Does Windows still give you 30 days to Activate?

The title says it all. My parts are all scheduled for delivery today, but newegg thought that for some reason they would ship the OS separately. I can download windows from microsoft easily enough, I just want to make sure I can use it for a while before activating it so I don't have a useless pile of hardware for a few days. I know that in the past windows has allowed you 30 days of use before activation.

Not looking for advice on how to crack windows.

PS: I would normally just build the pc, install windows and find out for my self, but I will be donating the PSU and cpu cooler from my current rig into the new one, so building the new computer will render my current one useless.

8 is activate on installation last time I looked

7 on the other hand, we've had pc's at work that say overdue activation and appear to work just fine with no enforced limitation on functionality.

After a little digging it looks I can modify the install files very easily so that it won't prompt me for a CD key then activate it once I get my copy in the mail.

I really wish Newegg would just send me the product key rather than a physical disk.

Actually, you might get away with just using the generic 8.1 KMS key then be able to activate it within 30 days. That's what I did with my machine during testing.

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Ah ha! This is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for.

Thank you good sir.

NP. Do you need the link for it?

Nah I did some google. Everything is up and running