- Once a system is activated, this activation cannot be removed because the license is stored in the Microsoft servers and not in the user's system. MS checks the hardware ID (HWID) and if a license is found in their database, the system will automatically activate. This is how official digital license works.
- Any significant changes in the Hardware (such as a motherboard) may deactivate the system. It is possible to reactivate a system that was deactivated because of significant hardware changes, IF your activation, was linked to an online Microsoft account.
- For activation to succeed, internet connectivity must be enabled. If you are trying to activate without these conditions being met, then the system will auto-activate later when the conditions are met.
- The system will NOT auto-activate if VL (Business) media was used for the installation. In this case, the user will have to insert that windows edition Retail/OEM key (find keys below on this page) to activate, if the user doesn't wish to activate again using this script.
- In the official upgrade process from Windows 7 to Windows 10, Microsoft provided an HWID (digital license) activation for Windows 10 without any cost.
- In the background, the upgrade process runs a file named gatherosstate.exe (available in Windows 10/11 ISO) and it checks the license of current Windows if found activated, it generates a valid GenuineTicket.xml **ticket** which is sent to Microsoft and in return, MS authorizes a license.
- So if we just convince the gatherosstate.exe file that the conditions are met for ticket generation by fooling it, it will generate a valid ticket, which can be used to get the valid HWID (Digital license).
gatherosstate.exe uses the system\'s `C:\Windows\System32\slc.dll` file to gather the system\'s info. If we place a custom slc.dll file beside gatherosstate.exe which can send the rubbish data to it, then it will simply accept it and generate a valid ticket.\
**2-** [Modify](https://github.com/asdcorp/GamersOsState) the gatherosstate.exe file itself so that it doesn\'t check the system\'s activation status and can directly create a valid ticket.
- Microsoft [made](https://devicepartner.microsoft.com/en-us/communications/comm-windows-ends-installation-path-for-free-windows-7-8-upgrade) server side changes to to block the free upgrade and with that server side change, this method stopped working. To be clear, only new activation requests coming from new hardware was blocked, already established HWID are fine.
- When Microsoft stopped the free upgrade, it started requiring Genuine valid key in ticket to authorize a digital license. In the new method we used only the Installation ID of a genuine, valid key. This gets accepted by the server and allows us to get a digital license for free. Check manual activation process in below section to know how to make working universal tickets.
- Revoking the license would be too extreme and will face many complications and risk of voiding valid licenses. However they can block the new activation requests for new hardware coming from the methods mentioned here.
- ServerRdsh edition does not [officially](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/windows-10-multisession-faq) support activation on non-azure systems.
- You can not remove it, same as you can not remove official Windows digital (HWID) license. Once a system is activated, this activation cannot be removed because the license is stored in the Microsoft servers and not in the user's system. MS checks the hardware ID (HWID) and if a license is found in their database, the system will automatically activate.
In this process we will perform activation from scratch. This is based on Universal ticket method. Here we will create identical tickets which are used in MAS HWID script and activate the system with it.
- Copy the below code all at once and enter it in PowerShell to modify the `gatherosstate.exe` file. This code to modify the file is based on [GamersOsState](https://github.com/asdcorp/GamersOsState).
- If the system is already activated then created ticket will be a Lockbox ticket and if not then it will be a Downlevel ticket.
- To make the exact ticket used in MAS HWID script, make sure system is already activated and fix the time with below Powershell command and then initiate the ticket generation process as per above mentioned steps.\
