iPhone Activation (Windows)

By default, when you get the iPhone, it is not activated. As it’s known, one normally needs to use Apple’s iTunes in order to activate the iPhone. Since “activating” the iPhone via iTunes means signing up right away for a 2 year contract with AT&T, T-Mobile, or whoever the service provider in your country is, some folks would rather not do it — for various reasons…

For those folks, there is a very simple solution out there.

This solution will work with any iPhone firmware version released before the end of March. Supported firmware versions include v1.0.0, v1.0.1, v1.0.2, v1.1.1, v1.1.2, v1.1.3, and v1.1.4.

In order to activate your iPhone, just follow these simple steps below:

#1) Download and install ZiPhone (make sure you select the Windows version). You will need to have Microsoft .NET framework 2.0 installed in order to run this program.
#2) Download and install iTunes (make sure you select the Windows version).
#3) Connect your iPhone to your computer via provided USB cable.
#4) Wait for Windows to find your iPhone — you will see a message informing you that Windows found the iPhone.
#5) Launch ZiPhone.

#6) Click on “Advanced Features”.
#7) Make sure that only “Activate” option is checkboxed (i.e., uncheck all other boxes).
#8) Click on “Perform actions”.

…wait for the operation to complete and you’re good to go!

Possible problems: ZiPhone may display an error message and fail to run, or it may hang at the “waiting for phone” steps. If this happens, you should try the following:

- Make sure iTunes is shut down.
- Make sure iTunesHelper and any other services or daemons related to iTunes are not running.
- Upgrade to iTunes 7.6.
- Reboot your computer.
- If possible, try another computer.

Now that your iPhone is activated, you can already show it off to everyone — although it still cannot make or accept calls. In order to accept and make calls your iPhone needs to be unlocked — but only if you don’t intend to sign up for a contract with your official service provider.

Note: this guide purposely gives instructions so as not to jailbreak your iPhone. For both activation+jailbreak instructions refer to the following activation+jailbreak guide.

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