HowTo Vista
Break in the expired Vista
Back up your data and extends “free-trail” period
By default, there is a 30-day grace period for user to activate Vista, but it isn’t surprising that the user (is not able to)doesn’t want to activate it, or, he uses some kind of crack which turns invalid by Microsoft, So what to do in this case?
This seems to be a complete lock, no desktop, no explorer, even the favorite Ctrl-Alt-Del wouldn’t invoke the task manager. However, Microsoft does leave a petty path for users to backup data in this case.
1. Click “Access your computer with reduced functionality”, this will open an Internet Explorer window.
2. Press Ctrl+O to open the opening file dialog, select browse…
3. Navigating to the system32 folder, for example, C:\Windows\System32
4. Change the file type selection to All Files(*.*), and find cmd.exe in the file list window.
5. Right click the cmd.exe, select “Run as Administrator”
6. This will open a cmd window with elevated privilege. Type “explorer“, and press enter.
That’s all, your favorite(and familiar desktop) is back.
7. [optional] reset the timer for another 30 days, you can do this three times. Typing the command below in the cmd window, and then reboot.
slmgr.vbs -rearm
