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Vista Can Run Without Activation for a Year

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the procrastinists-in-luck dept.

An anonymous reader gave us a heads up on this article for people who like putting things off. It begins: "Windows Vista can be run for at least a year without being activated, a serious end-run around one of Microsoft's key anti-piracy measures, Windows expert Brian Livingston said today. Livingston, who publishes the Windows Secrets newsletter, said that a single change to Vista's registry lets users put off the operating system's product activation requirement an additional eight times beyond the three disclosed last month. With more research, said Livingston, it may even be possible to find a way to postpone activation indefinitely."

12 of 357 comments (clear)

  1. Re:More DRM madness by dreamchaser · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have no problem whatsoever with activation. If people do not want to pay MS prices then there are alternative OSes they can use. There is nothing at all wrong with a company trying to ensure that people actually *pay* for its products.

    This is the first time I've heard of Windows Activation being referred to as DRM. I think your knee just jerked, or perhaps you thought blasting DRM would garner you postitive moderation.

    What you *should* get is -1 (Offtopic)

  2. Why Vista? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, delaying activation is fine, but why would you want Vista in the first place? My laptop died recently and I bought a replacement Thinkpad. It came pre-loaded with Vista Business. I gave it a try for two weeks.

    - Despite having 1GB RAM, the laptop ran like a glued snail.
    - Network speed was inconsistent and seems to be bound to movements of the sun.
    - Many printers (including my HP 2600n) are still unsupported. Not sure if this is HP being their usual crap self or just a complete inability to get Vista to play properly with network printers.
    - Aero. Why?
    - So many features like "Map Network Drive" have now been moved so they can only be access from specfic areas like "My Computer"
    - The updated XP style for control panel etc is really frustrating.
    - When opening some MS Office 2007 applications, the screen would corrupt then everything would hang for about 3 minutes.
    - Maybe a problem with Vista's sound libraries? Music sounded tinny through Vista, but cleaner in XP on the same machine.

    Anyways, enough of that bollocks. I've wiped the whole disk and installed XP pro again.

    1. Re:Why Vista? by Cythrawl · · Score: 2, Informative

      -The Control Panel is confusing and missing any kind of logic.

      Sheesh SET IT TO CLASSIC MODE... are people really that blind?

      -They replaced My Documents and now you can't move it to D in a simple manner.

      Acutally you can. Go into the user folder and right click on the folders in ther you can assign a new location for all the folder.. Much better than just dumping it all in one. For example, My Videos and point to one folder and My Documents to another. Why this is worse than before is beyond me, I think its much better and you have more control on where stuff lives.. Didnt look too hard did you?

      - UAC is so invasive and annoying, I'm puzzled they actually dared to turn it on by default.

      Its no more invasive than having to do root or SU login in Linux to do system tasks. Once you have the PC set up and all your major stuff installed you see less and less of UAC. Quit Whining... You asked for a more secure OS you got it..

      -Typing in a country name in the Weather-widget expecting to see a list of locations within the country crashes Explorer completely.

      parhaps its because theres something else wrong.. You dont get a list, you type your City and Zip code into the Gadget (Not Widget, unless you are trying to use Apple stuff on your Vista). and thats it... its done.. No list.. it doesnt use Explorer.. You did something wrong.. Infact thats a made up problem totally.

  3. This isn't news by cdrudge · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are hacks out there to modify the countthe activation timer so that it never times out. The cracking group Parardox also supposedly released a crack that is suppose to emulate a bios to bypass the activation process all together.

  4. Re:Edit the SkipRearm Key by jkrise · · Score: 2, Informative

    Brilliant work!

    The documentation, as usual does not give a clue as to the real intent of the registry setting.

    Interesting article here:
    http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2007/03/08/msdn_gloo m/

    --
    If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
  5. Re:Why bother? by value_added · · Score: 4, Informative

    She has to run a windows application for her work and it doesn't work under wine so I got the free vmware player but got stuck because you need the commercial version to create a virtual disk.

    Maybe try using the free vmware server product and get unstuck?

  6. Re:Why bother? by spisska · · Score: 2, Informative

    She has to run a windows application for her work and it doesn't work under wine so I got the free vmware player but got stuck because you need the commercial version to create a virtual disk.

    You may need the commercial VMware to create a virtual disk, but there's other free utilities that can create a virtual disk readable by VMplayer.

    For example I used qemu to create a virtual disk holding and running XP under VMplayer (free) running on FC4. Works great, and completely free.

  7. Re:Why bother? by SiChemist · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have been playing around with the virtualbox virtualization software. It works well on Windows and Linux and it's free for the full version.

    --
    God is imaginary
  8. Re:Why bother? by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Informative

    You may want to try VMware again. The free version I donwloaded allows you to make virtual disks, use physical drive, and do just about everything you would expect to be able to do with a virtual machine. I'm not sure what extra perks come with the pay version. I think you can run the pay version without a host OS, saving on resources.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  9. Re:Why bother? by HAKdragon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why not demand that Blizzard port it to OpenGL and other OSes so that you can have the freedom to run your computer how you see fit?

    All of Blizzard's 3D games (and even Diablo II), have the ability to run using OpenGL. That's how they work on the Mac. (Yes yes, I know by other OSes you probably meant Linux.)

    --
    "Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
  10. Re:Why bother? by Vexorian · · Score: 2, Informative

    WoW works in Wine pretty well, so if you just want to use your comp to play WoW... get a kubuntu CD and play it...

    --

    Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
  11. Re:Why bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    You know, you can use Qemu to create a vmdk.... :)