Slashdot Mirror
Security Of Windows/Office XP Activation Code?
merodach asks: "In pondering the next versions of Windows and Office (XP), the wonderful save-us-from-ourselves product activation, and MS's repeated public blunders with security I began to wonder about the security around the activation code, itself. Specifically, I was wondering how it would impact my job as an IT Consultant with regards to Melissa-type viruses and trojans which might: surreptitiously use the transmission code to send sensitive info to competitors/enemies of my customer; and (assuming that the software checks this periodically) change the activation info and damage/destroy the ability to repair that info (in short order rendering an entire network useless). As I don't have access to the beta versions or the code I was wondering if anybody in the Slashdot community would be able to list or explain what, if any, precautions are being taken on this." As it happens, TechRepublic has an article about this very subject. Thanks to Deecyl for the link.
Or, they will find some other cheap or free software to do what they want.
You can't assume that people will continue behaving the same when the conditions change. More likely, they will change their behaviour, into a more convenient / inexpensive pattern.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Someone asks a question about the security of XP. Everyone replies about each and every aspect of XP except security issues! Didn't we do the XP sucks threads before?
Okay, back to the issue at hand:
I'm pretty sure that the security won't be much different than that of previous Microsoft products or any other software product in general.
Yes, there will be bugs and problems with security. Microsoft has probably paid more attention to problems than they used to, just like they did with Windows 2000, but that only partially helps. Software releases have bugs. Period.
If it is a minor one, it might be fixed. If it's regular, it will be fixed some day. If it's big, it will be fixed and rather soon. If it's huge and does what you fear/describe, it will be fixed ASAP.
There are not so many precautions you can take, really, since no software company holds itself liable for any of its products. The best thing you can do to avoid the risk is simply by not using it.
If for whatever reason you are forced to use it or think the benefits outweigh the risks, you might want to look into some sort of insurance contract in case things go very very wrong.
I am sure insurance companies will insure you against horrible software plagues, they seem to insure almost anything including not getting any snow or sun on respectivily winter and summer holidays.
While I'm at it, does anyone know how to get to the article wihtout a browser blessed by the priests of eye-candy that run their site? Lynx is taken to a redirect page, from which you can only proceed to the main page . . .
or is there even anything worth reading?
awk
1. If corporations don't have to worry about this what stops me from getting my "big corp" sysadmin buddie to lend me a copy of there CD.
This is what caught me too. Fine, I'll use my MSDN copy and be free of this mess, but how many times have we heard about companies having more installations that licenses (ask that city in Virginia).
This won't help that at all.
1 year from now on alt.binaries.cd.images:
REQ: plz post MSDN version of WindowsXP - I am 3l337!!!
Sounds like another push for OSX and Linux - no hassle computing (at least in that area!)
Siemens uses the 'key' in the MBR trick for its PLC dev. software... virus scanners used to kill it all the time.
I know about this. And Allen Bradley is boneheaded about their software too. This makes their PLC's often out of reach on nightshift from debugging when the person who has the key, dongle, whatever is not reachable. Its a joy to watch manufacturing lines churn out thousands of pounds worth of scrap because a software key can't be had until morning. In my opinion, this makes the lesser known vendors who sell non-proprietary PLC's much more attractive.
What is so disgusting, is that people are threatening to sue MS over defective software that hasn't even shipped yet, and the customer is buying the software knowing of the risk ahead of time.
Sure I know about it, but that doesn't mean I don't have to use it. You see, I work at a large manufacturing plant. Large. When software has a quirk and decides to halt, the manufacturing process halts. With plastic extrusion, any stoppage of the process can be quantitized in terms of several thousands of dollars in scrap per event, not to mention the burden downtime. When NT just decides to halt the entire computer, I become acutely aware of how serious a problem is.
I don't purchase proprietary software and its licenses. I never will. But there are people unknown to me that I work with who do. The COO even backed me about my complaint with shitty software, but he's powerless to do anything about it. Politics at work just seem to go with whatever products are marketed the strongest. Its sick, but its what I have to deal with daily.
Happens all the time - when you buy something at the store, your paying for all the shoplifted items also; i.e., the cost of theft is spread over and paid for by all the legit customers.
<rant>
Of course, it would be much better to have a friggin' CHOICE of which store to shop at so we could avoid those with over 25% theft rate - but nooooooooooooo, all those little office desktop bozo's just HAVE to love their little pc pope and do everything he wants, however po'd the it dept gets...
</rant>
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
In other words, Microsoft is implementing the exact strategy of the MPAA's CSS encryption.
Even if someone were to figure out how to circumvent the activation system, what are the odds that the hack will find its way onto the web?
Here's a simple approach. Cut deals with all of the hardware manufacturers so that they are forced to purchase a copy of Windows for each machine they sell, whether or not the user wants it. This way, Microsoft will receive automatic license payments on probably 95% of all PCs manufactured, leaving only the 5% or less of PCs that are built from scratch vulnerable to Windows piracy.
Oh wait
I think slashweenies have missed the security aspect of this thread. The question posed is as valid with Windows 2000 as with XP. The question is about virii breaking the registration codes your CP software needs in order to keep working. I would assume that your XP software would be able to rescan your system and take your reg code to generate the same authorization code as it first generated. A one way function is a one way function. Oh well.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The rumor mill has it that the Select version of XP will be register-free, to help companies that do imaging and the like. To my eyes these look like the non-Select version of the same install CD. My question is, what's to prevent someone from comparing a select and non-select XP CD and finding the N files that are different (presumably they will largely be the same) and producing either a binary patch set or just distributing those files?
What is so disgusting, is that people are threatening to sue MS over defective software that hasn't even shipped yet, and the customer is buying the software knowing of the risk ahead of time.
Anyone who knows the risk before purchasing, shouldn't be allowed to sue. This R. Kinner sounds like a seriously irresponsible asshole.
It's like if I sued the maker of these cyanide tabl--Arrr.... *thud*
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
There's going to be different versions of XP out; they'll be XP Home, XP Professional, XP Server, and XP Advanced Server. Only the Home edition will *always* require activation. For Select Customers, MSDN users, and others, it will not require communication to MS to install/activate.
It's a little silly and shows some of the current attitudes (I swear this isn't a troll) of Slashdotters to rant this much. So, I'd like to ask these questions-
a.) If an Open Source activist is allowed to get upset and take legal action when someone doesn't follow their license, then why can't MS ensure people follow their license? Is MS' somehow less valid because it isn't popular? If one is such an advocate of a particlar business model, that person should have at least civic respect for another license.
b.) An argument could be made that OSS is pushing the ASP movement. More specifically, when a free alternative is competing with Microsoft, MS can either try to take a larger market share or simply make more money off the market share they already have. If all closed-source apps went away, the drive of the IT market would be on services. No longer could a company rely on selling their software for a year before releasing a new version. Instead, they might find more money in renting the use of their apps.
This second point is really kind of a theory, and I am interested to hear what others think.)
NP
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Basically, Windows XP will probably do stuff like check the processor you're using, serial or model numbers from your hard drives, what PCI or (shudder) ISA cards are installed, BIOS manufacturer and version number, etc. From this it'll make a "fingerprint", which gets sent off to Microsoft.
Microsoft then sends back an "activation code" - as long as you write this down somewhere, you'll be fine.
However, Microsoft doesn't define how much of your machine has to stay the same when you do an upgrade. Does my machine need a new activation code when I:
According to Microsoft's Product Activation Fact Sheet:
The thing that bugs me is - how much is "extensively"? Why is that sentence written to be intentionally vague? My guess is that Microsoft is hoping to keep Product Activation secure through obscurity. If you don't know how it works, you can't go breaking it, right?
When you activate your Microsoft products, your registration key will obviously be stored on some Microsoft license server.
cpeterso
Well, hopefully with the increasing demand for something reasonably priced for him to use, the OSS community will port some of free word processing programs over to winblowz.
::grin::).
Check out OpenOffice (formerly Star Office). They treat Win32 as a primary platform (along with Solaris and Linux) and its starting to look preaty spiffy and stable. Still a bit left to do (ie. Its still beta, so its more stable than MS Office, but doesn't have all the neat templates yet
Once its hit General Availability, I'm sure people are going to work on/improve the MS Office compatability filters, and when Joe-Six-Pack needs to get his home office suite, he'll either borrow a CD from his "Techie Friend" (amazing how much this happens), or he'll shell over a VASTLY smaller number of $$ for a copy of OpenOffice on the retail stores... put out but Sun or someone else.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Um, No.
I'm on the beta for this, and I lurk the private MS newsgroups. They started a newsgroup just to discuss Product Activation once the flamewars spread into the other groups, drowning out the other discussions. In that newsgroup, 99.995% of the posts are, if anything, more vitriolic and staunchly opposed to the idea of product activiation than the posts I have read here...
So naturally, once MS shipped code that really needed to be activated, the first thing most folks did was try and figure out what hardware changes trigger the system activation. It turns out to be more complex than just the MAC address, rather it works off of a combination of some motherboard identification, hard drive ID, and the Mac address. (I would bet that if you have a CPU with a GUID, then it uses that, too.) You can actually change out a lot of this stuff and not have the reactivation trigger.
Besides that, apparently (I read this over at the Register) the cracks are painfully easy to implement, so it's really not going to solve the problem.
I agree, this can only be bad for microsoft. They have based their whole corporate stratagy on market share and actually have benefitted from a certain leve of piracy. Each time someone pirated a copy in the past from a friend they contributed to the demise of OS/2 and MACOS and the rise of windows. Sure they didn't pay for Windows but they still supported the platform by buying other software that only worked on Windows.
I guess that they (MS) think that they've got everone hooked now and that they can safely tighten things and collect their money now.
This just seems like a perfect oportunity for GNU/Linux to start building market share. As it gets harder to get Windows it will get easier to chose Linux. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of years.
Read the quote again, specifically The activation will be automatic.
Call me stoopid, but I can't see how this would work without Office storing the code on the HDD somewhere.
From the TechRepublic article:
Every time you reinstall Windows, you'll need a new code.
R. Kinner is already prepared to join a class action lawsuit against Microsoft: "If I, as a home user, am forced over the course of a year to reinstall XP five times, and MS refuses me a sixth code, they are the ones breaking the commerce contract that was begun when I purchased the software." Call off the lawyers! You can reinstall Windows or Office XP an unlimited number of times on the same hardware. The activation will be automatic.
This has to be bullshit. If I reformat and reinstall, how could Office possibly know that I already have an activation code? Where, exactly, is Office storing the activation code? On the hard drive I just formatted?
Ditto if I upgrade the hard drive. Am I missing something here?
MIS folks shouldn't be installing the retail release of XP (Windows or Office) on "hundreds or thousands of PCs at once". Look into Select or Open licensing.
So when did these mean that you get a different piece of software as opposed to a different kind of certificate saying you can use the software?
IMHO Microsoft isn't likely to want to make an activation free "corporate" version of the software since once the pirates get their hands on that them the who idea of using the method to stop piracy goes out the window...
Imagine if the USS Yorktown was running on Windows XP? In the middle of an intense Naval battle, the sonar system pops up a dialog box, "Sorry, your Sonar Tracking System Software licence has expired. Please connect to the Microsoft Product Activation site to up date your licence. This should only take a few minutes. [Renew Licence] [Stop Using STSS]"
Even Microsoft isn't stupid enough to pull this on the US military.
Major problem - if you're an MIS tech suddenly faced with upgrading hundreds or thousands of PCs at once, this activation thingy is another thing that can go wrong. Anything that makes MIS's job harder is one less thing they'll be inclined to order.
One reason for the sucky sales of Win2000 - out-of-the-box, it doesn't play well with existing NT installations, so lots of corporate and government MIS departments haven't upgraded yet. This is MS's main revenue stream, the one which pulls in the big bucks. Doesn't matter if the MIS head is a Microserf or not, if the upgrade causes more lost revenues in terms of downtime and tech support than benefits, it's not gonna happen. And yeah, there are a lot of stereotypical PHBs out there, but if an upgrade causes a company to lose actual $$$, as opposed to the "benefits" and "increased productivity" of the upgrade (especially those that have been burned by the Win9x -> Win2k upgrade) even a die-hard non-tech PHB is going to take a second look before signing those purchase orders.
1) Have you actually used a Select or Open license? Do you know how much of a bear it is to actually deploy across an enterprise? (i.e. vastly different from documentation, registry screwups, missing keys etc).
And the Educational versions of above licenses is exactly the same as the retail/OEM version. No additional admin tools, etc...
2) I'm just saying MIS departments who've been burned by the problems experienced with Win2k would be leery of upgrading to a version with an added "activation" feature which can introduce yet another point of installation failure. (especially for those of us outside the US with intermittent/unreliable Internet links).
Unfortunately, until Joe Sixpack can install Linux and the OSS application without having to grok "partition", "glibc", and what-not, he's gonna say "fuck this, next time I'm buying a Dell(tm) because it's got Intel Inside(tm) and comes with WindowsXP(tm) and WindowsXP(tm) comes with a word processor built-in!"
Don't forget - Joe Sixpack doesn't buy an OS and applications - he doesn't even buy an Athlon/Duron/PIII. He buys a "Dell" or a "Compaq", and has no idea that he's even paying $100ish for the 'doze license and other "bundled" software on it.
Why can't I just set the clock on my computer to the year 9 billion, install XP, and then fix my clock?
If the software detects that the clock is set to a time earlier than it was previously, this is a good indication that something funny is going on and it can refuse to run, some time-limited demos do this.
After you've installed XP you have like 2 weeks to "activate" it. You'll start getting notices. If you don't activate it within the two weeks the app and OS (Whistler does this too) stops working.
To activate it the software connects to a Microsoft server and verifies your key hasn't been used by 20 other pirates.
I've got a select agreement with Microsoft where I work, and so I'll be getting CDs with no activation code required. So will lots and lots of other users, and one of them will post the ISOs somewhere (I won't - I've too much self-respect ;-)
However, the net effect will be lots of users with Office/Windows XP in their workplaces, and all new PCs being bundled with Windows XP at least. Home users will upgrade to be compatible with their workplace, but it's the new PCs that will drive sales. Windows XP will be the only OS available from OEMs.
Alister
As strange as it may seem, (to myself included) I have realised that I don't have ANY pirated software on my computer. Even my OS (Windows ME, save the flames for later) is legit, and I have my own CD key to prove it. Therefore, if WindowsXP is as good as they claim, then I think that I would be more then willing to pay $100 for it. I don't care if it needs to be activated; if it's legal, who the hell cares? It's not an invasion of privacy, it is a company trying to stop the massive flood of pirated versions of their software.
I don't see what all the fuss is about, honestly.
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CitizenC
Oooh, now you've given the 1337 5kr1P7 K1dd135 something useful to do!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
That was Borland's No Nonsense License Agreement.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I don't honestly think this activation code will last long. Between the activation data being corrupted, destroyed (by accident, virus, etc), and whatnot, I think Microsoft will eventually be FORCED to pull the code in order for it's customers to have an easier time of it all.
That and it'll be cracked soon enough after release that the pirates can have their way with it anyways, rendering the whole grand plan by Microsoft to stop piracy useless.
yeah - that is pretty facist.
All your event are belong to us.
Now when I ask for my refund on windows, won't it be easy to verify that I've never used that installation and am entitled to the refund? Or perhaps it's already activated by the OEM when they installed windows.
All your event are belong to us.
The hardware fingerprint is generally the MAC of the primary ethernet card (in a system with ethernet). So if you change your primary network card, the fingerprint changes.
This can be a major problem on laptops. My laptop did not come with onboard ethernet, and I switch out the PCMCIA ethernet card on a regular basis, plus each of my docking stations has an ethernet interface with it's own unique MAC.
It's often very easy to change the MAC on an ethernet card, but if you have two machines on the same network segment with the same MAC, strange things happen.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Of course they have. It now contains its own miniature modem that tracks all of your software and internet usage. Didn't you see the expose on Lone Gunmen?
Seriously though, W2K already gets pissed off if you dare try to use its Restore CD (not an Install CD any more, and not your CD at all) on anything but the exact machine you bought. Why would Whistler do any less?
Intel disabled the Processor ID as default, and I believe it is not in P4. (Am I right there?)
Anyways, the PIII PID is probably the least-used feature on any CPU (even NOPs gets used alot), so I bet Intel lost on this overall.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Ironic that microsoft is using a MAC (which btw doesnt even require a serial to run, since you have to buy apple hardware.)
The main reason for introduction of the activation code, is to reduce the amount of illigal copies. Unfortunately for Microsoft, software crackers are usually very intelligent people that are challenged by such a nice new copy-protection schema. Therefore, I estimate that a crack for this new protection will be released within a week after the introduction of the new XP software
/. somewhere) stole some snippets of code that were (coincidentally??) the ones dealing with the new activation codes. If that is true, than the crack can be released before the product ;-)
A rumor I heard (but I can't validate it, it remains a rumor) is that the guy who cracked a microsoft machine and had access to their network for about 2 weeks (article should be on
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If code was hard to write, it should be hard to read
It specifically says that the code is generated based on the hardware in your system. Unless you swapped out hardware as part of your format-and-reinstall
What if the format-and-reinstall was because you swapped out hardware? What if you are installing Windows onto the new hard drive you just bought? Luckily, there's a better way: Generic Windows. It's Wine running on top of Linux or BSD. And as long as developers continue to support Windows 9x, Wine will be fine.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
LINUX IS NOT READY FOR GAMES, not yet. Name a game that you can just install and start playing without touching any config files.
Once you have the Allegro library installed from source tarball (./configure; make depend; make; su -c make install), you can run any free Allegro game such as freepuzzlearena, TOD, or scores of others. There are also emulators to run other platforms' games (such as TuxNES and SNES9x).
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
NOT UNTIL LINUX RUNS DIRECTX APPS, and then I will JUMP ONTO LINUX soooo fast
Wine already implements a subset of DirectDraw and DirectInput, enough to run many older (and more imaginative) games. And there are libraries such as Allegro and ClanLib that make porting across Windows (DirectX) and Linux (X11/DGA) a matter of a recompile.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The codes, and your use of them, are all stored at MondoUncrackableDatabase.microsoft.com. And sure, you could set your clock back every day, but writing software to detect this would really be pretty trivial - have Windows record how many hours you've been using it. It could encrypt this info and save it to \system32\gondonlyknows.dll.
So after your computer's been up for about 300 hours, but the date never changes, it'll start to get suspicious, and politely shut down.
I don't think they'll be this draconian, but it's certainly technically feasible.
question: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Except that you can't get the nice cheap hobbyist version anymore, only the quite expensive corporate edition.
According to the article, "a Microsoft spokesman assured [the author]" that mundane upgrades wouldn't cause a problem. Whew! We can all rest easy, because we know a Microsoft spokesman would never mislead a member of the press....
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
'Innocent until proven guilty' is a maxim that only applies to the justice system. As a corporation, MS is free and clear allowed to do this.
If you pay money for it, feel free to complain. If you don't plan on paying for it, then nobody cares what you think.
For once they're telling the truth. Windows Update works by fetching a list of all possible updates for everything, and then a local ActiveX control filters out anything already on your machine. Simple, really.
already sending sensitive information away
I once tried the "windows update" feature on my sisters computer - as the system was analyzing the PC for packages etc, a text box appeared: "Microsoft is Analyzing your Computer to create a set up updates for your system. No information is being sent to Microsoft" (or somesuch). I nearly fell down laughing. They could be sending M$ my fucking email for all I knew! I couldnt believe it.. funny thing is most sheeple would think 'oh-ok - I dont mind then..."
Does anyone know if Intel has 're-enabled' the UID in its CPUs in the P4?
Wouldnt it be nice if they could track exact CPUs....
What a fiasco this is going to be...
I for one, am going to buy a legal copy of "XP" (shudder, someone tell MS to get the D&D'ers out of marketing!) and then crack the authorization.
Why? The big reason is that this kind of stuff pisses me off. It's a real hassle for me to have bother with calling the nimrods at MS tech support (speaking from experience, I used to work in PSS) every time I make a "major" hardware change, (which is often), and prove to them that it's a "legit" copy. I fdisk and reformat every 2 or 3 months for God's sake! If they have a problem with that, whatever.
What is it with calling it Windows XP? What's next, Microsoft Outlook +3, trojan-slaying? (It's not a memory-leak, it's a "bag of holding"!) Where does the madness end?
I've been called a "Fucking Dick" by better people than you.
Below is a note I just sent to webmaster@techrepublic.com:
You might be aware that Slashdot just linked to one of your articles--if
not, have a look at http://slashdot.org/ and your server logs.
Slashdot, if you don't know, is one of the most popular news/discussion
sites for ``nerds'' and others with an interest in the tech community
and industry. It's given rise to the verb, ``to slashdot,'' which refers
to something akin to a denail of service attack when thousands upon
thousands of Slashdot readers attempt to view a page that is mentioned
on Slashdot.
If your servers can handle it, being slashdotted is a wonderful thing:
you get an astounding boost in traffic from an extremely savvy,
knowledgeable, and often influential crowd of people. If your servers
can't handle it, it can be a bit of a nightmare, of course.
While it would seem that your servers can handle the load, your site
expressly can't. Your insistence on only allowing people using the
latest browsers from Microsoft and Netscape is all but guaranteed to
royally tick off a significant portion of Slashdot readers--not to
mention, potential readers in general. Slashdot readers, in particular,
are likely to use Linux, one of the BSDs, or some other Free operating
system. I, for example, attempted to use the Konqueror browser under
FreeBSD to view your site. I had had Konqueror running continuously,
without quitting or crashing, for about a week...until I tried to view
the article despite your warning. Congratulations, yours is the first
site I've viewed (amidst some very heavy viewing) which has ever managed
to crash the latest version of Konqueror.
By designing your site in such a way, you are satisfying your own ego
(by producing what's probably an attractive site) at the expense of your
potential audience and your advertisors. Is it really worth it to use
the latest gee-whiz doohickies and, in turn, post a giant "GO AWAY! WE
DON'T WANT YOUR MONEY! YOU ARE STUPID AND PRIMITIVE!"
sign to everybody who doesn't march in lock-step with your idea of
which browser/platform is best? You might think so, but I doubt
your boss or your advertisers do.
There are two sites which you, as a Web designer, must know inside and
out before you create another page: http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/
and http://www.w3.org/. The first has information more information about
why it's not a good idea to insult and lock out your potential
audiences; the second is the repository of the official defintion of
HTML.
Sincerely,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
Actually, OEMs will automatically pre-register your copy of Windows XP and/or Office XP with Microsoft. Now, the question is which OEM are you talking about? I'm sure the Mom & Pop down the street computer shop probably won't pre-register unless Microsoft forces the issue and threatens them with legal action. On the other the OEM's that are in bed with Microsoft (Dell, Compaq, etc.) will definitely pre-register.
However... a lot of this really doesn't matter because the big OEM's (Dell, Compaq, HP, etc.) don't give you a copy of your OS media these days. Now you only get a recovery CD that restores your system to the original factory condition. Microsoft completely snuck that under the radar and no one ever said anything.
It may be a pain to return your software... but you can't return a restore CD. Why would Microsoft want a copy of a restore CD that is only good for your computer? So, I guess you won't be able to ask for a refund on Windows because you won't actually have a copy of Windows.
Did anyone else notice that TechRepublic is giving MS advice on avoiding bad PR rather than asking MS to forget this stupid feature-not-a-bug?
sulli
RTFJ.
As much as I like to bash Microsoft, I can't see any significant problems here. It appears, from reading the article and the Microsoft info, that this "product activation" will only need to be done once, and once it's activated, that's it, end of story; there's no "connect to Microsoft every time and verify the code" (imagine how frustrated that would make modem users). As far as surreptitiously transmitting information, I can't see any way to do that through this code, at least as Microsoft describes it; at worst, you could have your DNS corrupted or packets intercepted, and someone might be able to find out what country you were in or how many computers you have. And if that bothers you, you can always do the registration over the telephone and cut out the network part entirely.
As for destroying the activation info, I don't doubt that sooner or later a virus will come out that deletes that info, but at worst you'll just have to activate the software again. And keep in mind also that killing the activation code doesn't mean you suddenly can't use the software any more; you can make use of the free trial period while you get the re-activation done. (Actually, depending on the implementation this might require a reinstall, but...) Yes, you'd lose some working time, but it wouldn't be too much worse than Melissa, I imagine.
--
BACKNEXTFINISHCANCEL
i have been using windows since i started with computers, use it now. i am an ASP, mssql etc programmer. However, i believe in the motto "you vote with every dollar you spend" (or in *nix's case, dont spend hehe) i have always been interesting in linux and open source, but never enough to do anything serious with it. however, i will not give in the xp bullshit. there is absolutely no reason i should not have complete control over my PERSONAL computer. so, my next upgrade will be to linux. welcome me aboard.
NEWS: cloning, genome, privacy, surveillance, and more!
NEWS: cloning, genome, privacy, surveillance, and more!
The fundamental flaw I see with product activation schemes is when a company goes under. Unless they manage to make a "registration disabler" before they close, products installed after a company shuts its doors may never function.
I have yet to see a company mention how it plans to deal with this situation, no matter how uncomfortable it might be. Personal computers from the 1980s still work in my house; I see no reason for my current computer to fail due to non-installing software in 2020.
Really? Too bad you don't know some of the MSCEs I have meet. (Start with joke, checked :-)
But seriously, it is not very clear how the "Microsoft Activation Center" is going to work. For example if I call them up and tell them "I have complete overhaul my computer please give me the new code", but the truth is I've just install it on another machine. Or if it helps, build the second machine with some parts from the first one. But how are they going to know the difference? Come to my home and take a look?
Maybe there is a way to disable the old code remotely? Of course you can get around this by not connect that machine to the net. But what this is really about is this:
If you read the last question on the Microsoft Product Activation Q&A, they finally mentioned .NET. I think the only way to really enforce this code is to have a OS/software that are completely useless unless you connect to a .NET server. That is where they can really monitor if a activation code is being used from different machines/locations.
BTW I hope you know that M$ can already "read" your W2K reg number when you visit their site, without actually submitting anything. Try getting windows updates from the MS site directly for with a machine using a special/cooperate license.
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Codeala - Just another mindless drone
Even their current licensing system is totally ridiculous. To me, if it takes more than half a minute to explain per seat/per sever/etc etc, the licensing system is too involved and you should just put down a Linux or FreeBSD box... or even a Solaris x86 box (with less than 8 processors)...Microsoft can go and screw themselves.
If techs were cautious about moving to non-MS platforms before, this might just make them do it.Don't worry. Microsoft has an army of lawyers to deal with victims of pirated copies.
Probably they just castrate you and give you a new activation code.
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fifth sigma, inc.
Fight or lose, the right to choose. -Oi Polloi "The Right to Choose"