How Windows OEM Activation Works
You need three things to activate Windows 7 OEM (or rather, bypass the activation)
- An OEM certificate
- A SLIC signature corresponding to the OEM certificate in BIOS
- A product key
There are many SLIC signatures and OEM certificates online, decoded from various PC manufacturers. You need to inject the SLIC signature into your BIOS (dangerous!!!), and import the OEM certificate into Windows after installation.
Product key only determines the version of Windows (flagship, ultimate, home, etc), and has no connection to the other two.
With VirtualBox
VirtualBox provides a convenient way to edit SLIC table. After creating a new VM, go to the VM’s folder and edit the .vbox file.
Make sure you close VirtualBox before editing the .vbox file, otherwise your edits will be removed.
# Add the following line before </ExtraData> tab
<ExtraDataItem name="VBoxInternal/Devices/acpi/0/Config/SLICTable" value="/path/to/SLIC.BIN"/>
Then in the VM, copy over the OEM certificate and run
slmgr.vbs -ilc /path/to/certificate
And if necessary, import the new key
slmgr.vbs -ipk XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
And now your Windows should be activated.
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