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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
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    If you don’t activate Windows 7 within 30 days after installation, it turns into Windows Vista. :) –  Feb 15 '10 at 01:53
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    LOL but i know what you mean. For everybody else, molly implies sarcastically that it's useless once trial period has ended, pretty much like vista, which is useless as well. – SoftwareGeek Feb 15 '10 at 02:07

2 Answers2

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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
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  • actually, it's called 'Reduced Functionality Mode': http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925582 –  Feb 15 '10 at 22:44
  • hmm, it applies only to Windows Vista as per the article. – SoftwareGeek Feb 16 '10 at 01:01
  • Note that grace period (few days) and trial period (30 days) are two different things. I hear it also shuts down every hour after the *trial* period. – jiggunjer Jan 14 '16 at 05:03
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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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  • This doesn't seem to be a very definitive answer to the question. – fixer1234 Jul 07 '16 at 20:39
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    Welcome to Super User! This is really a comment and **not** an answer to the original question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post - you can always comment on your own posts, and once you have sufficient [reputation](http://superuser.com/help/whats-reputation) you will be able to [comment on any post](http://superuser.com/help/privileges/comment). Please read [Why do I need 50 reputation to comment? What can I do instead?](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/214174) – DavidPostill Jul 08 '16 at 10:48