Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.