windows
Vista's licensing mechanism by means of a device driver.
In combination with a matching product key and OEM certificate this allows for rendering any system
practically indistinguishable from a legit pre-activated system shipped by the respective OEM.


How do I use it?


Preliminary hint:
Most operations described below require elevated privileges, so disabling UAC (Run->MSCONFIG.EXE->
Tools->Disable UAC) for the time being is recommended, Of course, it can be safely re-enabled after
all steps have been performed. Otherwise OEMTOOL.EXE and some SLMGR.VBS operations must be explicitly
run with adminstrative privileges.

1. Install the Windows Vista x86 edition of your choice without entering any product key during setup.
Basically any Windows Vista x86 installation media will do, regardless if it's MSDN/Retail/OEM/ETC

2. Install the emulation driver.
INSERT THIS FILE INTO THE C: SO THE FILE IS IN C:.XRM-MS E.G. C:ASUS.XRM-MS" if you chose to install the default driver
Run OEMTOOL.EXE, select the OEM BIOS information to emulate (ASUS might be a good choice given the
fact that it's the only OEM for which a complete set of product keys is provided ) and hit the
'' button.

If prompted about whether to install an unsigned driver, allow it.
(For some odd reason Microsoft didn't wanna sign this one...)

3. Reboot your machine.

4. Install the OEM certificate matching your OEM selection during driver installation by running

SLMGR.VBS -ilc .XRM-MS

(e.g. "SLMGR.VBS -ilc C:ASUS.XRM-MS" if you chose to install the default driver and extracted
the certificate file to C:)

Note that this operation might take quite a while depending on your system, so be patient.

5. Install an OEM product key matching the installed edition of Windows Vista x86 by running

SLMGR.VBS -ipk

(e.g. "SLMGR.VBS -ipk 6F2D7-2PCG6-YQQTB-FWK9V-932CC" if you're running Windows Vista Ultimate using
the default emulation driver)

Note that this operation might take quite a while depending on your system, so be patient.

See PKEYS.TXT for a list of OEM product keys published by different OEMs.

You can get it HERE.