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I have had Windows 7 Ultimate installed for about two weeks, with a couple more weeks left to activate.

If you ignore the warnings, eventually you get a watermark on your desktop:

enter image description here

Then, after another few days, the desktop background will turn solid black:

enter image description here

What happens after the trial period has ended without activation?

SoftwareGeek
  • 1,051

2 Answers2

16

After the activation grace period, you enter limited functionality mode. This typically means:

  1. 20 Second wait when starting Windows, with a screen saying activate now.
  2. Solid Black desktop wallpaper
  3. Nag screens popping up at random
  4. Notification popup at random
  5. You will still be able to do most Windows update, but anything through "Windows Genuine Advantage" will fail, this includes certain programs (e.g. Microsoft Security Essentials) and features such as many downloads from Microsoft.com.

Also, you can run slmgr -rearm (From the command prompt) a few times in order to extend the deadline by 30 days.

William Hilsum
  • 117,648
0

So, even though I noticed a few performance issues (which may not be due to the "Restricted" mode, I don't know for sure as I am stuck with this problem at the moment) it does not seem to be more than an inconvenience. I, for one, have most updates installed, and the only downside would be the longer boot time. Now, my question is, does this restrict some of you hardware performance? I'm not sure.

TheBatman
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