Microsoft quietly kills official way to activate Windows 11/10 without internet
Up until now, it's always remained possible to activate Windows offline, by calling a phone number, going through a lengthy phase of entering digits on your phone dialpad, and carefully listening to and entering a string of numbers on the device you're trying to activate. For a
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Microsoft quietly kills official way to activate Windows 11/10 without internet – OSnewsDoes this mean that you can still activate - but from another computer or browser on phone?
Or that it's impossible to activate a offline install?
It's not clear from the article.. If it's just that you do it from the web portal instead of automated phone system - but then end up with the code you then enter on your offline machine - it does not matter as much..
At work we do have a lot of offline systems, so I've used the phone number a ton of times to get things up and running (windows 10 ltsc).
Or that it's impossible to activate a offline install?
It's not clear from the article.. If it's just that you do it from the web portal instead of automated phone system - but then end up with the code you then enter on your offline machine - it does not matter as much..
At work we do have a lot of offline systems, so I've used the phone number a ton of times to get things up and running (windows 10 ltsc).
Quinn9282 
@Quinn9282@mas.to
I took a swing with that online activation portal (https://aka.ms/aoh). It requires a Microsoft account to use, but once you login it does appear to be just a nice GUI for the former phone activation system.
January 5, 2026 at 3:11:14 PM
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