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Free Upgrade From XP Home to XP Pro Lite
Novus writes "The Register reports that many of the features of Windows XP Pro, such as Remote Desktop and user management, can be enabled in Windows XP Home simply by changing two bytes in an installation data file. Another explanation can be found here."
The EULA of Windows XP is not visible to the buyer before the sale, so it is not part of the contract in many countries. It's still borderline illegal, but the EULA has nothing at all to do with it.
The EULA has no legal validity. As long as you don't violate the copyright (which you aren't, since the copy is transitory and for personal use only) or breaking any other laws, you can do what you like with the CD you own.
I am trolling
While the legality of EULA agreements may be in dispute, one still can't call making this change an "upgrade". At best it's a hack to gain new functionality which has been disabled. At worst, it's a copyright violation. In both cases, you still don't get Microsoft support - whatever the value of that. The article title really is misleading. --M
I believe the XP "Super CD" floating around the net uses these techniques. It has about 6 different versions of XP all on one CD, ready for install. MSDN, Home, Professional, OEM, etc
Or quite possibly it just replaces the Setupreg.hiv files for which ever version the user chooses to install.
I remember the (slightly larger) hack on Windows NT 3.51 to turn Workstation into Server. Not only did it remove the network restrictions, the system actually performed better.
This is not flame bait, just an honest question- does anyone have an exerpt from the EULA that deals with this sort of thing?
Either way, this still sounds to me that this would hold up under fair use in court. Its on the stinking disc.
Won't you guys get in trouble for posting this, The DMCA, the dmca
My driver's license isn't legal until I sign it. The same should apply here. I will not be bound by any contract that I did not sign. If they want these things to be binding, make the customer sign an agreement before money changes hands.
What?
if microsoft is advertising pro and home as two distinct products, when in fact they are not, isn't this false advertising? it's like buying a ford with a V6 and finding that it's really a V8, just two cylinders turned off, and only a ford supplied wrench can open #7 and 8. forgetting linux for a moment, when apple sells Xserve 10 client, it's only 10 apple share clients. there's unlimited samba, ftp, etc., and they're not selling a "pro" version of os x. my guess is that if these features are already built into the OS, then a lawsuit is waiting to happen. i'm sure millions of users would like the features turned on since they're already there.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Yes, tell it to your landlord and parking garage. The fact is that nearly everyone signs or implicitly agrees to contracts the violate one or more of these principles but it doesn't stop them from being enforced.
I never understood how that decision worked... The makers of Bnetd never, necessarily, even bought/installed/played a Blizzard game.
Exactly. IANAL, but it should be possible for one to argue that, as they had not seen (and had little to no means of seeing) the EULA at the time of doctoring the CD, that they were unaware of the conditions imposed therein. Further, as the EULA would not apply at that point, there is little valid argument as to why slightly modifying (for personal use) software one physically owns is bad. This is another example of Microsoft's exploitation of users and, should they pursue this further (removal of comment letters, anyone?) they will continue to turn users toward alternatives.
Disclaimer: I don't live in the US, however I do know US law fairly well, particularly copyright law.
There are two different issues here:
1. Whether it is illegal to disseminate information on how to do this "hack"
2. Whether doing this "hack" and using the resulting product is illegal
Facts, such as "by changing two bytes of a work makes it behave in way X", as in (1), are not subject to copyright in the US. Copyright only protects the fruits of creative expression, but not facts or ideas of any kind (for the latter kind there is the patent system). Even some human choice is allowed here: For example, records of chess games have been found to be ineligible of copyright protection.
However, (1) _might_ be argued to be contributory copyright infringement if (and only if) (2) is found to be infringing. However the bar for contributory is quite high and especially the mere provision of information (not counting direct infringement, ie. giving out copies) is generally very well protected by the 1st Amendment. Incitement requires more than the provision of mere information, so incitement it is not. It is my belief that (1) would not be considered illegal in the end.
It is hard to find anything clear on (2) in the copyright law. However the one thing that would probably be invoked is this: The right to make derived works is one of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner. However the mere change of two bytes quite obviously doesn't meet the requirements for a new work (ie. original, creative, individual expression). Hence the modified work is actually not a derived work, which is a work created by combining an existing work with new expression.
(2) can also be attacked on basis of contract law. In this case it really comes to whether EULAs are enforceable or not, which I'm not willing to comment on because the matter is widely disputed even among people more knowledgeable of the US law than me (read: US legal scholars).
Even in case of cracks to commercial or shareware titles the case never was very clear, regardless of what some companies or representatives of shareware vendors would like you to believe.
You can modify the setupp.ini file in the /i386 folder on the CD for more tricks. You can turn an OEM disk into an upgrade version that will accept OEM keys (and properly activate with Microsoft) my simply copying the setupp.ini from an upgrade version into the /i386 folder, and changing the last three bytes on the "PID=" line to OEM. This little file is the only differential between XP Home OEM, XP Home Retail, and XP Home Upgrade.
you can describe a method with no issue
Not if describing the method is ruled to constitute an "offer" or "provid[ing] to the public" a technology that circumvents the copyright protection. See sections 1201.2(a) and (c) of the DMCA, where it's illegal to
manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof.
2600 was thought to have been providing deCSS simply by linking to it, even without describing the method of its operation. The balance of freedom of speech vs. the clauses in the DMCA that prohibit speech are, IMO, unclear, and HAS been used to quell even spoken descriptions of circumvention techniques.
Dave Touretzky demonstrates in his DeCSS gallery how retarded and incoherant this law's gag on free speech is.
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
VNC is far better? *cough* RDP has a ton of features missing in VNC
While I too prefer RDP to VNC, there are some applications that won't run or install properly from a RDP session. With VNC, the application is actually running on the console.
Example: Office 2000. Even though MS has a transform file to properly install Office 2000 so it runs with many concurrent RDP users, Office 2000 won't install from a RDP session. I hate getting off my butt and walking to the server room. VNC is great for this.
But section 107 only says that "the fair use of a copyrighted work ... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright".
I'm not sure that covers modifying software. Section 117 talks specifically about software, but only grants you permission to copy or adapt software for compatibility/interoperability purposes, and backing up.
If you were allowed to alter software, then the GPL and similar licenses wouldn't need to specifically grant you that permission, and the folks on debian-legal wouldn't require such a grant of permission in any license they review for complience with the DFSG.
Pumping gas is consuming a product offered for sale. If you fail to pay for it, it's not a contract violation, it's theft by conversion. The police cannot arrest you for contract violations, and they sure as hell can do so for stealing gas.
I wish people who don't know anything about contract law would shut up about it. There is no such thing as 'magical invisible contracts that apply when you do something'. Contracts do not work that way.
When you pump gas, you accept the offer made to provide gas at that price. That. Is. Not. A. Contract. It is an offer made and acceptance of the offer, aka, a perfectly normal purchase.
It works exactly like every other purchase works, except you consume the goods to indicate acceptance of the offer, instead of handing them money to indicate acceptance of the offer.
And, just so we're clear, an 'offer' has nothing whatsoever to do with a 'contract'. The only way to agree to a contract is to agree to a contract, you can't do it via any random action.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Besides microsoft specifically excludes the operating system as being free of viruses when the sell it to you. So did you active it or did the virus because if microsoft can not tell whether the operating system is free of viruses or not, then any thing that occurs on your computer could be as a result viruses inherent with in the operating system.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen