Windows Vista

A community portal about Windows Vista with blogs, videos, and photos. According to Wikipedia.org: Windows Vista is the name of the latest release of Microsoft Windows, a line of graphical operating systems used on personal computers, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers. Prior to its announcement on July 22, 2005, Vista was known by its codename Longhorn. On November 8, 2006, Windows Vista development was completed and is now in the release to manufacturing stage. Some editions were available to volume license customers, MSDN and TechNet subscribers through November 2006; Microsoft has stated that the scheduled release date for worldwide availability is January 30, 2007. These release dates come more than five years after the release of its predecessor, Windows XP, making it the longest time span between major releases of Windows.

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How to Recover from Reduced Functionality Mode (RFM) in Vista

Written by nirvick on

From: nirvick.blogspot.com

Microsoft allows you to install and use Windows Vista for evaluation without license or product key for up to 30 days. Within these 30 days, you must activate the Vista system with a valid product key. Else, if you forget to activate your computer, or you’re using illegal and pirated product key, Windows Vista will go into Reduced Functionality Mode (RFM), where you basically can no longer use the system for productivity works until you successfully activate Vista with a licensed product key.

Windows Activation

Activate Windows Now

Your activation period has expired and Windows is no longer working.
To use Windows you must activate this copy of Windows.

If you’re still not yet ready to activate your copy of Vista and want to further extend the activation period another 30 days, and also want to exit or recover from Reduced Functionality Mode so that you can continue using Vista without reinstalling, here’s a simple hack to crack the RFM. The trick is made possible by Microsoft which still allow users to use Internet Explorer in RFM (probably do so so that you will can buy a license online), which can be used to break out of Reduced Functionality mode by running an explorer interface to open an administrative level command prompt and run the commands required to reset your activation period and recover use of your computer and desktop.

This crack RFM trick is simplified from previous recover from RFM guide to make it easier to understand.

1. On the Windows Activation - Activate Windows Now screen shown above, click on Access your computer with reduced functionality option.
2. Once the Internet Explorer loads, click on File on menu bar and then select Open on the pull-down menu.
3. On the Open dialog window, type in C:\Windows\Explorer.exe and then click OK.

4.Click OK button on “IE needs to open a new window to open this webpage” confirmation prompt.

5.Click Run button on “File Download - Security Warning” dialog prompt.

6.Click on Run button on “File Download - Security Warning” warning dialog related to unknown and not verified publisher.

7. User shell will load, and the desktop, taskbar, start menu and etc will be restored.
8. The computer has recovered from Reduced Functionality for this session. To permanently stop RFM to happen again, Vista has to be rearmed.
9. Click on the Start button.
10. Type Cmd in Start Search box.
11. A program shortcut will show up in the Start panel search results. Right click on the shortcut and select Run as Administrator.
12. In the Command Prompt window, type in the following command and then hit Enter:

slmgr.vbs -rearm
13. Restart computer.

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Comments

Dafeed said...

Dude you are freaking amazing. Awesome post. I bow down to your feet. It worked like a charm!!!!

LilBunniFuFu said...

Wow it actually works!!!

mig said...

is there something like this that will work for XP?

umar132 said...

what i wanna know is how do you people find this out from SCRatch???!!!!???

shalabi said...

hi guys,i tried the rearm trick but it says 'permission denied' although i ran it as administrator, i tried to modify policy but nothing, i also tried to restore using system restore going way back also no luck, it says "unauthorized chance to liscence..." it came out of nowhere and with no warning, it also only gives two options ' validate online and close which logs me off' i don't want reinstall as a have too many stuff there. please does anybody know how to get rid of this curse.

tomcar said...

Same for me, I don't have the permissions to run slmgr!! Please help!

justinQWERTY said...

i'm already on an original copy, why is it that i'm still experiencing this? i keyed in my original product key and my windows vista claims that it's fake! what's going on? anybody? justin

mahiccc said...

Dude it works gr8. mahi

Alickman178 said...

mine sayiN not enough quota help me plz

Aceves14 said...

i cant open the start button what do i have to do??

Jimbo93 said...

So you all know, every 30 days your Vista will reset again. You will have to do this trick again, HOWEVER it only works 3 times. So, you have 90 days of Vista and you will be forced to buy a product key.

geestan said...

this worked perfectly well. For those who it didn't work for i suggest you try the entire process again offline. Cherss buddy!