NiFu, you were right! I did a stupid mistake. I had set the path to bios440.rom of the second virtual machine to the biosmod of the first virtual machine (with DM serial). It hasn't ever got the default retail key, but again my DM serial. Doh! I can confirm: The MSDMTable has been read all the time and w8.1 retail accepts the professional generic retail key and continues to install pro without to ask for it. Any w8.1 retail or DM key should be read. Only w8.0 keys are not accepted at the MSDM table. I should be more careful to get reproducible results.
I've tried to trigger reactivation. No chance so far. I have modded the BIOS'ses DMI heavily, it still activates online. Some entires I could not modify, though. Especially entry 0. Although you can alter some directly at virtual memory using rw-everything's memory tool. I am not familiar enough to modify entry 0 directly at the phoenix BIOS and not sure if windows reacts on those direct modifications of virtual memory since the modifications do not survive a reboot. There must be a place where windows identifies it as still the same vm. I guess I continue to try to mod. the EFI now. Another option would be to try another vm such as hyper-v. It has AMI BIOS which is more familiar to me. The place I need to find must be specified by windows somehow. It must be tolerated at a BIOS update, but special enough to identify the machine. A vm (and its ability to change settings) in combination with rw-everything should make it possible to trigger reactivation. The more I fail, the more special has to be the place(s). Is there a way to use hyper-v at windows 7 64 bit ultimate?
Hi, I have a quick question about this, My laptop is an HP ProBook 6470b, it has UEFI, SecureBoot, and even the Windows 8 start key, but it was shipped with Windows 7 as custom order (i wasnt the original purchaser) , but is offered with 8 preinstalled, Is there anyway to inject a Windows 8 key into the UEFI in that situation? Through a mod or somthing, like replacing the OEM:SLP table? seeing as how the OEM:DM is clearly a possibility of this laptop?
I mean the physical "Start" key on the keyboard like it was a Windows 8 PC but they ordered it through the HP Customizer with 7, it has a 7 Pro key under the battery on the COA, but It has all the other makings of a Windows 8 PC. Like, is there a way to "put" a key in the UEFI firmware when there isnt one there already? And it is technically a Windows 8 pc that just happened to be licenced with 7 and not 8? (Booting into an 8 disk doesnt auto-detect any key) View attachment 24338
senario; 1. buy one w8 oem, activated online 2. get oem msdm key with rw-everything, phone activated second pc/notebook 3.phone activation again third pc so just want to know what happen? third pc activated or not? if not, no question, if yes what happen
What has the question to do with the thread title "Implement product key into bios MSDM table of VMware" ?
The solution is nested hardware virtualization. Currently, the only desktop virtualization products that I know of that supports it are VMWare Workstation and Player. So you install VMWare Workstation/Player in your Windows 7, then you install any MS product with Hyper-V in a VM under that (could be Windows 8/8.1, Server 2012/R2 or Hyper-V Server). With correct settings in VMWare, the VM will have hardware virtualization enabled inside it and Hyper-V will be available. I tested and used this under Win 7 Ult x64 with VMWare Workstation 9. I could install Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 in a VM and both had Hyper-V available with the right VM settings. I could set up a nested VM inside both Server 2012 and Windows 8, and it worked fine. The setting you need in VMWare is under the Settings for the specific VM, in Processors category, and is called "Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI". Enabling this will virtualize hardware virtualization itself, so guest in the VM thinks that hardware virtualization is available.
If you want a way to test Hyper-V when you are running Windows 7, and you have no other machines available to you, then yes, I'm certain.
I thought of this way, a vm in a vm. But I thought I would encounter issues, good to hear that it works. I think windows triggers reactivation like XP does (similar as already described). This means it checks for several changes and adds different points together, if exceeded it triggers it. The Installation ID even changes when more virtual RAM has been assigned. It looks like a completely different ID then, but since we cannot 'decrypt' it / don't know how it's weighted we don't know how 'serious' the changes are, we can only guess them. I suspect it has to be related to motherboard / on-board devices. Peripheral devices I guess get less points. It is really impressing that nobody could trigger it so far. The vm has a definition of valid random IDs it assigns. I guess next step is to setup real own random values...for the UUID and MAC and then mod the BIOS even more......will test that as soon as I have time for it again.
Some thoughts about triggering re-activation: When you copy the virtual machine files into a second folder and start the copied virtual machine then VMware asks if the (copied) virtual machine is a "copied" or a "moved" virtual machine. There I think VMware makes a difference and creates new machine UUIDs. Perhaps somebody can test to transfer a virtual machine to an other PC. Because even when VMware virtualize the hardware in the virtual machine some hardware components in the virtual machine depends on the host computer. E.G.: A virtual machine on a host computer with Intel CPU shows in the virtual machine the Intel CPU. The same virtual machine transferred to a host PC with AMD CPU shows in the virtual machine the AMD CPU. Next step could be: Transfer an activated virtual machine into a VHD - which uses real hardware- and boot from VHD.
VHD is a file format and not a piece of software, what do you mean by "uses real hardware"? The VHD format is used, among other things, by Windows Virtual PC as well, which emulates hardware and is not real.
OK - this is an other using of VHDs in a virtual machine. With Windows 7 and 8 you can create VHDs. You can install Windows 7 and 8 into this VHDs. You can boot from this VHDs. Then you use the real hardware of the host computer. The behaviour is like a second attached hard disk. You also could use a second partition but the advantage is you don't need to partition you easily can clone the VHD file you easily can delete the VHD file with dynamic VHDs the VHD file uses only the used disk space; e.g.: when a 100 GB dynamic VHD is created and the installed Windows 8 in the VHD uses only 20 GB then the VHD uses only 20 GB of space - it grows up as needed.