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SP1 Unsuccessful in Preventing Vista Hacks
"The other A. N. Other" writes "It seems that Microsoft has been unsuccessful with SP1 in preventing hackers from turning a pirated, non-genuine copy of Vista into genuine copies that pass activation. The article initially looked at two of the most popular hacks (OEM BIOS hack and the grace timer hack) but after a little digging ZDNet were able to transform a non-genuine install into a genuine one. 'After a few minutes of searching the darker corners of the Internet and a few seconds in the Command Prompt I was able to fool Windows into thinking that it was genuine.'"
So, if the screen goes black on users who have a genuine copy, maybe they can use this hack? Or would this be illegal? Although it would then be like tricking Windows into -realizing- it is genuine...
I've often thought that for Microsoft to significantly damage Linux on the desktop for Windows 7 for instance, all it would need to do is make Windows 7 licensing about as intrusive as the Win2k licensing. I.e enter a serial during setup, and that's it.
Geeks complain about WGA and then crack it anyway, n00bs buys their boxen with it pre-installed and so the audience WGA seems to be the most effective against are the casual upgraders that don't have the cash to shell out, but want the shiniest and latest software regardless.
Another angle; several friends of mine have to my pleasant surprise, asked me before if I knew of a retailer that would sell PCs with Linux on. Upon querying if they're sure they want Linux what with most commercial software being incompatible etc, the answer has always been the same; "no, but I'd save fifty quid (pounds) on Windows and then install it anyway".
Invariably, if this process was easy to do, it would beg the question; without the hassle of cracking Windows, would Linux even be considered? I think not, but increasingly it is.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Sure, they've always found a crack. And every time you try to get updates, the crack will break and you need to find a new one. It's not about making it impossible, just about making it annoying, timeconsuming or scary because you don't have the latest security fixes. To paraphrase a little: "pirated Windows is only free if your time is worthless". While I'm sure it makes some people pay for Windows, I do hope it also brings some people over to Linux mhere apt-get distupgrade "just works".
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If they tighten it down too much, everyone bitches that they can't get legitimate copies to pass. If they don't tighten it down enough, people like this find ways to pirate copies and chide MS for it. So how are they supposed to come up with a happy compromise in a no-win situation?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Does anyone think MS really cares?
In an age of copy protected floppies and copy protection on games and virtually every type of software, MS still shipped DOS and Win 3.1 unprotected. Friends would install it, and even geeks would go, wow, a GUI that works and I can even multi-task my DOS applications.
Corporation and distributor fraud has been at the heart of the MS movement for Geniune. Yes, they are stupid about it, as WGA has screwed users more than it ever should have with XP and Vista, but prior to WGA, even if you were a legit OEM MFR of computers you often had a 50% chance of getting pirate copies of Win9x/Win2K and especially Office.
I know from being an OEM and buying through distribution channels that 50% of the product that came through the door was not legit. It was so bad that even employees at some of the larger vendors, would place your MS software orders to their 'friends' and invoice it separately without your knowledge or the knowledge of some of the distributors.
This also wasn't from fly by night wholesalers. Our corporate IT people also had problems, even orders from companies like CDW and others had a large chance of being fake.
So MS added WGA and activation, this cut down the problem, but put a strain on legitimate users. MS would have been served to just put more monitoring and pressure in the distribtution channels, but again there are retailers and OEMs that would take advantage shady 'good' deals, and the customers would again be using forged copies, not even knowing that their local shop was screwing over people.
SP1 lightens WGA, and MS has internal plans to further lighten WGA on the websites and for allowing updates. They are looking into taking the burden of WGA off the end-user. I would look for more OEM tools and OEM activation, and keeping Corporate IT activation systems intact and WGA for consumers going away eventually.
This is a good thing and now SlashDot makes the article read like Vista is 'hackable' in a 'bad' way, instead of a 'good' way.
Also remember MS has already put out enough copies of Vista, that they probably don't care about the few *nix users hacking it for a VM or dual install, nor even the OSX Mac base.
Counting the entire sales history of Macs as total base, and the entire *nix installation base, Vista is still millions of copies ahead and still growing, and THIS is even if you only count the retail copies sold, not even the OEM portion which is substantially even larger.
MS can afford for people to Hack Vista, especially when there are cliches in the Mac community that love the hardware, but like Vista better than OSX and use it as their primary OS and great if they hack and install Vista, and find out that it runs better on Mac hardware than OSX. MS has a win win, even if the people don't like Vista, and it didn't cost MS anything for the % that did prefer Vista. (See online articles comparing Vista to Leopard or running native Intel binaries under OSX compared to Vista. (Adobe products and OpenGL games are great selling points for Vista, all running faster under Vista than OSX on the same machine.)
The ORIGINAL real XP WGA crack still works and still can not be defeated by Microsoft. It has been a solid working crack for over 2 years now.
That is the funny part. WGA is a solid failure, yet Microsoft will not give up on it. It only get's in the way of legit users and eats up processor cycles for no useful reason. Yet they insist on making life hell for everyone that is a legit user while all their attempts no not even bother the stolen software users.
It's getting as bad as Games, Legit copies are more of a PITA than a cracked copy. Which is why as soon as I buy a game, I go searching for the cracks, no-cd patches, etc... to give me back control of the game I bought.
BTW, the cool part of the XP WGA crack, I can reinstall XP on my machines at will without calling Msft. I simply use the crack to insert the COA sticker's number inot XP and it instantly becomes that copy, WGA is happy, the "you must register" crap goes away. I have a better experience.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I started doing this a year or two back when the latest and greatest copy protection broke a game that I had legitimately purchased. It wouldn't run at all. No matter what I did it told me I didn't have the disc. So I grabbed the no-CD patch and had no trouble with it.
Ever since then I've made it a habit to crack/patch every game I purchase. Not only do I no longer have to dig through my discs to find the right one when I want to play, but it seems to me that the games run better too.
All these assorted copy protection schemes only affect those of us who actually pay for the software. The folks who are pirating the stuff are already bypassing it all anyway, so they never get inconvenienced at all.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde