This seems to be the best working method to activate either Microsoft Windows Vista Business or Vista Enterprise. Please note that the following method won’t be working with other editions of Windows Vista because it was purely implemented to make it easier for large companies to activate a large numbers of operating systems. I would also like to point out that I’m merely describing how it can be done - it is still illegal to activate Windows Vista this way.
Microsoft Windows Vista Volume Activation 2.0 is a new service for companies that offers them the ability to run a KMS (Key Management Service) to handle the activation of a large number of computers at once. It was only a matter of time until someone took advantage of this method to “crack” this service and offer a standalone VMWare solution. What this means is that you have to options to activate Windows Vista for 180 days.
The first would be to find a public KMS server on the internet and activate your Vista edition using the following instructions:
- You need to login using the admin account to perform the following steps.
- Deactivate the Windows Firewall
- Hit Windows+R and enter cmd
- type the following lines and hit enter after each line
- slmgr.vbs -ipk “Enter Vista serial here without “” of course”
- slmgr.vbs -skms “IP of public kms server, again without “” please”
- wait for notification
- slmgr.vbs -ato
- wait for notification
- If the server was available Vista should now be activated for 180 days and has to be re-activated after that period
The second method would mean that you would have to download the hacked VMWare image of the KMS server and run it on your own computer. If you are using this method the IP of the KMS server would be of course 127.0.0.1 - everything else would remain as is.
