Extend the Windows 7 Trial from 30 to 120 Days
Did you know that you can install Windows 7 without any license key and use it for 30 days? What you might not know is that you can also extend that trial mode to 120 days, without requiring a key.
The basic way this works is that at the end of the 30 days, you’ll need to run a small command and reboot your computer, at which point you’ll have 30 more days, up to a maximum of 120 days. This trick should work regardless of where you got your copy of Windows 7 from.
Note: make sure to check out our screenshot walkthrough of the Windows 7 Beta if you haven’t already, because Microsoft is giving away beta keys that don’t expire until August 1st.
Extending the Trial By 30 Days
The first thing you’ll want to do is check how many days are left in your trial period. You can do this by right-clicking Computer and choosing Properties…
At the bottom of this window you’ll see how many days are left to activate (29 in my case since I installed this box yesterday).
Now to actually perform the hack that will extend the trial mode, you’ll want to find Command Prompt in the start menu (or search for it), and then right-click on it and choose Run as administrator. (very important)
Next you’ll simply type in this command:
slmgr -rearm
Within a few seconds you’ll normally see this dialog show up, saying that the command has completed successfully, at which point you’ll want to reboot.
Checking the system properties again shows that I now have 30 days left to activate.
Of course you’d normally want to do this near the end, probably on the last day before activation. I’m pretty sure that you can even perform this trick after the 30-day trial expires, although I’m not certain yet.
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This is the exact same trick as for extending the Windows Vista trial period. You can do this after the 30-day period has expired, but if you’ve gotten to the point where it demands you enter a valid product key before logging on, you’ll have to do it from Safe Mode.
This will be helpful for testing out stuff and doing a bunch of reinstalls so you don’t need to activate.
howtogeek, could you at all try and find a link in which we can download windows 7 trial, i missed the 2.5 million download slots
ive looked on torrents but cant find a decent one
@rocky
You can grab it here… they have actually extended it til January 24th with no limit on the number of people.
http://www.microsoft.com/windo.....nload.aspx
@geek
i wasn’t aware of that, thanks alot, its appreciated.
Couldn’t you just completely reset your computer/laptop back to factory settings every 30 days? That’s what I used to do with my laptop in order to continue using trial based software before I found a patch.
Hi, If it’s the same as Vista, you can still rearm after the 30 days have expired and the machine has gone into reduced functionality mode. I seem to remember having to use IE (that it opens on a web page enabling you to purchase a product key) to navigate to C:/Windows/System32 (I think) and launch cmd.exe as admin from there. If you’ve left it any longer than that then it’s as Bob B says and boot into safe mode.
I only wish they had built this into XP (or ate least told us they had) as it was me you were probably shouting down a phone at when your new XP machine demanded to be activated every time a hardware configuration was changed.
Can’t you just disable internet access from the very beginning? That way information is not sent to microsoft. Unless you are dying to try out IE in Windows 7, wont this work?
@Kyle
No, i dont think that will work as when i installed Windows 7 about an hour ago it said 3 days before i need to activate windows, and that was before i installed my wireless driver.
Hi Geek, do you mean that throught this hack, we can actually use the Windows 7 beta until august 1 09?
@dinesh:
No, you still need to get a beta key if you want it to work through then. This is just a general thing that works without using a key, but only for 120 days total.
I ve got a bunch of keys from a site saying it alows 120 days trial. I am posting it here. They say they are microsoft original keys and are legit. Has anyone tried it. Does it work if so let me know would like to install win 7.
4HJRK-X6Q28-HWRFY-WDYHJ-K8HDH
QXV7B-K78W2-QGPR6-9FWH9-KGMM7
My trial was the standard 30 days.
But instead of saying X days to activate It says it is activated… does that mean the trial won’t end?
@Wilfred, The keys you provided do work, at least the first one. Did not have to try the second one.
If those keys allow 120 days trial then extending it 2 times gives full 9 months…
no, it extends to 120 days because you can rearm it twice more giving it an additional 30 days. Try a 3rd time and it will loff and loff at you. (Plus the beta has a built-in expiration date where they expect you to get the RC or full version, the RC comes out tomorrow)
I just executed “slmgr -rarm” on my trial version of Windows 7 Ultimate. It only renewed me to 3 days. Is there a hack that will extend me to one month or more??
@ Jim
You’ve used up one of the 3 rearms
this is a reg hack to enable more rearms tho (i think)
Your supposed to do this at the end of your 30 day trail
will run as date work with that
The W7 compatibility test revealed that my Microsoft Office Keyboard (RT9450) won’t work with W7. MS discontinued support of it back before Vista. For upgrading to Vista us RT9450 addicts (cut, copy, paste, and scroll wheel on the left side) used a work around using French Inteillitype Pro 5.0 driver.
I was hoping MS would offer another free 30-day trial of W7 (upgrade from Vista Ultimate to W7 Ultimate) so that I could install it on a Virtual drive and see if I can get the keyboard to work.
Anyone know of a new 30-day free trial offer?
Thanks,
Kerry
Like Kerry I have been trying to find an evaluation copy of W7 so that I can test it’s claims of running on old hardware and being “smaller”. I also want to run my old apps and do not want to throw more money in the MS direction only to be disappointed. Any suggestions would be welcome.
Thanks,
Nigel.
Ditto with Nigel’s comment. Lots of older hardware here – anyone know of a trial version of Windows 7? I might spring for a new OS, but I’m /not/ spending my hard earned money on new hardware and a new OS when Linux works peachy keen for me.
Thanks for the tip. But where does the 120 day tag in the article title come in?
I’m sorry if this has been asked before, or if it’s a generally stupid question, but after you’ve used up these 120 days of trial period, can you just format the harddrive (Or, SSD in my case), and then do it all over again, or is it bound to your CPU or computer in general?
you can format and reinstall win 7 for another full 30 days.
Yeah, we need a volume license keys that should do the trick for
everyone.
Aside from using the “rearm”(slmgr -rearm
) feature for 3 times = 120 days, there is one more trick that can postpone the Windows 7 activation up to 360 days. Here is what you should do:
1. Type in the “Search Box” > regedit and then go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ SL or instead “SL”, search for “SoftwareProtectionPlatform”;
2. In the right panel change “SkipRearm” value to “1″;
3. From now on will be able to use “slmgr -rearm” for another 8(eight) times. So you’ll have a total of 360 days for using Windows 7 without activating it.
120 days using “slmgr -rearm” (3 times) before editing the registries + 240 days after editing the registries.
Enjoy your 360 days of free of charge Windows 7. More then most of you keeps an OS before re-installing it! Should you consider re-installing after those 360 days you’ll be able to use the same above steps for keeping another 360 days no-activation Windows 7… and so on.
NOTE: This tweak is available for Vista, as
well.
dear peka6
you dont need to format your hard disk just make a clean reinstall.
these are the four step to extend trial of windows 7
sysprep /generalize
slmgr.vbs –rearm
rundll32 slc.dll,SLReArmWindows
slmgr /rearm
i have also trick to extend trial period of OFFICE 2010
How to Rearm Microsoft Office 2010 to Extend Activation Grace Period for Another 30 Days
Go to Control Panel -> Administrator Tools -> Services, or type services.msc in Start Search.
Stop the Office Software Protection service.
Open a Command Prompt with elevated privileges.
Run the OSPPRUN.exe with the following command:
%SystemDrive%:\Windows\System32\OSPPRUN.exe
Where %SystemDrive% is normally C: or other drive letter that Windows is installed on.
A new prompt will come out. Enter the following commands which precede with > one by one, each follows by Enter:
> Initialize
> Open
> GetInstalledSkuIds
Above command will return the following result, where the application ID number 0 represents AppID for Office 2010:
0. 128a057a-7e95-4063-b296-c54c5f3d3f3a
1. 26adec89-edf3-4adc-a3fc-c865f1a9f71f
OK.
> GetInstalledAppIds 128a057a-7e95-4063-b296-c54c5f3d3f3a
Above command will return result similar to below:
0. 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663
OK.
> GetLicensingStatus 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 128a057a-7e95-4063-b296-c54c5f3d3f3a
Above command will return the following output, where dwGraceTime is a DWORD value that holds the grace period before the software will stop working and require activation:
SkuId = 128a057a-7e95-4063-b296-c54c5f3d3f3a
eStatus = SL_LICENSING_STATUS_IN_GRACE_PERIOD
dwGraceTime = 1D 23:37
dwTotalGraceDays = 30 days
hrReason = 4004F00C
qwExpiration = 2010/10/31
OK.
In the same prompt, run the following commands (which basically set AppID and SkuID for Office 2010 to enable free 30 days usage before activation), each follows by Enter, to rearm Microsoft Office 2010 to reset, prolong and extend activation grace period for additional 30 days:
> Rearm 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 128a057a-7e95-4063-b296-c54c5f3d3f3a 1
OK.
Note: Mostly the IDs are the same for similar Office 2010 installation. If your APP ID and/or SKU ID is different, please change accordingly.
> Close
> Initialize
> Open
Note: “Close” command is import to stop the Office Software Protection service (which can also be stopped via Service.msc interface) after rearming and before reinitialize of license data (The activation countdown timer or license requires a service reinitialization or restart to update), or else “Unlicensed” license status with timer at 0 error may occur.
To verify that the Office 2010 rearm is successful, and to check how many days left in activation grace period before activation is required, use the following command, follows by Enter (replace IDs if different):
> GetLicensingStatus 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 128a057a-7e95-4063-b296-c54c5f3d3f3a
SkuId = 128a057a-7e95-4063-b296-c54c5f3d3f3a
eStatus = SL_LICENSING_STATUS_IN_GRACE_PERIOD
dwGraceTime = 29D 23:37
dwTotalGraceDays = 30 days
hrReason = 4004F00C
qwExpiration = 2010/10/31
dwGraceTime will show the remaining time available to use Office 2010 for free without activation.
Quit the OSPPRUN prompt with following command, follows by Enter:
> Quit
Tip 1: To check how many rearms that is remaining, use the following command:
> GetApplicationInformation 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 RemainingRearmCount
(DWORD, []) 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 = 4
OK.
After one rearm of Office 2010, 4 rearms is still possible, to extend the free (evaluation or trial) free usage of Office 2010 to 180 days (6 months or half a year), taking into account the initial 30 days activation free period before first ream is performed.
Tip 2: To check and show how many rearms of Office 2010 have been performed, use the following command:
> GetApplicationInformation 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 RearmCount
(DWORD, []) 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 = 1
OK.
THIS IS HOW YOU COULD GET TOTALLY LEGAL FREEBIES
What 30 days? I got 90 days trial,and when expired,I did this rearm thing and got another 90 days so if its working next 90 days I’ve had 180 days total.
:) And after that I’m gonna try rearm again
Unfortunately I have tried EVERYTHING on this message board and nothing seems to work for me.
I tried the regedit…I tried the posted product keys…nothing works.
I had 9 days left to activate my copy of Windows 7 and after I tried the “slmgr -rarm” it reduced to me to 3 DAYS left!!
I hope somebody posts another solution quickly.