Windows Vista OEM Activation Crack (vstaldr) without Modify or Flash BIOS

Getting tired or scared of modifying motherboard or computer BIOS to get instant Windows Vista activation ala OEM edition preinstalled in branded machine? Now you have a very easy way to achieve OEM activation for Windows Vista, without the need to modify, download, patch, hack, crack or flash the BIOS of motherboard, and of course, without the risk of burning or spoiling your motherboard or causing your system to fail. The working theory of this new Windows Vista OEM activation crack method is that when computer is started, the crack will be launched. The crack will then simulate the result of actual mod of BIOS by opening a command prompt, then adding SLIC table data of ACPI into BIOS before loading BIOS virtually into memory, and finally loading the Windows Vista operating system.

To use the crack is extremely easy. The crack is actually vstaldr driver, which is actually a boot manager which is called every bootup to bootstrap Windows Vista. The drive reads the SLIC.BIN file contained inside the vstaldr.img to get the SLIC table data, and use it to simulate as BIOS to load the Windows Vista operating system. The success of Windows Vista OEM style instant activation relies on the success of simulation of the creation of BIOS with SLIC table with proper OEM ID. This crack will simulate the BIOS with OEM ID and OEM Table ID of _ASUS_Notebook, the commonly used OEMID for Windows Vista activation hacker. There are actually a few methods to use this crack, some is listed below, and just follow the simple steps and instructions:

Method 1: Bootable CD

1. Install Windows Vista without product key, or with the following ASUS OEM product key:

   Ultimate: 6F2D7-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
   Business: 72PFD-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
   Home Premium: XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-RPFFV
   Home Basic: XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-RJC9V

2. Download the ISO CD image file (sofmod-l.iso).
3. Burn the ISO file to a CD with tool like Daemon Tools.
4. Reboot computer.
5. Boot up computer from CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive.
6. The vstaldr boot manager will hack the BIOS to simulate a mod BIOS which supports SLP 2.0 with SLIC table, and automatically load Windows Vista when complete.
7. Download and install the appropriate OEM certificate (ASUS in this case), if your Windows Vista DVD media is not OEM edition.
8. Change product key to Windows Vista OEM key if necessary.

Method 2: Direct Launch from Hard Disk

1. Install Windows Vista without product key, or with the ASUS OEM product key.
2. Download the ISO image (softmod-l.iso).
3. Extract the content of the softmod-l.iso ISO archive with extraction tool like WinRAR. You can also use a virtual CD-ROM or virtual dvd-rom emulator such as Daemon Tools or disk imaging utility such as WinImage to load or open the ISO file.
4. Open elevated command prompt with administrator privileges. Confirm any security warning that pops up.
5. Execute the install.cmd from the extracted softmod-l.iso folder. You must execute install.cmd from within the folder where it’s located itself, so CD into the folder first. Installer will attend to copy and install vstaldr, vstaldr.img and menu.lst to all drives with Windows Vista installation, and modify the MBR (Master Boot Record) to load the BIOS crack driver as bootstrapping process to load simulated SLP 2.0 supported BIOS with SLIC table data. (If installation on certain drives fail, as long as it’s not the Windows Vista boot volume drive, the failure can be safely ignored.
6. Restart the computer.
7. Optional: If your computer fails to boot up or start, use Windows Vista installation DVD to boot up the computer, and choose Recovery to repair the computer.
8. Download and install the appropriate OEM certificate (ASUS in this case), if your Windows Vista DVD media is not OEM edition.
9. Change product key to Windows Vista OEM key if necessary.
10. To uninstall vstaldr driver, simply click on uninstall.cmd from the extracted archive.

Note: You can initially boot up with the softmod-l.iso bootable CD (in method 1) to verify that the BIOS simulation actually works, and then only install the BIOS simulation crack as in method 2. You can also permanently and long term using boot up with the bootable CD.

Method 3: Bootable USB Flash Drive

1. Install Windows Vista without product key, or with the ASUS OEM product key.
2. Download the ISO CD image file (sofmod-l.iso).
3. Create a bootable USB flash drive.
4. Open \data\vstaldr.img with WinImage. Copy all the contents and files inside the archive to the root folder of USB flash drive.
5. Edit te menu.lst to the same as below:

   timeout 30
   default 0

   title vista(boot from usb fdd)
   chainloader /bootmgr

   title xp(boot from usb hdd)
   map (hd0) (hd1)
   map (hd1) (hd0)
   rootnoverify (hd1,0)
   chainloader +1

   title vista(boot from usb hdd)
   root (hd1,0)
   chainloader /bootmgr

6. Restart computer.
7. Boot from USB flash drive, and select the appropriate menu item on the menu selectin to load Windows Vista. Bootable USB flash drive is more complicated, so 3 options are given for choice in case of failure.
8. Download and install the appropriate OEM certificate (ASUS in this case), if your Windows Vista DVD media is not OEM edition.
9. Change product key to Windows Vista OEM key if necessary.

Note: The BIOS simulation patch should works on dual-boot or multi-boot system or system with boot manager too to activate Windows Vista instantly and permanently. And, actually, sequence of steps is not exactly important, as long as all is done, instant activation will work.

Side effect: Some users reported that the A drive (floppy disk) is gone or inaccessible after using this BIOS simulation patch for Windows Vista activation. This is due to the fact that the patch works by hooking computer’s A: drive and attaching the floppy image ‘vstaldr.img’ to it. The temporary workaround is to use B: drive instead to access floppy drive if your BIOS (normally at Standard CMOS Feature) support the setting that you have two floppy drives – A: and B: – both as 1.4MB 3.5″ devices. Then go to the Advanced BIOS Features section, find the option for ‘Swap Floppy Drive’ and switch it’s current state – if it is currently enabled, set it to disabled, if it is currently disabled, set it to enabled. In addition, in the same Advanced BIOS section, find ‘Boot-up Floppy Seek’ and make certain it is set to disabled. Save and exit the BIOS. This workaround will allow the VSTALDR patch to hook the A: floppy drive as it must, but will take your real floppy drive and assign it as the B: floppy drive. From this point on, in Windows, you can access the real floppy drive as B:. While A drive in Windows Explorer can be hide with the common hide-drive registry tweak method. You won’t be able to boot from a real floppy disk with this workaround in active too, unless you do actual BIOS flashing and reverse the CMOS change.

See also Paradox OEM BIOS Emulation Toolkit, which can be used as alternative or workaround. softmod.iso software based OEM BIOS emulator for Dell, HP, Lenovo, Sony and etc is also avaiable.

The BIOS simulation patch to permanently Windows Vista as OEM edition is tested to work on many OEM brands of desktop and notebook computers such as Dell, Lenovo, IBM Thinkpad, Acer, Sony, Fujitsu, LG, Samsung and etc. Beside, it’s also possible to crack AMI, Phoenix and Award BIOS that previously unable to patch with SLIC table.

New: Vista Loader 2.0 softmod upgrade

Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purpose only.