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Activation.md

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The Activation Process

Welcome to the Activation Process document. This will have some info on Windows 10 activation processes.

Scope

Windows activation processes differ based on the type of license installed. In this document an attempt will be made to semi-comprehensively describe how the activation occurs for a given license type.

Activation Processes

Methods used for activation can be roughly divided into three types. Those are:

  • Involving Microsoft
  • Indirectly involving Microsoft
  • Not involving Microsoft

The correlation between license type and how it activates is as follows:

  • Involving Microsoft:
    • Retail
    • Volume:MAK
    • OEM:NSLP
    • OEM:DM
  • Indirectly involving Microsoft
    • Volume:GVLK
  • Not involving Microsoft:
    • OEM:SLP

First of all, it'd be nice to know what "activation" even does. In general, we are trying to solicit a license file that will satisfy the Software Protection Platform (SPP). When SPP is satisfied, the system is activated.

License files contain some information on the license: the type, issue date, associated hardware ID (if applicable) and more.

Other than full licenses, there are grants that are valid for a limited time. After the time period specified in the grant expires your system will want to renew it, prompting what is essentially a "reactivation" of the product.

Deposited licenses and grants can be found in %windir%\System32\spp\store and %programdata%\Microsoft\Windows\ClipSVC. Here's likely the simplest way to look through licenses in tokens.dat:

#!/usr/bin/env zsh
strings tokens.dat | grep -oP '<License[^>]*?>.*?</License>' > licenses
split -l1 licenses 'license-' && rm licenses
for l in license-*; do xmllint --format "$l" --output "$l.xml" && rm "$l"; done
# license-aa.xml, license-ab.xml, [...] will have all your licenses.

Activation Involving Microsoft

For activation involving Microsoft their activation servers are contacted to create and/or retrieve license files.

(The licensing and validation servers your installation uses can be checked with slmgr -dlv)

The most common variant of this will be a digital entitlement (aka. "digital license"). This type of license is retrieved through any of the following:

  • Product key
  • Machine
  • Microsoft account

All those above, except the Machine type (TBV) are subject to RIT and ROT related effects.

RIT and ROT

When the hardware ID for the machine for which a license is issued changes, the license has to be reissued. There are two recognized types of reissues:

  • Reissue In-Tolerance
  • Reissue Out-of-Tolerance

In-tolerance reissues guarantee that the license sticks through some number of minor hardware changes. Out-of-tolerance reissues usually happen for drastic hardware changes, disk transfers and MSA (Microsoft Account) transfers.

Reissue In-Tolerance

When the hardware changes only slightly (or is client-correctable, e.g. by adjusting for RAM) a Reissue In-Tolerance is triggered and the license's Hardware ID is adjusted to match the new one.

The "RIT limit", for how many times such a reissue can happen, is currently thought to be unlimited.

Reissue Out-of-Tolerance

When a drastic hardware change is detected and the license no longer matches - a Reissue Out-of-Tolerance is triggered. The process is roughly the same as for RIT, except the limit for how many reissues can happen is much lower.

A reissue out-of-tolerance also happens when the same product key is installed on a different machine, when the license store is moved to a different machine or via a Microsoft account.

The limit for Out-of-Tolerance reissues likely depends on the following:

  • Region (the license's assigned market)
  • Product (the licensed edition)
  • Type of license (Retail / OEM, tolerance a lot lower for OEM)

Product key

When a valid Windows 10 product key is installed, activation will be attempted. If your product key is valid and accepted by Microsoft, a digital license is granted for your machine based on its hardware ID.

Machine

When any valid Windows 10 product key is installed, activation servers are contacted to try get a license for it. The activation server will notice your hardware ID and, if it matches an existing digital license, will grant it to you.

The key doesn't have to be valid in this case. Only its type matters.

Microsoft account

Microsoft accounts, being associated with the Microsoft Store, have information on your Microsoft Store licenses - this includes Windows (most editions).

When you have a valid Retail (TBV) license for Windows, activation is granted for new hardware - the computer you logged in with.

Activation indirectly involving Microsoft

The only type of activation that (in theory at least) indirectly involves Microsoft is for Volume:GVLK keys.

When a generic volume licensing key is installed, the configured KMS server is contacted to provide the system with a grant for a specific period. The activation period depends on the edition and is usually 180 days.

This indirectly involves Microsoft because, in a legit environment, the KMS server reports to Microsoft.

Activation not involving Microsoft

In the case of OEM:SLP licensing, the only basis for acquiring a valid license file is a valid certificate and a BIOS marker.

Microsoft servers are not contacted here, instead the OEM's certificate needs to be digitally signed by Microsoft.