SECR9TOS @ WIN7VISTA.

COM
ODIN
The hardware independent activator

secr9tos
7/11/2010




The following will contain general information, tips and troubleshooting
ODIN
July 11, 2010


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TABLE OF CONTENT
First steps in getting Windows activated
o What is ODIN and what does it do with my system?
o What are the supported systems?
o Do I need ODIN?
o How can I check for SLIC?
Install ODIN
o Standard Installation
o Advanced Installation
Uninstall ODIN
Check Activation Status
o Offline
o Online
Things you should know
o Service Packs
o WU regarding ntoskrnl
o What you should not modify or delete
o PAE on x86
o Updating ODIN
o Manual Driver Unloading
o Kernel Debugging
Troubleshooting
o General advice
o Get individual help
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First steps in getting Windows activated
What is ODIN and what does it do with my system?
ODIN is a new way in activating Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 as OEM and is not a GRUB
based loader or a pure software solution like Chew7. It installs a driver which simulates SLIC 2.1 support
for various OEM brands like Acer, Dell or Toshiba etc. On amd64 aka x64 systems this software will also
patch ntoskrnl, winload & BCD, otherwise it will not work properly.
What are the supported systems?
Windows 7 Starter x86
Windows 7 Home Basic x86
Windows 7 Home Basic x64
Windows 7 Home Premium x86
Windows 7 Home Premium x64
Windows 7 Professional x86
Windows 7 Professional x64
Windows 7 Ultimate x86
Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard
Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
Keep in mind that IA64 is not the same as x64. Which means it is not compatible with Intel Itanium CPUs
and therefore must not be installed. ODIN will install the x86 driver if no x64 CPU was found!!!
Do I need ODIN?
You need ODIN if one of the following applies to your current situation:
Your BIOS has no SLIC table
Your BIOS has a SLIC 2.0 table
How can I check for SLIC?
If you dont know what version of SLIC is present on PC, I recommend using SLIC Dump Toolkit for this
job. The latest version of it is included in the ODIN.zip package. (Image is taken from Advanced Tab)

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Install ODIN
Standard Installation
Installing ODIN is very simple. Just open odin.exe and press Install Driver. After the installation one of
the status shields will turn green and tell you that everything is fine. The only thing you need to do now
to complete the process is to restart your PC.
NOTE: On x64 OS ignore the pop-up regarding non-digital signed drivers during installation.
Advanced Installation
On the Advanced Tab of ODIN you can specify your preferred SLIC, CERT & Key if you are not satisfied
with the automatically chosen configuration.
There is also the option to un/install the driver silently:
Syntax: odin.exe [/I [/slic=OEM_BRAND] [/cert=OEM_BRAND] [/pkey=OEM_SLP]] [/U]
/I Stands for Install. If no additional parameters are specified it serves as an automated-
install switch.
/U With this option the driver gets removed from your system.
/slic= Specifies the SLIC the driver will use for emulation.
/cert= Specifies the CERT which will be installed on your PC
/pkey= Specifies a OEM-SLP key which gets applied during installation
Valid arguments for OEM_BRAND ( case-sensitive! )
Acer, Advent, Alienware , Asus, BenQ, Dell, Founder, FSC, Fujitsu, Gigabyte, Haier, Hasee, HCL, HP,
Jooyon, Lenovo, LG, Medion, MSI, NEC, Nokia, Quanmax, Samsung, Sony, Tongfang, Toshiba-ASU,
Toshiba-CPL, Toshiba-INV, Toshiba-QCI, Trigem, Viliv
Valid arguments for OEM_SLP
The most important point here is that the key must match your Windows Edition.
e.g: FJGCP-4DFJD-GJY49-VJBQ7-HYRR2 for Windows 7 Ultimate Acer

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How do I uninstall it?
Open odin.exe, press Uninstall Driver button, and restart your PC after the process.
NOTE: You can also use /U switch for silent uninstall
How do I check activation status?
Offline Method:
Open the Control Panel and navigate to System snap-in. The following should appear.

Alternatively you can open an elevated command prompt and type: slmgr.vbs -dlv or slmgr.vbs -xpr
Online Method:
Navigate to http://www.microsoft.com/genuine and press Validate Windows button. After the
validation process this screen should appear.
NOTE: Follow the instruction on the website if you have problems.


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Things you should know
Service Packs
Its recommended that after you have installed a new Service Pack on your PC, you should re-install
ODIN on an x64 based operating system. To do so, first uninstall it and finally install it again after a
restart.
WU regarding ntoskrnl
In general I recommend the same as listed under Service Packs. Please keep in mind that this only
applies to amd64 systems, an x86 OS is not affected by this.
What you should not modify or delete
On x64 systems:
%systemroot%\System32\drivers\oem-drv64.sys
%systemroot%\System32\xNtKrnl.exe
%systemroot%\System32\xOsLoad.exe
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\oem-drv64
The {default} BCD entry.
On x86 systems:
%systemroot%\System32\drivers\oem-drv86.sys
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\oem-drv86
Only delete/modify one of the things mentioned above if you were told so by secr9tos, a win7vista.com
staff member or another experienced user you trust. Otherwise it will result in an operating system boot
failure in the worst case.
PAE on x86:
Oem-drv86 does not support PAE due to the limitation of +/- 2GB jump instructions in assembler.
Therefore you must not use a modified kernel or any other method to forcefully enable PAE.
If you do not know what PAE is visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension
Extract form the article: In computing, Physical Address Extension (PAE) is a feature to allow x86
processors to access a physical address space (including random access memory and memory mapped
devices) larger than 4 gigabytes.
My advice: If you want to use more than 4GB of RAM then switch to an x64 OS.

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Updating ODIN
Download the latest ODIN.zip from a place you trust and do the following:
Uninstall the driver
Restart your computer ( recommended )
Install the new driver
Restart your computer ( required )
Check your activation status
In general its recommended to update to the latest version due to the fact that there might be new
features included or some bugs got fixed, if any.
NOTE: A new ODIN version might think that the prior driver installation is corrupt. This occurs if the
configuration of the driver has changed from one build to another. Simply press the Uninstall Driver
and proceed with the other steps in the list.
Manual Driver Unloading
Both, the x64 and x86 driver, are manually unloadable but its not recommended to do so for two
reasons:
1. You wont be able to re-load the driver within this Windows Session.
2. You become non-genuine as long as the driver is unloaded.
Kernel Debugging
In general you should not issue a kernel debug at boot-time. There are two reasons for this:
1. If your Windows boots with /DEBUG ON parameter and no debugger is attached during the
HAL initialization, your PC will freeze and must be rebooted by force. ( power-off )
2. If your Windows boots with /DEBUG ON parameter and a debugger is attached during the HAL
initialization, your Win7 or 2k8 R2 will become non-genuine.
If you attach a kernel debugger after the system has booted and oem-drv86 or oem-drv64 gets
unloaded for some reason you will enjoy a BSOD because the driver will not have the opportunity to
undo the changes done to the kernel module in RAM.

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Troubleshooting
General advice
If the install of ODIN failed for some reason or you were told to delete core components of this
activation tool, run odin.exe and press the Uninstall Driver button. This option will uninstall everything
in forceful mode and cleans everything from your HDD. In case the install has failed go to Get individual
help.

In case your Windows OS refuses to boot correctly due to a Blue Screen Of Death ( BSOD ) do the
following:
1. Power on your PC and press F8 immediately until you enter the advanced Boot-Menu
2. Select Repair Your Computer and hit <Enter>
3. After boot the Windows RE will ask you for username and password
4. Open a command prompt window
5. Now type the following into the cmd-windows
a. On x64: del <win7_drive_letter>:\Windows\System32\drivers\oem-drv64.sys
b. On x86: del <win7_drive_letter>:\Windows\System32\drivers\oem-drv86.sys
6. Restart
7. Start ODIN.exe and remove the remaining parts of the activation tool

NOTE: the drivers have never ever caused a BSOD so far, neither in the early alpha stages nor in this
release.

The log about the install or uninstall process gets automatically saved to: %systemroot%\Logs\odin.log
regardless if you use silent or GUI based un/installation.
Get individual help
To get individual help and support for your situation, problem or whatever you should visit
win7vista.com. Please dont forget that without a detailed description of your problem, the log created
by the installer and the crash-dump in case of a BSOD, your issue cant be fixed. Therefore its not
productive to complain on 3
rd
party forums about ODIN if you have not provided the required
information.

NOTE: You need a least a VIP subscription on win7vista.com to get individual support.