The price for a new Windows activation license is usually around $140. Thankfully though, there’s a way around that price tag.

First of all, if you haven’t yet installed Windows (or Microsoft Office, if that’s what you’d like to activate), you can find installation links here. There are three working methods to activate Windows. Refer to the chart below to find which method will work best for your system.

The vast majority of users are going to want a HWID activation. With that in mind, let’s continue.

I’ve created a fresh install of Windows 10 to show this process. First off, here’s the activation page to confirm that my license is not yet activated.

There are two ways to run the activation script, either via Powershell or by running a cmd file. If you’d rather stay away from running commands on your system, feel free to use the traditional method — otherwise, Powershell is the way to go.

Running the script

Powershell

First, right-click the Windows start menu and select Terminal or Powershell. Once it opens, run the following command:

irm https://massgrave.dev/get | iex

That’s all. To skip to the next steps, click here.

Traditional

Click here to install the .zip file.

Alternatively, you can go to the GitHub/GitLab repository for the Microsoft Activation Scripts (MAS). It’ll be under “Assets” at the bottom, as “Source code (zip)“.

It should begin downloading. Once finished, open the zip file. (If you’re unable to extract it natively, download 7-Zip and use that to extract it.) Hit the “Extract all” button in the toolbar of File Explorer, and then hit “Extract” in the bottom-right of the pop-up window.

Open the folder (Microsoft-Activation-Scripts-1.8 or similar), and then open the MAS folder, and then the All-in-One-Version folder. There should be a windows command file, named something like MAS_AIO.cmd. Double-click it. It will open the command prompt. If you get a popup asking if you’d like to allow command prompt to make changes to your device, click Yes.

Now let’s run the scripts.

Activation Options

Continuing from installation, you should see the following screen:

From there, type the number on your keyboard of the corresponding activation method you chose from before. You’ll most likely want HWID, which is option one. If for any reason you’d like to be able to de-activate your license, do not choose HWID. Otherwise, continue with the activation.

If you chose HWID, you’ll see a second screen which asks if you’d like to continue with activation. Type 1 to continue. The process from here will be automatic.

Once finished, you can press any key to go back and then press 8 to close the window.

That’s it! You’re activated.

Updates and Corrections

09/11/2023: New version of MAS, updated instructions accordingly. Install file is now .zip instead of .7z, added faster Powershell installation method.