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Pirates Find Proper Way to Crack Vista's Activation Schema
El_Oscuro writes "A genuine crack for Windows Vista has been released by pirate group Pantheon. The exploit allows a pirated, non-activated installation of Vista (Home Basic/Premium and Ultimate) to be properly activated and made fully-operational. 'It seems that Microsoft has allowed large OEMs like ASUS to ship their products with a pre-installed version of Vista that doesn't require product activation — apparently because end users would find it too inconvenient.'"
Although this particular "activation" method has been around for awhile, it is interesting to see that microsoft never bothered to fix it.
... even when it was!), they continue to make boatloads of money. This 'workaround' for activation is another example of their disdain for the end user; they're willing to accomodate the manufacturers in order to push an inferior software package onto the masses.
... MS.
I can't believe that microsoft is still a lumbering software giant; notwithstanding their disdain for consumers (Turning off vista if it wasn't genuine
It makes me feel like Henry Ford is running MS - 'you can have any OS you want, so long as it is VISTA'.
I've personally decided to put the effort into getting my home computers running OSX (a very FUN project) so that my family can have the eye candy that is associated with MS without
(and yes, linux can be pretty... but I'm the only one that uses it!)
You have to admit it's a novel approach, making a product so bad that hardly anyone is interested in cracking it.
Who cares about a crack, I wouldn't run Vista if microsoft gave it away free, and I *like* windows...
I always find it amusing that MSFT says that Vista is the least cracked OS they have made to date... They fail to see that most people who pirate OSes actually intend on using that OS and are as likely to want vista as anyone else...
-nick
Yeah, Microsoft keeps locking it down, and then backing off on the lock-down right at the last moment. What we need is a crack to turn the lock down back on in full force, not to totally bypass WPA.
Back in the day when there wasn't anything else, pirating copies of Windows was OK. Now that there are good choices, lock that bitch down hard and when you hear people PMS, tell them there is no WPA in Linux.
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
For each pirated copy of windows, one more computer doesn't run an alternative OS.
This is one of the factors keeping the userbase of Linux down. It's a mystery to me why people choose a pirated version of Windows instead an open and free version of a Linux distribution. I guess ignorance is not bliss.
#find
Businesses are normally on MSDN and get their activation codes from Microsoft, not from DVDs (MS send out DVDs but nowhere near as frequently as they used to - it's considered normal to download the ISO nowadays).
Vista does ask for reactivation from time to time. For MSDN users that's once a year as the codes change each year (had this happen this year and I expect it to happen next too). Also if your environment changes it'll ask for reactivation also (much more than XP, which almost never used to do this)... which is why it's good practice to only install it on virtual machines with virtual hardware that never changes.
There's also the problem of activation codes suddenly going bad.. which has happened to us. Suddenly you can't install Vista and it's a choice of an overseas phone call (typically lasting an hour or more if you're in a qeueue) or an activation crack.