I bought Vista Home Premium for my brand new laptop which was "Vista Ready". It was the worst thing I could have done. It practically destroyed my laptop. And I'm still amazed it didn't toast the motherboard. To put it bluntly, Vista is "nothing special" in a fancy box. All the new features aren't new. And you can find any of the "extras" that come with it on CNET or just about anywhere that offers downloads. Even the look of Vista is blah and washed out like it had gone through the washing machine in too hot water. The ONLY feature on Vista that might be of any use is the touchscreen, but why waste a whole bottle of Windex cleaning the fingerprints off your monitor every day? Vista makes Windows ME look like the perfect operating system. I know there are always bugs in every new upgrade, but Vista is one big bug all by itself. I couldn't use half my programs because they weren't compatable with Vista, even the ones that said they WERE compatable! 1 day using Vista is too long let alone 120 days. I'll stay with XP till they figure out what went wrong in their programming in Vista which will probably be another 2 or 3 years, THEN I might try it, till then, does anyone want a free Vista Home Premium edition?
NOTE TO CNET: THE FOLLOWING WAS OFFICIALLY CONFIRMED BY MICROSOFT AND DOES NOT VIOLATE THE RULES OF THIS FORUM OR OF THE WINDOWS VISTA EULA (End User License Agreement)!!!
By default, Windows Vista can be installed, used and run without any license, product key or the need of activation for 30 days grace period, for purpose of trial or evaluation. Although Microsoft initially stressed that users should purchase a license with valid product key before the trial period expires, or else Windows Vista will lock into Reduced Functionality Mode. However, a illegal method has since been discovered to be able to extend, or reset the remaining time for activation to another fresh 30 days, for up to 3 times (called "rearm").
Now Microsoft has confirmed that Windows Vista can be used and run for 120 days or 4 months (3 rearms), and extending the activation grace period is NOT a violation of the Vista End User License Agreement (EULA). All versions of Vista include Windows Vista Ultimate allow a 30-day free period without activation, except the corporate-oriented Vista Enterprise, which supports only a three-day trial. (for those who remember when Windows XP was released Microsoft released a 120 day free trial of XP)
1. Click on Vista Start button and key in Cmd in Start Search box.
2. Press on Ctrl-Shift-Enter to open Command Prompt with administrative credentials (equivalent to ?Run as Administrator?).
3. In the Command Prompt, type the following command and press Enter when done: slmgr -rearm.
4. Reboot the computer.
5. Rearm again when the remaining activation grace period timer counts down to 0 days.
This can only be done 3 times (upto 120 days in total).
ONCE AGAIN I STRESS THAT THIS METHOD IS LEGAL AND DOES NOT VIOLATE THE WINDOWS VISTA EULA AS CONFIRMED BY MICROSOFT.

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