I'yard having a hard time finding and answer to this. If I had to hypotheitcally remove the Windows license cardinal from a VM that's been specifically setup for a partner, and it needs to exist removed earlier the VM is handed over, how would I go most doing this? Naturally the congenital-in thirty day grace period has expired and I'm using an MSDN license central, just I need to remove the key before handing the VM off. The recipient can input their own license key. due east.g. how do I reset the Activation Fundamental Wizard's nagging?

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abatishchev

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asked Oct 13, 2011 at 19:fifty

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    May 6, 2019 at 13:03

2 Answers 2

  1. Open a command prompt every bit an Ambassador.

  2. Enter slmgr /upk and wait for this to complete. This will uninstall the electric current production key from Windows and put it into an unlicensed state.

  3. Enter slmgr /cpky and wait for this to complete. This will remove the product primal from the registry if it'southward however there.

  4. Enter slmgr /rearm and wait for this to complete. This is to reset the Windows activation timers so the new users volition be prompted to activate Windows when they put in the key.

This should put the system back to a pre-key state.

Hope this helps you lot out!

answered Oct 13, 2011 at xx:fourteen

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  • This solved my problem. +ane. Is in that location a way of doing the above via the GUI?

    May 5, 2016 at 19:52

  • @IanLewis The slmgr tool was never designed for end users to reset their Windows 7 / Vista state and, every bit such, has no GUI interface.

    May 10, 2016 at 14:12

  • C:\Windows\System32>wscript slmgr.vbs /upk for those with altered default vbs action to edit or something else.

    May 10, 2017 at 15:28

  • Do I need to utilise any of this before formatting the disk and reinstalling Windows with the aforementioned cardinal?

    Dec 13, 2017 at xviii:46

  • @cubuspl42 No. This removes the current licensing from an existing installation so that a new key can be installed.

    Dec 14, 2017 at 15:40

On Windows XP -

  1. Reboot into "Rubber style with Command Prompt"
  2. Blazon "explorer" in the command prompt that comes up and push [Enter]
  3. Click on Start>Run, and type the post-obit :

    rundll32.exe syssetup,SetupOobeBnk

Reboot, and login every bit normal.

This volition reset the 30 twenty-four hours timer for activation back to thirty days so you can enter in the cardinal commonly.

answered Dec thirty, 2014 at 11:53

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