Microsoft: Vista Skiprearm Hack Is Not Functional

You simply cannot teach Windows Vista the Skiprearm trick. This is Microsoft's official position on a hacking method reported for prolonging the activation period of Windows Vista to a potentially indefinite period of time. The Redmond Company has responded to such reports and claimed that the Windows Vista Skiprearm workaround is in fact ineffective.

"The reported workaround utilizes the documented feature skiprearm. Skiprearm is used in combination with sysprep by system builders and IT pros who want to design customized builds of Windows in order to add software, drivers, help files, and other useful information for their customers," revealed Alex Kochis, a senior licensing manager on the Windows Genuine Advantage team.

Skiprearm is in fact meant to be used as one of the final steps of creating a customized build of Windows Vista. Throughout the building process, the Windows Vista 30 days Initial Grace period can be reduced to nothing more than a couple of days, and the operating system might even expire and move into Reduced Functionality Mode. In this regard, Rearm will be used in order to reset the activation grace period to its initial status. Rearm however has a three-times usage limitation.

"Skiprearm is used because during the process of actually testing the image the builder of the image will need to run the sysprep command to reset the image to present the out of box (OOB) experience the next time the OS is started. Running the sysprep command will also run the rearm command by default, this makes sense if sysprep is the last thing done to the image before it is distributed," Kochis added.

The bottom line is that Skiprearm will enable an image builder to run the sysprep command but only in the context of not using any of the three rearms. Following Skiprearm, users will be able to use the rearm command, but this will not extend the grace period timer.

You will be able to verify this by checking the grace period timer via slmgr -dlv.after modifying the reg key on Skiprearm, rearm with slmgr -rearm, reboot and then check the number of grace minutes still valid. The conclusion is that the Windows Vista Skiprearm hack won't extend the activation period of the operating system.