A friends Sky box no subscription as broken I'm taking an old one of mine for his use it's not been used for several years.
Will I need to know the Secret code to get the installer menu up and do that?
( Please remind me of the code to get secret menu up.)
I'm hoping of course just to plug it in and recall in the old days it could take several hours to get the program list up.
Thanks.

There's two things here. 1) Plugging in the box and getting a signal. 2) Getting some channels

The "1" bit is easy. Just make the connections and switch on. The box will take 10-15 mins to initiate during which time you won't see anything on screen.

The "2" bit depends on whether the box has a viewing card, and whether that viewing card is still live or expired.

If your old box still has the viewing card in it then you should be able to set it up at your own home before moving it to your friends place. An old Sky card on an expired subscription can still act as a Sky Free-to-View card. This is the Sky version of Freeview/Freesat. You might need to ring Sky and get the card set up for this with a one-off payment.

If there is no card then the box will still work. You'll just get very few channels. Ring Sky. Request one of the Free-to-View cards (one off payment)

It shouldn't take hours to get the Sky guide up though. It will certainly take a little time to populate the info, but not hours.

Good luck

Just to add there is no 'secret menu' although it's a description often wrongly given to the Installer Menu
See here
http://www.g0hwc.com/sky_box_tricks.html listed under 'How to find the hidden Sky installer menu' but read the warnings

Sorry Chris, but you're completely wrong there - there's hardly any channels now that need a FTV card, almost all are FTA - FTV cards are pretty pointless now.

The main advantage of such a card is to give you the correct region.

His friend had no subscription. He may have a FTV card, if so it will work in any box. Either way no need to give digger any money at all.

Thank you all.
Been in my loft and located 2 or 3, have tried all and all work still, loaded the program menu very quickly, minutes in fact a great improvement than when I last used them.
Regarding cards they all get the ftv ones but with no card in defaulted to London, with my old card in got me this area.

So will visit him soon and hopefully no dish or cable problems. He is wanting to get a couple of programs that or not on Freeview.

How about Channel 5 in HD ?

Perhaps you didn't read the part you quoted?

Be warned though, don't rely on your old Sky box too much as there is always the possibility within the next 10 years of Sky announcing their intentions to move all of the old DVB-S broadcasts to DVB-S2 broadcasts.

'Ten years' - are you serious

Ten years is hardly a big problem is it assuming it even happens, though it's certainly a possibility.

I'm just trying to warn the OP not to get too comfortable with using such an old standard Sky box, so the answer is yes, I am being serious in what I said!

we put an old sky box (amstrad) in a shared holiday home with no card. works fine, and basically gives the same channels as a freeview box would,

Were you just too lazy to mention the one channel that can benefit greatly from being in HD considering the abysmal SD picture quality ?

So that makes the card not pointless at all, especially if you already have an expired subscription card and happen to like channel 5, or happen to live in a area that can't get signals from Astra 2F and therefore no CH 5 SD channels, don't you agree ?