Is there any way to make Windows think it's a beta version?

[AS95678]

I want to display the full watermark on the bottom right with build lab and "hash tag" (hash of the product key and build lab seen since build 7955 of Windows 8) so how can I make Windows display that full build string? This does not mean PaintDesktopVersion or DisplayVersion as those only display Build 9600. I want the full build string shown at the bottom right like beta versions of Windows 8. How would I go about doing that?

[ShadixAced]

I do think that if you do Windows + R and then typing "winver" shows you the full build tag.

[AS95678]

Windows XP, that’s true. Windows Vista and newer, nope, not on final

[ShadixAced]

Welp, in Vista (Longhorn build 5384), doing winver did actually show the full build name. Even on install.

[Applegame12345]

Welp, in Vista (Longhorn build 5384), doing winver did actually show the full build name. Even on install.

Build string was displayed until build 5744.16384.
In fact, 5744.16384 is the last build of Vista that displays build string

[Zv45Beta]

That's because the registry value BuildLab in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion probably doesn't have the full build tag written into it. (Not 100% sure, as I no longer have Windows 8/8.1 machines to test this).

I've tried editing the mentioned registry value...



...and it did change the watermark.

[Applegame12345]

That's because the registry value BuildLab in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion probably doesn't have the full build tag written into it. (Not 100% sure, as I no longer have Windows 8/8.1 machines to test this).

I've tried editing the mentioned registry value...



...and it did change the watermark.

This doesn't work on 8 and 8.1

[Applegame12345]

That's because the registry value BuildLab in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion probably doesn't have the full build tag written into it. (Not 100% sure, as I no longer have Windows 8/8.1 machines to test this).

I've tried editing the mentioned registry value...



...and it did change the watermark.

This doesn't work on 8 and 8.1

[ATeamInc]

That's because the registry value BuildLab in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion probably doesn't have the full build tag written into it. (Not 100% sure, as I no longer have Windows 8/8.1 machines to test this).

I've tried editing the mentioned registry value...



...and it did change the watermark.

Offtopic Comment

Great! Now everybody can make a fake beta of Windows

[Applegame12345]

That's because the registry value BuildLab in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion probably doesn't have the full build tag written into it. (Not 100% sure, as I no longer have Windows 8/8.1 machines to test this).

I've tried editing the mentioned registry value...



...and it did change the watermark.

Offtopic Comment

Great! Now everybody can make a fake beta of Windows

Offtopic Comment

Try this

[AS95678]

Applegame, what you described in your picture is exactly what I want to do? How did you do that? Did you do what Zv45Beta did or something else?

[Applegame12345]

Applegame, what you described in your picture is exactly what I want to do? How did you do that? Did you do what Zv45Beta did or something else?

I did something else

[ATeamInc]

Applegame, what you described in your picture is exactly what I want to do? How did you do that? Did you do what Zv45Beta did or something else?

I did something else

And... What is it then? You won't tell us, will you?

[AS95678]

Applegame, could you PM me the method you used? I understand if you don’t want to though. If you can, PM me how you did that

[Zv45Beta]

That's because the registry value BuildLab in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion probably doesn't have the full build tag written into it. (Not 100% sure, as I no longer have Windows 8/8.1 machines to test this).

I've tried editing the mentioned registry value...



...and it did change the watermark.

This doesn't work on 8 and 8.1

It works on 8.x if you write the full build tag into values CurrentBuild and CurrentBuildNumber

[AS95678]

Zv45Beta, i've tried that, editing it both on an offline and online instance of windows 8.1, it still changes back to default on the next reboot. I'm looking more for what Applegame did.

[Wheatley]

For displaying BuildLab on the desktop watermark on pre-[whatever build it was that made it default], a better approach is to edit shell32.dll directly. It will require disabling some integrity checks (at least "bcdedit /set nointegritychecks on", I can't remember if others are needed as well, it's been a while), but It is a simple string edit with your favorite hex editor. Note that pre-8.0 and post-XP, the watermark was done in a different DLL (can't remember which one).

EDIT: I remembered wrong. Disabling integrity checks is not needed for this simple edit.

[SistemaRayoXP]

Tecnhically, adding a timebomb, should also work. But AFAIK, recent Windows wouldn't accept this, since they don't provide the install date, which would make the timebomb to always "explode" (Unless it's an infinite timebomb).

[Applegame12345]

Tecnhically, adding a timebomb, should also work. But AFAIK, recent Windows wouldn't accept this, since they don't provide the install date, which would make the timebomb to always "explode" (Unless it's an infinite timebomb).

There are builds with timebomb and without build string in winver (5754, 7000, 7100, 8250, 8400, 9431, 9841-9888, 9913-9926, 10031-10166)

[SistemaRayoXP]

Of course, but I'm answering the question directly, I mean, with a timebomb Windows actually thinks it's a beta

[Wheatley]

Of course, but I'm answering the question directly, I mean, with a timebomb Windows actually thinks it's a beta

No, it makes Windows an evaluation copy. Evaluation copy ≠ pre-release. There have been several timebombed RTM builds released by Microsoft as trial versions.

[AS95678]

Hmm, I think what I would have to do to make it a native solution is edit the shell32.dll and it's corresponding MUI file to include the watermark and display it in the same way as the beta versions (cough cough using IDA)

[AS95678]

Alright status update, I've figured out how to make the watermark show the full build lab (without hardcoding it in the MUI file, just like betas) but.... i'm getting bugcheck c000021a (it's crashing with error Verification of a KnownDLL failed, and further analysis shows it's a hash mismatch, NTSTATUS code c0000428). Does anyone know how to disable integrity checking of KnownDLLs in Windows 8 or to add the hash to the hashes of KnownDLLs?

[Wheatley]

Hmm, I think what I would have to do to make it a native solution is edit the shell32.dll and it's corresponding MUI file to include the watermark and display it in the same way as the beta versions (cough cough using IDA)

You don't need to use IDA for a simple string edit. In 8.x all you have to do is search for CurrentBuildNumber in hex (43 00 75 00 72 00 72 00 65 00 6E 00 74 00 42 00 75 00 69 00 6C 00 64 00 4E 00 75 00 6D 00 62 00 65 00 72) with your favorite hex editor (I like HxD), and replace that with BuildLab (make sure you preserve the 00 bytes between the letters!). Then simply zero out the leftover parts of "CurrentBuildNumber". It's important that the file size does not change, so don't delete anything!

For example:

->

Alright status update, I've figured out how to make the watermark show the full build lab (without hardcoding it in the MUI file, just like betas) but.... i'm getting bugcheck c000021a (it's crashing with error Verification of a KnownDLL failed, and further analysis shows it's a hash mismatch, NTSTATUS code c0000428). Does anyone know how to disable integrity checking of KnownDLLs in Windows 8 or to add the hash to the hashes of KnownDLLs?

To me this sounds like you're simply patching the file incorrectly, as I was able to use the above method without issues on both 8.0 and 8.1. The same method works even in 10, though you need to search for BuildLab instead.

[AS95678]

Thanks Wheatley, I got it to work! Turns out the system has to be online and running for it to work, I was replacing it offline, which was what was giving me the problems. Thanks again everyone!