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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.'"
A Windows upgrade leaves Windows vulnerable? It didn't fix the problem? I'm shocked! SHOCKED, I tell ya!
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
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...
And it's because of people doing this that stuff gets tightened down and in the end, its not the thieving bastards who suffer but the rest of us who pay for what we use instead of stealing it.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
MS doesn't want to stop all Vista piracy. Sure, they want to stop commercial outfits producing fake Vista DVDs but stopping all Vista piracy is bad business. Using Vista (even a pirated copy) keeps you locked-in and makes it easier for MS to get people using more MS software. After all, Vista was an industry-wide attempt to get everyone buying new hardware. Yeah it failed (hardware sales have been well below expectations) but using free Vista still encourages you to get new hardware like DX10 video cards & other DRM-riddled hardware.
True, but seeing the slow adoption of Vista that might not happen until SP3. :)
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
M$ could lock it down and make it much more difficult but why? With everyone using it because it's easy to pirate they maintain their market share, and it appears there is no shortage of people willing to pay for that crap called Vista.
I have to say the other post about "the ones that steal it making it harder for everyone else" is one of the most naive and ignorant post I have ever seen.
It isn't "stealing" it's copyright violation, and you have fairly naive view of human behavior.
Relax there are more important things to worry about than some crappy OS.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
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.
This is ZDNet we're talking about here. When he says "searching the darker corners of the Internet" he's probably talking about his cluttered address book, looking for the phone number of his friend who knows how to hack vista.
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.)
As a representative of the PADL (Pirate Anti-Defamation League), I protest to your inclusion of rape in the list of activities characteristic of pirates. According to Captain John Phillip's Pirate Code,
Article IX. If at any time you meet with a prudent Woman, that Man that offers to meddle with her, without her Consent, shall suffer present Death.Please cease and desist from further defamation of pirates. Or prepare to be pillaged yourself! (And note that the article only applies to the prudent Woman.) YAAAR!
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Sure, some OEM versions don't need activation, all they need is the correct SLIC table embedded in the bios to tell vista that it is a OEM computer and a OEM product key.
With that you will not need activation and you will be Genuine. So you are right it does not pass activation, just like the VLK keys of XP don't pass activation, because it is not needed.
There are tons of sites about it
On a side note if you buy a computer that is OEM Vista Home Premium you can use the SLIC table in your BIOS and get Vista Ultimate, just by changing your key. Once again no activation
Dan
Its ironic that if you are sometimes better off hacking Windows to pretend it is genuine, than using the clean bought install. Case in point: I have a legitimate Windows XP install on a MacBook Pro, using BootCamp. First due to a few install issues I ended up having to activate it three times and for the final, but successful install, had to call Microsoft. Later on I decided I would use Windows with the help of Parallels, but found the even if I was using the same install, it required me to activate it again. Yet another call to Microsoft and trying to explain that yes this was the same machine. With the cracked version I wouldn't have to worry about calling Microsoft once in a while.
I understand why Microsoft does this, but I wonder if it is really solving the problem?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
If Microsoft keeps with its typical "I don't care if we piss off our users" M.O. then Microsoft will present some update to WindowsXP that will make WinXP so annoying to use that it makes Vista look attractive by comparison. Off topic? I'm not so sure, because for the most part, people are going with their "downgrade" option quite a bit and Microsoft will want to prevent or dissuade people from using that option if possible.
Vogons have landed and are now posting to /.