Vista Can Run Without Activation for a Year

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."

Comments

Why bother?

[BiggyP]

Since microsoft have made it perfectly clear that they don't want anyone running their OS without paying, why continue to try, how about giving one of the many shiny desktop linux distros a go instead?

Re:Why bother?

[Corporate Troll]

That is what they say, but I don't think that's true. They rather have me running Vista illegally than running Linux legally. Why? Because it increases their market share, which in turn benefits to them. I am also more likely to choose Windows in my business decisions or demand Windows Vista from my employer because "that is what I know".

For students and poorer people they damn well want them to pirate Vista.... They might one day become paying customers.

Piracy is a form of advertisement, as odd as it may sound.

(I run Debian Etch, thank you very much)

Re:Why bother?

[bjoeg]

Because a load of games are still not being made for shiny desktop linux distros.

Yes you may have Cedega, Wine and such, but they do not always perform well or able to run every game for that matter.

And yes, there are still loads of non-console gamers in the world and unfortunaly not all of them are willing to pay for Windows, and ReactOS is still Alpha.

Re:Why bother?

[tomstdenis]

Piano doesn't come with WGA. And I don't need a DRM key to play pieces out of a book :-)

That automatically tips the favour to the piano.

Tom

Re:Why bother?

[Corporate Troll]

But the attitude of these guys was just take it, we don't care which surprised me a lot.

Not me... You have to realise that many IT people are not real IT people. Some just ended up on the job. They don't care about licenses. Heck, even those that studied IT often don't care. The prime task to them is: "Get it work". That this implies a pirated Windows is irrelevant to them. (Often they don't have to care because the company they work for has a Volume License anyway).

This is mostly an ethical question. Even more so than a legal one. To me at least... I don't really care that it's illegal to pirate, but I care about not *being* a pirate. However, many people do not make that distinction: "it'll get the job done, and that is enough". I admit to pirating Windows XP (I got a volume license copy), but I slowly but surely phasing out all my illegal copies to Linux or stick with the OEM copies I have. It's one of the reasons that my brothers machine runs XP Home instead of my highly customized XP Pro installation. It came with his OEM computer and is legal... but it does give me much more grief than my customized pirated versions....

Re:Why bother?

[BiggyP]

But then you're swapping one expensive proprietary system for a similarly expensive and more proprietary one, where's the sense in that? Gaming on the Mac is in a slightly worse state, for commercial titles, than gaming on Linux from what i've seen.

At least if you're pirating vista or installing Linux you don't need to switch to another provider's hardware.

Re:Why bother?

[BiggyP]

Well, it could be argued that an ubuntu, fedora, mandriva, suse, well, just about any non source system, could be up and running somewhat quicker and with less fuss than a Gentoo installation.

Re:Why bother?

[tomstdenis]

If you buy a $150 OS just to play WoW ... Well, you tell me who is the sheep.

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? Oh right, because you're their bitch.

I'll pocket the $150 and use it to buy two months worth of private piano lessons. Much more enjoyable.

That and WoW is just lame. It's an excuse not to socialize with others in an environment of repeated "hack and magic slash." ooh ooh gotta level up, my life isn't complete unless my paladin can cast +8 fireballs.... ooooo....

Re:Why bother?

[JackMeyhoff]

Dual booting is not practical and doesnt solve the actual problem. There is a BIG drive for high speed graphics in virtual machines going on, this year and next year it will become more feasable to run games in virtual machines instaed of this dual booting gynmastics. I would prefer that they got developers signed up to target the Mac for game engines and have it done with.

Re:Why bother?

[tomstdenis]

I am happy for you.

I don't know why there is anymosity between OSS users. If ubuntu does what you want, and you chose it, all the power to you. In my case, Gentoo did what I want, and I chose it.

I only defend my choice of Gentoo when people knock it as a go-nowhere OS. Other than that, I don't really care what OS you run so long as you choose it.

Tom

How long before Microsoft patches Vista

[lthown]

Seriously, they do have this little windows update thing that sends out updates, I'm sure it's mostly trivial for them to fix the flaw

Re:How long before Microsoft patches Vista

[jurgenaut]

If you were sitting on an unactivated Vista, would you update this?

Just extends the captive marketshare...

[jkrise]

The lazy bums who will not learn Linux... the resellers in Asian markets who cannot upsell the new OS which requires 8 times more RAM just so the home user can surf the web... the so-called sysadmins in Corporate settings who will not learn ipconfig, iptables and basic Unix commands... and prefers to get one more worthless certification on Vista instead..

The mindshare monopoly of the retarded lethargic users is critical to Microsoft.

Re:Just extends the captive marketshare...

[adnonRT]

Sysadmins are creatures that follow the money trail friend. If the company wants a Win based platform as their workhorse, then the sysadmins are getting certs on that platform. Why on earth would you go through the trouble of learning Linux if what you need is a cert on Win2003 server administration? That sounds like you are setting yourself up for either getting fired for being a complete chuckle head who doesn't know his company's O/S of choice well enough to be able to audit logs or getting passed over on a potential raise or promotion because you couldn't take the time to learn the GD O/S that your company uses and HIRED you to learn and administer for them. Knowing linux commands is definitely a good thing to know, however, for a Windows sysadmin, it is NOT mission critical.

Right now, getting certs on anything non windows related if you are a sysadmin at a company that uses windows is a hobby. Until you get paid for what you know, it is just a hobby. Me? I hate windows and Vista especially. BUT I get paid to administer it so I do what needs to be done to do that well. That includes renewing certs, researching the myriad exploits that are out there everyday, and dealing with crap ware from Redmond. My linux know how is, for the moment, just for my home use and pleasure. Maybe one day I will run into a company or organization that uses a unix based system instead of a doze based system.

EDIT: What I have tried in the past is to approach my CIO with the idea that we could use linux for certain things or resources and each time he doesn't want to hear it. So this forces me to learn what they want me to learn. BECAUSE of that, Linux is just a hobby....for now.

Re:Just extends the captive marketshare...

[L0rdJedi]

C:\WINXP>ifconfig
'ifconfig' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

C:\WINXP>doskey ifconfig=ipconfig

It's never ceased to amaze me the sheer number of workarounds one collects when using or administering Linux systems. To say nothing of the endless variations of config files and values that must be memorised, but change frequently enough (or are different between distros) to remind you that the sum total of your knowledge is mostly a collection of useless trivia.

Yes, that can be made to always run (from the registry), just like yours will run from .bashrc.

Re:More DRM madness

[aeschenkarnos]

This is the first time I've heard of Windows Activation being referred to as DRM.

Digital? Check. Rights? Check. Management? Sure looks like it to me.

Re:Why Vista?

[n0rr1s]

I hate to nitpick too ;)
But...

How much the sun moves depends on your frame of reference. It's cruising round the galactic centre at a fair ol' rate, for example.

Re:Round and Round and Round It Goes...

[Nukenbar2]

I'm not so sure.

I have a number of friends that had no problem pirating the likes of Win XP and Office when all you had to do was type in the key you get off of the CD that someone burned for you or the net. But after WGA, a number of them when out and bought XP and Vista because they did want to deal with all of that 'registry stuff'.

As for myself and most people here, that 'registry stuff' is not going to bother us, but as much as we don't want to admit it, it does keep may of the masses honest.

Re:Why Vista?

[buzzn]

Hm. The last "standards based" printer I bought, an Okidata with PS option, used SCSI as the interface. None of my PCs have SCSI, and it's cheaper and easier for me to buy a new printer than to install a SCSI card. So much for standard printer languages.