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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."
...does it run with activation key? SCNR :-)
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?
Software Freedom Day!.
Tag it: "defectivebyaccident"!
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
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)
for some twit to tag this either 'haha' or 'defectivebydesign'
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.
Win9X seems to have conditioned a lot of users to think that reinstalling every 6 months or so is normal anyway.
On the one hand MS tries to make life hard for the small time infringers (most of them), but on the other hand they still need to be number one of most infringed software, so there needs to be a backdoor. They need to be the most infringed because the infringers are the easiest turned customers. If there were no ways to get around MS licencing tricks, there would be no more potential new customers when the next release of Windos arrives.
My Father decided to buy a fresh Vista licence after using illegal versions before. That lasted about 3 days, then he decided to switch to linux (no, it had something to do with a 64bit intel compiler that was beer-free on linux only).
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
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.
Microsoft tells ya how to do it.
How long before we see this as a Slashdot user name? "Hi, I'm Skip -- Skip Rearm."
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
My Linux box runs for at least a year without activation also.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
Digital? Check. Rights? Check. Management? Sure looks like it to me.
Given last weeks article about how ms want people to pirate their products and that they do it so that people would eventually turn to the "legal" route, does anyone believe this was found by "accident"?
seriously, hasn't this always been the way? give people a way to run MS's products pirated? maybe im just an old cynic..
Download size: 773 KB , less than 1 minute
A security issue has been identified that could allow you to compromise your Windows-based system using regedit and gain control of your licensing destiny. You can help protect our destiny by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you wil be required to restart your computer.
the so-called sysadmins in Corporate settings who will not learn ipconfig, iptables and basic Unix commands..
$ ipconfig
bash: ipconfig: command not found
$ echo "alias ipconfig=ifconfig" >> ~/.bashrc
It's never ceased to amaze me the sheer number of workarounds one collects when using or administering Windows systems. To say nothing of endless variations of regkeys and values that must be memorised, but change frequently enough to remind you that the sum total of your knowledge is mostly a collection of useless trivia.
Sometimes I wonder if these people aren't affiliated with Apple..
These Apple posts always read like an Apple "Hot news" testimonial;
"I'm a long time big business guy who researches cancer, is a long time software engineer, or applies computers to art, who has high standards and has tried everything.
What do I use you [don't] ask? Apple OS X; it's stunning, and the user-experience is breathtaking, it truly is the center of my digi-life. And, for a limited time only, it starts at only $399.
Your life. Your potential. Your Macintosh.
Think different."
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
It doesn't stop pirates.
But it does deny access to paying customers... some of Microsoft's biggest and best customers.
So Microsoft needs to put in a backdoor so that their support professionals can take care of those customers over the phone.
But if you're telling hundreds of people about a backdoor, sooner or later it will leak.
So Microsoft will need to patch the backdoor.
But if they do that, once again, they'll be screwing their best customers.
So they'll need to open another backdoor. Quite possibly the new backdoor will be opened by the very same patch that closes the SkipRearm backdoor.
Microsoft doesn't benefit from this. Microsoft's customers don't benefit from it. The only people who benefit from it is the computer trade press and Slashdot, which is assured of an endless stream of news stories to talk about.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
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.
What I find to be horribly ironic is that Vista is everything that many users ASKED for. They wanted shiny graphics. They wanted a calendar on the desktop; they wanted to see search capability on the Start menu. IE7 was something IE users requested. Task switching (displaying folders like a Rolodex). My Computer is now simply named Computer to help lessen the confusion. Something called a Breadcrumb Bar. The list goes on.
/. users wanted any part of this. In fact, any techno-literate person would prefer not to have the added processes that Vista has running all the time. Personally, I don't see much point in going to Vista because I don't want a calendar on the desktop, I don't want to sacrifice my collection of games for the few that MS has added only for Vista. I prefer few processes running in the background to optimize my system for what I want running, not what MS believes I should have running.
Now, before everyone starts bashing me, please note I did not say ALL users asked for this. Nor did I say ANY
Unfortunately for those in an office setting, many will be forced to go to Vista when OEM dealers stop offering XP as an option. I know my office will be looking at Vista within a year because we are too lazy to buy XP licenses and reinstall Windows XP after wiping the HDD of Vista.
I once had a signature.
IIRC, the PET operating system was BASIC wasn't it? Then some shame is quite appropriate as I am ashamed to admit I still have a "cheat sheet" of PEEK and POKE codes around here somewhere that I used as a reference when writing my very first program. (A steerable rocket ship and asteroids made up of ASCII characters. The asteroids didn't break apart properly but I got an A anyway because I was able to squeeze the whole program into only three cassette tapes!)
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
C:\WINXP>ifconfig
.bashrc.
'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