Windows Vista Now?

noel · Post by **noel** » December 16, 2006, 2:41 pm

Is there any way (short of me signing up for Techweb) to get a legit copy of Windows Vista Enterprise (RTM) now?

I'm currently running RC2, but I'd like to install the Release version. If anyone knows a legal way to accomplish this, I'd appreciate it.

Even if it only works until release, that's fine.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 16, 2006, 6:34 pm

Nothing legit but you may be able to use the retail Enterprise Edition out on the newsgroups along with the KMS server that activates it and then plug in a legit product key once you get it.

The windows local activation server is ~3GB itself.

Sketchy and a major pain in the ass at best:

unlike windows xp and volume activation 1.0 windows vista doesnt have any corporate
keys which will permanently activate it. volume activation 2.0 requires a corporate
user to either do a one time activation through microsoft servers (mak) or companies
can host a local activation server which does not talk to microsoft (kms). the only
difference is kms requires re-activation once every 180 days. however as long as
theres a local kms server its simple to keep windows activated. this release is a
vmware image of a permanently activated kms server which allows local activation of
windows vista business/enterprise edition. volume activation 2.0 is only built into
those two editions.

install vista business/enterprise edition with the key YFKBB-PQJJV-G996G-VWGXY-2V3X8.

using the latest vmware workstation, boot the image. disable vmware firewall.

on the non vm vista right click the command prompt icon and run as admin. type ...

cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -skms vm_vista_ip

cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -ato

windows should now be activated.

to check activation status type ...

cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -dlv

tested using echos windows vista enterprise and vmware workstation 5.5.3 but seems to
have issues with the billgates windows vista business.

Even if you have the beta Vista Ultimate Edition that's good through March with updates, you'd still need a fresh install once the final is released.

noel · Post by **noel** » December 16, 2006, 7:17 pm

Yeah, I'm currently DLing that and plan on installing it when it gets done.

Thanks.

Post by **Xouqoa** » December 18, 2006, 10:00 pm

I'm running Windows Vista Ultimate, (RTM 6000) in trial mode. It expires December 31, 2099.

I'm going to go ahead and get a key once it is available, but I needed to format and didn't want to wait until Jan. 30 to put my new hard drives (SATA2 whee) into my machine.

It's very easy to do, I can post the instructions if anybody is interested.

Post by **pyrella** » December 18, 2006, 10:16 pm

In regards to the 'legit' way - we have it and office 2k7 through our Volume License Program with MS at work.

But otherwise, yeah - only ways around it are through chicanery!

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » December 19, 2006, 7:16 am

Xouqoa wrote:It's very easy to do, I can post the instructions if anybody is interested.

Sure. Just for educational purposes, of course.

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » December 19, 2006, 8:42 am

I have a legit copy of Vista but am not running it currently sadly. Had what I thought were driver issues but it turns out it was a dying video card.

The only way to get a legit copy of Vista is through Volume Licensing.

Hardware makers (Dell/HP's) will probably start selling systems pre-loaded with Vista before the Jan 30th launch date but who wants to buy hardware when you don't need it.

I'll probably re-install it when I buy a new Video Card(Leaning towards ATI instead of Nvidia this time around).

Post by **Xouqoa** » December 19, 2006, 3:27 pm

Aslanna wrote:
Xouqoa wrote:It's very easy to do, I can post the instructions if anybody is interested.
Sure. Just for educational purposes, of course.

1) Disable any sort of internet connection you might have.
2) Turn on PC and set BIOS date to 12/31/2099
3) Save and exit BIOS, install vista. Leave the product key textbox blank and uncheck the "Automatically active Windows when I'm online" box.
4) When Windows shows the time settings when you're setting it up, do not change anything (not even the time zone), just click Next and finish. Let Windows test your system performance.
5) After install is done, log in. Click on the time on your taskbar and click the change date and time settings link, go to Internet Time tab, hit the "change settings" button and uncheck the "Synchronize with an internet time server" checkbox. Turn the date back to today and set your time zone.
6) Plug in internet connection and download updates as necessary.
7) Now your trial period will last until the year 2099. You can't activate windows, but WGA works and you can get updates just fine. This also works for Windows XP, apparently.

I think this only works for the Build 6000 x86 version of Vista, though.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 29, 2006, 5:02 am

I started a Xou clock hack Vista install. I'm wondering if beginning this at 1am on a work night was a good idea!

I had a pretty fresh install of XP that I started from scratch last week when I upgraded to the E6600. Upgrading seems to be working so far. My bios wouldn't take 2099 so I'm trying 2050.

Since Remote desktop works between Vista and XP, I figured I'd give it a shot this way until I can get a legit key next month.

Edit: wow that was a smooth upgrade. took 40 minutes from start to seeing my original dual monitor wallpaper pop up along with everything else in Vista Ultimate. That's the first Windows OS install I've ever had that didn't require any resets for mouse speed, audio, etc.

Knowing my new DS3 MB had a working Vista bios already didn't hurt.

For those with nVidia cards (except for the 8800s), the 97.52 Forceware Vista drivers released Dec 23rd seem to work ok:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1541

Another edit!: Remote Desktop from XP to Vista works great. It actually seems snappier than XP --> XP

I'm using an older RDC version than the 6.0 recently released by Microsoft as I have no control over that stuff at work.

edit 3:

I've been extremely impressed so far with the Vista upgrade. Everything's running smooth as silk. One note for comic nerds - the new file manager recognizes cbr and cbz formats and displays the first image as the icon/thumbnail in the browser. nice!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 2, 2007, 3:14 pm

I'm going to stop with the edits above and say it. Vista is a great OS.

I didn't lose a step after the XP-->Vista upgrade. There's no single major thing to point out. It's all the little improvements that just work that make this OS nice.

Caveats before upgrading:

Make sure you have a decent computer before upgrading. I've noticed zero slowdown and in fact, the whole OS seems faster to me than XP. That said, I'm running it on a recently upgraded system so am probably a little blinded in that regard concerning both performance and lack of upgrade issues.

My suggested minimum requirements (or I'd suggest waiting):

-Don't bother unless you have 2GB of memory

-Hard drive performance does make a difference. Get a decent HD (Seagate's speedy 320GB 7200.10 hard drives are under 100.00)

-Now's the time to go dual core if you haven't. If on a budget, just get the cheapest Intel Core Duo you can find.

-If budget, have at least a PCI-E nVidia 7600xx card. If you don't, maybe wait to upgrade to Vista until you can get a cheaper version of the 8800 DX10 cards in a few months so you're ready to play the games being released in 2007 that will take advantage of them.

I'd call Vista a successful failure. Failing because it took forever for it to be released but a nice upgrade that should have been here a year or more ago.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » January 2, 2007, 8:28 pm

The more I read about how DRM infested Vista is, the less I'm interested in it.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 2, 2007, 8:43 pm

Zaelath wrote:The more I read about how DRM infested Vista is, the less I'm interested in it.

DRM only affects the playback of next-generation DVDs (if it's ever turned on)

Way over hyped IMO.

Hesten · Post by **Hesten** » January 2, 2007, 8:49 pm

Winnow wrote:
Zaelath wrote:The more I read about how DRM infested Vista is, the less I'm interested in it.
DRM only affects the playback of next-generation DVDs (if it's ever turned on)

Way over hyped IMO.

I hope you are right, personally i wont touch Vista with 9 foot long pole before the first service patch.
But what this guy reports dont exactly sounds promising, i hope its wrong. But take a look at this article, pretty frightening really.http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/p ... a_cost.txt

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 2, 2007, 9:23 pm

None of that seems to impact my day to day use of Vista at all.

The OS is rock solid for me and speedy. I wouldn't want to go back to Xp.

There's no real need to upgrade though if you'rehappy.

Niffoni · Post by **Niffoni** » January 2, 2007, 9:42 pm

I'm happy with my gaming-level single-core CPU and WinXP for now. I'll be upgrading to Vista in a year or so when there are a few DX10 games worth my money. Probably do a full upgrade then.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 4, 2007, 12:12 am

I took a screenshot of the new Vista scoring system which is supposed to tell you how your computer will perform in the Vista environment. If an Intel duo core E6600 OC/d to 3GHz is my weakest score, I guess I'm in good shape.

The hard drive is one of the 7200.10 Seagate 320GB. I'm curious to see some scores of anyone with a Raptor drive or someone with a non 7200.10 drive to see what the variance is in the HD score. My graphics card is a 7800GT w/256mb so I'm curious to see what a 8800 would score as well.

According to the sidebar in the picture, 4-5 is a high rating and system that can handle everything in Vista. It looks like a 3 would struggle with HD material and higher resolutions so shooting for at least a 4 would be a good idea if planning to upgrade.

noel · Post by **noel** » January 5, 2007, 1:15 am

According to a blog from one of the developers on the MS site, the highest you can currently score in any given category is 5.9. Bear in mind, this could be slightly stale information and could be based on an earlier release, but I don't think it's changed.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 5, 2007, 12:27 pm

noel wrote:According to a blog from one of the developers on the MS site, the highest you can currently score in any given category is 5.9. Bear in mind, this could be slightly stale information and could be based on an earlier release, but I don't think it's changed.

That points to overkill in the graphics department if a 7800GT is maxing the score. Although, you'll still need to upgrade the graphics to take advantage of DX10. I was checking out the 8800GTX's on Newegg and they're down to 559.00 with rebate. (better than the same card for 649.00 at Frys) 499.00 is my target price for that card along with when stable drivers are available for Vista which aren't even out yet. I'm not going to get any help from ATi as their R600 is delayed until March so no need for nVidia to drop prices much.

I cranked the E6600 up to 3.18GHz (353 FSB) which raised my CPU score from 5.6 to 5.7 but my memory is still 5.6. I could tighten up the timings on it as I went with the looser 5-5-5-15 timings to make things easier. The memory I have is 4-4-4-12 though and could probably handle 3GHz @333 FSB. I don't want to be right on the edge though and have any chance of crashes. Besides, my current OC is 777MHz so God is on my side with this overclock. Halaluya and all of that. 2.4GHz --> 3.18GHz

I have simple instructions for anyone getting a duo core for OC'ing if needed. (simple as long as you're familiar with OC'ing or at least familiar with messing around in the bios)

noel · Post by **noel** » January 5, 2007, 1:01 pm

I too have a price alert on the 8800GTX. When it drops below $500, I'm buying it.

Truth be told, I'm surprised you're getting 5.9 with a 7800GT. I've got the same card, and I don't believe I'm getting 5.9 (still need to reinstall Vista, but kind of waiting until it's released at the end of the month). Mine's a BFGTech that hasn't been OCed. Is yours OCed?

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 5, 2007, 1:15 pm

noel wrote: Truth be told, I'm surprised you're getting 5.9 with a 7800GT. I've got the same card, and I don't believe I'm getting 5.9 (still need to reinstall Vista, but kind of waiting until it's released at the end of the month). Mine's a BFGTech that hasn't been OCed. Is yours OCed?

This was the line from my Newegg order: (Dec 2005)

eVGA 256-P2-N516 Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

Can't see the specs from work but I'm pretty sure it was pre-OC'd by eVGA. I haven't OC'd it myself.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 5, 2007, 5:12 pm

In order to further solidify its positions of the market of high-performance microprocessors and popularize quad-core chips, Intel Corp. will sell its highly-anticipated central processing units (CPUs) with four processing engines at significantly lower price-points than it so far has been expected.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor, which is expected to be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in several days, will cost $531 in 1000-unit quantities, not $850 as previously anticipated, several media reports claim. Its price point will make the quad-core processor just $1 more expensive compared to the current price of Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 chip, which has a bit higher clock-speed.

Nice nice. Should be able to get a ~$2xx Quad Core to pop into your existing duo core system by the end of 2007. (if you looked ahead and got a MB that supports the quad)

BTW, I love the new Intel chips but their naming schemes are uber gay.

Midgen · Post by **Midgen** » January 6, 2007, 3:15 am

I've been using Vista Ultimate since RC1 and have had no serious issues that weren't fixed with the final release.

I've been using it mainly for web browsing, chat, email, and as a media center, both locally and viewing remotely from the 360. All with no issues.

DRM hasn't had any noticeable impact to me.. yet... Then again, I havn't had to 're-activate' because of a hardware change either.. yet...

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 14, 2007, 8:42 am

I place the Vista sidebar on my second monitor along with a desktop launch app called Rocketdock and my bandwidth meter.

The sidebar definately isn't crucial to the Vista OS but it does show some promise. I like one of the gadgets I grabbed called "Eye on the Web" which keeps an eye on a small window of a webpage. You can see in the screenshot that I've got it set to watch the upper left corner of CNN so I can see the latest pic/headline. Pretty cool stuff.

Rocketdock can also be used on XP. I normally steer away from these kind of apps but this one is very stable and memory efficient. It's also highly customizable. One cool "docklet" you can add to it is controlling iTunes. The little bar icon shows the album cover of the song being played and you can right click on it to control volume, forward/back, timers, playlists, etc without having to go into iTunes. Very slick.

Here's a You Tube video of Rocketdock:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2rfPKEiiro&eurl=

The live icons are only available on Vista I think. Pretty cool as if you make the Rocketdock bar large enough you can watch video on it with audio and pop it up if something interesting comes up.

Worth checking out. It's stable and free and uninstalls easy. The designers put a lot of thought into it. Easy to use and move around the screen, add items and resize things.

Can get Rocketdock here:

http://www.punksoftware.com/

and the iTunes docklet here:

http://wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?S ... comments=1

helpful forums here:

http://forums.punksoftware.com/

As for somethign I don't use but is cool. The 3D Alt-Tab app switching feature is nifty. It continues to show live video (such as the video that was playing on the You Tube page) while in the switch mode. I've never been an Alt-Tab type user so I never see this normally. Some people will like it though.