Activation Methods Chart

Below is a comparison of activation methods offered by Microsoft Activation Scripts.

Basics

	HWID	Ohook	KMS38	Online KMS	ZeroCID1	StaticCID1	KMS4k1
Works offline	❌	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌	✅
Activation is permanent	✅	✅	✅2	✅3	✅	✅	✅4
Does not leave any files in the system to maintain activation status	✅	❌	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅

Persistence

	HWID	Ohook	KMS38	Online KMS	ZeroCID1	StaticCID1	KMS4k1
Persists between hardware changes	❌	✅	❌	✅	✅	❌	✅
Persists between clean installations on the same hardware	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Persists between Windows 10 / 11 feature upgrades	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌

Support

	HWID	Ohook	KMS38	Online KMS	ZeroCID1	StaticCID1	KMS4k1
Windows Vista / 7	❌	❌	❌	✅5	✅	❌	✅5
Windows 8 / 8.1	❌	❌	❌	✅5	✅	✅	✅5
Windows 10 / 11	✅	❌	✅5	✅5	✅	✅	✅5
Windows 11 (26100.4188 and later)	✅	❌	✅5	✅5	❌	✅	✅5
Windows Server 2008 / 2008 R2	❌	❌	❌	✅	✅	❌	✅
Windows Server 2012 / 2012 R2	❌	❌	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅
Windows Server 2016 and later	❌	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Office 2010	❌	✅	❌	✅5	❌	❌	❌
Office 2013 and later	❌	✅	❌	✅5	✅6	✅6	✅5 6
Windows / Office KMS Host	❌	❌	❌	❌	✅	✅	❌
Windows Extended Security Updates	❌	❌	❌	❌	✅	✅	❌
OCUR / RP / APPXLOB addons	❌	❌	❌	❌	✅	✅	❌

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Footnotes

1. Provided by TSforge. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

2. Valid until the year 2038. ↩

3. Valid for 180 days by default. Permanent with renewal task installed. ↩

4. Valid for 4083 years. ↩

5. Volume activation capable editions only. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

6. Supported only on Windows 8 and later; subscription editions are not supported. ↩ ↩² ↩³