Prevent Windows Reboots on Expired VMs

Sometimes you have one of those VMs that you downloaded from Microsoft and then you used it for some testing. Now, after a certain amount of time, the free license given will expire and what will happen, is the VM will start to automatically shutdown I think after an hour. So how do we prevent this from happening?

The solution is easy:

1. Download SysInternals

2. Start a privileged cmd.exe

3. Navigate to SysInternals directory and run PsExec as following:

psexec64.exe -i -d -s cmd.exe

Or using NirSoft’s AdvancedRun:

AdvancedRun.exe /EXEFilename cmd.exe /RunAs 4 /Run

1. This will start a new cmd.exe with “nt authority\system”. Use “whoami” to check that

2. Let’s first delete the service:

sc delete WLMS

1. Now open regedit.exe

2. Go to: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WLMS and delete the whole key

3. Reboot your system

There you go! The system will no longer bother you with sudden shutdowns!