How to Rearm and Extend Office 2010 Activation Grace Period for Free 180 Days

Microsoft has implemented product activation scheme named Office Protection Platformm (OPP) that similar with Windows Product Activation (WPA) and Software Protection Platform (SPP) for Windows Vista and Windows Activation Technologies (WAT) Windows 7 in Microsoft Office 2010, where all copy of Office 2010 installed has to be activated, with 30 days activation grace period.

There is no more “workaround” to use volume edition of Office with volume license product key (VLK) to bypass requirement to activate Office productivity suite.

Microsoft has released Office 2010 Technical Preview version to invited beta testers who registered for Office 2010 Technical Preview program. Several builds of Office 2010 such as Office 2010 Technical Preview and Office 2010 Mondo (Ultimate) Technical Preview have been leaked to Internet.

The TP version of Office 2010 requires activation too.

For people who is not accepted or invited into the official Office 2010 Technical Preview program, but has installed Office 2010, and been persistently warned that this copy of Microsoft Office is not activated with few days left to activate, Office 2010 (probably including the final RTM version when released) has built-in capability for user to rearm and extend the activation grace period for another additional 30 days for up to generous 5 (five) times, in a feature similar to Windows Vista rearm or Windows 7 rearm, allowing up to 180 days of free usage of Office 2010.

How to Rearm Microsoft Office 2010 to Extend Activation Grace Period for Another 30 Days

1. Go to Control Panel -> Administrator Tools -> Services, or type services.msc in Start Search.
2. Stop the Office Software Protection service.
3. Open a Command Prompt with elevated privileges.
4. Run the OSPPRUN.exe with the following command:

%SystemDrive%:\Windows\System32\OSPPRUN.exe

Where %SystemDrive% is normally C: or other drive letter that Windows is installed on.

5. A new prompt will come out. Enter the following commands which precede with > one by one, each follows by Enter:

> Initialize

> Open

> GetInstalledSkuIds

Above command will return the following result, where the application ID number 0 represents AppID for Office 2010:

0. 128a057a-7e95-4063-b296-c54c5f3d3f3a
1. 26adec89-edf3-4adc-a3fc-c865f1a9f71f

OK.

> GetInstalledAppIds 128a057a-7e95-4063-b296-c54c5f3d3f3a

Above command will return result similar to below:

0. 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663

OK.

> GetLicensingStatus 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 128a057a-7e95-4063-b296-c54c5f3d3f3a

Above command will return the following output, where dwGraceTime is a DWORD value that holds the grace period before the software will stop working and require activation:

SkuId = 128a057a-7e95-4063-b296-c54c5f3d3f3a
eStatus = SL_LICENSING_STATUS_IN_GRACE_PERIOD
dwGraceTime = 1D 23:37
dwTotalGraceDays = 30 days
hrReason = 4004F00C
qwExpiration = 2010/10/31

OK.

6. In the same prompt, run the following commands (which basically set AppID and SkuID for Office 2010 to enable free 30 days usage before activation), each follows by Enter, to rearm Microsoft Office 2010 to reset, prolong and extend activation grace period for additional 30 days:

> Rearm 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 128a057a-7e95-4063-b296-c54c5f3d3f3a 1

OK.

Note: Mostly the IDs are the same for similar Office 2010 installation. If your APP ID and/or SKU ID is different, please change accordingly.

> Close

> Initialize

> Open

Note: “Close” command is import to stop the Office Software Protection service (which can also be stopped via Service.msc interface) after rearming and before reinitialize of license data (The activation countdown timer or license requires a service reinitialization or restart to update), or else “Unlicensed” license status with timer at 0 error may occur.

7. To verify that the Office 2010 rearm is successful, and to check how many days left in activation grace period before activation is required, use the following command, follows by Enter (replace IDs if different):

> GetLicensingStatus 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 128a057a-7e95-4063-b296-c54c5f3d3f3a

SkuId = 128a057a-7e95-4063-b296-c54c5f3d3f3a
eStatus = SL_LICENSING_STATUS_IN_GRACE_PERIOD
dwGraceTime = 29D 23:37
dwTotalGraceDays = 30 days
hrReason = 4004F00C
qwExpiration = 2010/10/31

dwGraceTime will show the remaining time available to use Office 2010 for free without activation.

8. Quit the OSPPRUN prompt with following command, follows by Enter:

> Quit

Tip 1: To check how many rearms that is remaining, use the following command:

> GetApplicationInformation 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 RemainingRearmCount

(DWORD, []) 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 = 4

OK.

After one rearm of Office 2010, 4 rearms is still possible, to extend the free (evaluation or trial) free usage of Office 2010 to 180 days (6 months or half a year), taking into account the initial 30 days activation free period before first ream is performed.

Tip 2: To check and show how many rearms of Office 2010 have been performed, use the following command:

> GetApplicationInformation 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 RearmCount

(DWORD, []) 59a52881-a989-479d-af46-f275c6370663 = 1

OK.

How to Check Office 2010 Activation Status and License Type

Every installations of Microsoft Office 2010 requires activation. There are many ways in which user can activate Office 2010 suites or individual applications, depending on the distribution channel in which Office 2010 software is procured.

For example, volume licensing version of Office 2010 products can be activated with MAK (Multiple Activation Key) or KMS (Key Management Service), which both is different from product key available from retail edition.

The many types of product key and activation types can be confusing, especially when user wants to check and determine if the Office 2010 installation has been activated or not.

Users who want to check the activation status and/or the activation type of the Office 2010 programs installed on the computer, the following guide details step-by-step procedures to check and view detailed information on what type (kind of channel) of activation the Office 2010 installation is using and status of Office 2010 activation is.

1. Open an administrative level command prompt.
2. Change directory to the Office14 folder at the following location by typing the following command, and hit Enter to execute:

cd \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14

Note: For user installing 32-bit (x86) edition of Office 2010 on 64-bit (x64) Windows OS, type the following command instead, and hit Enter to execute:

cd \Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14

3. Then, type the following command, and hit Enter to execute:

cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus

4. The LICENSE NAME and/or LICENSE DESCRIPTION gives the license type for Office 2010, while LICENSE STATUS shows activation status of Office 2010.

The typical output format is:

Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.8

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

---Processing--------------------------

---------------------------------------

SKU ID: fdf3ecb9-b5df-49c6-971a-7e99b8888a6a

LICENSE NAME: Office 14, OfficeProPlus-MAK edition

LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 14, RETAIL channel

LICENSE STATUS:  ---LICENSED---

ERROR CODE: 0 as licensed

Last 5 characters of installed product key: 7M2JJ

---------------------------------------

---------------------------------------

---Exiting-----------------------------

The trailing part of License Name indicates how the Office 2010 is activated. Some possible values include KMS_Client edition for KMS activation, MAK edition for MAK activation, and Retail edition for activation with a retail product key.

The trailing part of License Description indicates which distribution or licensing channel of which Office 2010 applications or suites setup installer is downloaded. Some possible values include VOLUME_KMSCLIENT channel for volume licensing and RETAIL channel for retail version Office 2010 purchased in open market or downloaded from MSDN and TechNet.

The License Status with LICENSED status indicates that the Office 2010 is activated. 

Life is like Coffee Movie

Life is like Coffee Movie: "Do you know people that just seem to be happier in general? Do you say to yourself, "I want to be more like them"? Often, the happiest people in the world don’t have the best of everything...they just make the best of everything!"

8 Attitudes On How You Make Friends

Friend is a treasure for your life, then:

1. Be a good listener for your friend
   Do not you ever be patronizing. Giving advice is fine, but do not do it too soon. Do it slowly, but make sure your friend is listening.
2. Every person has a unique and distinctive personality
   Try to understand of how the character belong to your friend. Respect his opinion. Even though you differ in opinions and beliefs, but there must be a middle way as a solution, just do not rush to decide.
3. Hold the trust that has been given by your friend
   Never ever, you unlock the secret of your friend to others. Each keep a secret, suppose that between both of you, there is a game that can only be played by you and your friend.
4. Give support and praise your friend, leave aside his mistakes and weaknesses
5. Do not ever feel envious of your friend
   His happiness is the happiness of yours as well. Join in joy over the success of your friend.
6. Close in friendship does not mean to depend on each other
   Give a proportional relief. Keep your distance reasonable. Back off a bit if you feel the friendship was too close. Instead, move close on the basis of your conscience whisper, when you feel the friendship is increasingly tenuous.
7. Set aside time to do activities to refresh together. Develop tolerance, flexibility, assertiveness, empathy and learn to understand each other.
8. Immediately apologize to your friend when you make mistakes to him. After that, try to fix your mistake. Similarly, give pardon and forget the mistakes if he is guilty.

What is MD5 Hash and How to Use it?

In this post I will explain you about one of my favorite and interesting cryptographic algorithm called MD5 (Message-Digest algorithm 5). This algorithm is mainly used to perform file integrity checks under most circumstances. Here I will not jump into the technical aspects of this algorithm, rather will tell you about how to make use of this algorithm in your daily life. Before I tell you about how to use MD5, I would like to share one of my recent experience which made me start using MD5 algorithm.

Recently I made some significant changes and updates to my website and as obvious I generated a complete backup of the site on my server. I downloaded this backup onto my PC and deleted the original one on the server. But after a few days something went wrong and I wanted to restore the backup that I downloaded. When I tried to restore the backup I was shocked! The backup file that I used to restore was corrupted. That means, the backup file that I downloaded onto my PC wasn’t exactly the one that was on my server. The reason is that there occured some data loss during the download process. Yes, this data loss can happen often when a file is downloaded from the Internet. The file can be corrupted due to any of the following reasons.

• Data loss during the download process, due to instability in the Internet connection/server
• The file can be tampered due to virus infections or
• Due to Hacker attacks

So whenever you download any valuable data from the Internet it is completely necessary that you check the integrity of the downloaded file. That is you need to ensure that the downloaded file is exactly the same as that of the original one. In this scenario the MD5 hash can become handy. All you have to do is generate MD5 hash (or MD5 check-sum) for the intended file on your server. After you download the file onto your PC, again generate MD5 hash for the downloaded file. Compare these two hashes and if it matches then it means that the file is downloaded perfectly without any data loss.

A MD5 hash is nothing but a 32 digit hexadicimal number which can be something as follows

e4d909c290d0fb1ca068ffaddf22cbd0

This hash is unique for every file irrespective of it’s size and type. That means two .exe files with the same size will not have the same MD5 hash even though they are of same type and size. So MD5 hash can be used to uniquely identify a file.

How to use MD5 Hash to check the Integrity of Files?

Suppose you have a file called backup.tar on your server. Before you download, you need to generate MD5 hash for this file on your server. To do so use the following command.

For UNIX:
md5sum backup.tar

When you hit ENTER you’ll see something as follows

e4d909c290d0fb1ca068ffaddf22cbd0

This is the MD5 hash for the file backup.tar. After you download this file onto your PC, you can cross check it’s integrity by again re-generating MD5 hash for the downloaded file. If both the hash matches then it means that the file is perfect. Otherwise it means that the file is corrupt. To generate the MD5 hash for the downloaded file on your Windows PC use the following freeware tool

MD5 Summer (Click on the link to download)

Credits:http://wordinvestor.blogspot.com

Color Wheel for Bloggers

Color Wheel For Choosing Matching Palate Colors

This is a pretty useful tool to achieve matching or cohesive colours for navigation menu, background, hyperlinks, header etc.
Instructions:

1. 
   
   Simply paste the six digit colour code in the form below without the hash (#) sign and then hit Update
2. 
   
   The matching colour codes will appear inside the four boxes at the right side.
3. 
   
   You can then copy the hex values and start using them!