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.'"

Comments

Old News Crack

[Tx]

In other news, pirates have created a crack to prevent news from 4th March 2007 appearing a year later on /.

Well we live in hope.

Re:Old News Crack

[morgan_greywolf]

In other news, pirates have created a crack to prevent news from 4th March 2007 appearing a year later on /. So the $64K question is -- why in the bloody hell haven't that implemented it then?

Re:Old News Crack

[Rogerborg]

Eh, it's an easy mistake to make. Whoever wrote the "Zonk" shell script just introduced an off-by-one error.

Re:Old News Crack

[piemcfly]

the drivers weren't up to date?

Re:Old News Crack

[cp.tar]

So the $64K question is -- why in the bloody hell haven't that implemented it then?

Wasn't it 640K?
Oh, wait...

Re:Old News Crack

[S.O.B.]

I guess someone is too young to know that the OP was referring to "The $64,000 Question" (1955-58).

The GP was alluding to the oft quoted Bill Gates line "640K ought to be enough for anybody" although Gates denies ever saying it. A very clever reference that whooshed over your head.

Re:Old News Crack

[MadJo]

$64,000 should be enough for everyone!

Is it worth cracking Vista?

[jkrise]

I remember a CNN news snippet on YouTube... it's just not worth pirating Vista, unless one is a hardcore masochist, of course.

Re:Is it worth cracking Vista?

[rucs_hack]

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...

Re:Is it worth cracking Vista?

[pallmall1]

Who cares about a crack, I wouldn't run Vista if microsoft gave it away free...

Yeah, it's the old joke about game show prizes. Grand prize, one free copy of Vista. Second place prize, two free copies of Vista.

... But Windows STILL not dying...

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

Although this particular "activation" method has been around for awhile, it is interesting to see that microsoft never bothered to fix it.

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 ... 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.

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 ... MS.
(and yes, linux can be pretty... but I'm the only one that uses it!)

Re:... But Windows STILL not dying...

[JasterBobaMereel]

Two corrections :

  You are not the only person who uses Linux - Half the internet servers do so and so do a lot of users (just not a large percentage)

  The Model T ford was sold in many colours, black was not even an option on the early models, and the later ones were always offered in multiple colours in all countries ...?

  The problem is that the alternative to XP was Mac (not then considered a viable alternative) Linux (not then considered a viable alternative) or Windows 2000 (XP Improved on it without adding too many annoyances)

The alternative to Vista is OSX (a viable alternative for most users) Linux (An viable alternative in for some users) or XP (it's not worse in most things people care about, and is less annoying)

Re:... But Windows STILL not dying...

[rriven]

Ah. So it will just have to be cracked again.

Already been done - still old news - http://defcon5.biz/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=921

I have had an activated copy of SP1 on my laptop since the 7th of Feb

Fixed summary

[sakdoctor]

It seems that Microsoft has allowed large OEMs like ASUS to ship their products with a pre-installed version of XP that doesn't require product activation -- apparently because end users would find using Vista too inconvenient.

SP1

[Xenolith]

Since this article is a year old, no testing on SP1, I assume.

Inconvenience

[Rik Sweeney]

I don't know how Vista's activation works, but I imagine that you only have to type it in once. Surely they could have just asked the user to type in the key on the back of the DVD / CD case, and if they don't have a DVD / CD then to contact their OEM. Works for me.

Unless of course Microsoft have done this on purpose to get more copies on Vista on the desktop...

Re:Inconvenience

[IBBoard]

You probably would - you only typed it once for XP (unless you upgraded your machine, at which point XP thought it was a new machine and wanted re-activating). The problem with CD keys (from Microsoft's point of view) is that you can copy a key and hand it around, but you can't copy an activation code that needs to be confirmed by a remote machine.

I'd rather have a single CD key than 35(?) characters I need to type in to the phone followed by 35(?) characters you have to type back in to your computer. I had to activate three XP laptops at work that were purchased specially for a project and that was a pain. Actually, no, I'd rather not have a CD key at all, but that's why I run Linux at home.

One of the linked articles does cover an implicit acceptance of piracy in countries like Romania, mainly as a way to get people hooked on Windows before making them buy it (or just to keep OSS in check).

Re:Inconvenience

[transporter_ii]

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

Re:Inconvenience

[Tony Hoyle]

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.

Re:Good work MS

[Brian Gordon]

Owned ages ago. This is PARADOX's crack and it's old.

old news. 365 days old.

[leuk_he]

Note that the article is dated 4 March, exactly 365 days ago. SOmehow the editor does not have 29 feb and though he was living at tomorrow.

THis particular crack has/will be defeated by sp1.

Re:old news. 365 days old.

[baadger]

> This particular crack has/will be defeated by SP1.

Yes this particular crack (by Paradox) has been fixed in SP1. The thing is, SP1 only blacklists some very specific 'soft mods' (Boot loader replacement designed to emulate an OEM issued BIOS SLIC table and trick Vista into accepting your machine as an OEM product). It is widely known that there are still many others out there, even ones dating from the middle of last year, that work just fine with SP1.

"Dear pirates"

[joaommp]

"Please do not crack software and publish the crack on the net. It hurts my employer's feelings.

Thank you."

Fixed :)

[cigawoot]

This was fixed in SP1! I was thinking they found way around the SP1 fix (not like I condone piracy, but seeing MS get owned every once in a while is fun).

... And?

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

Hey, calm down!
I'm an equal opportunity f*tard ... I didn't pay for my copy of windows either ;)

Re:... And?

[harry666t]

...And I didn't paid for my copy of Linux, so f*cking what?

In other related news...

[xtracto]

Another group has published an undocumented way to bypass the adult verification in the new Leisure Suit Larry game by pressing ALT+X.

How do these guys learn this stuff??

Re:What SP1?

[Xenolith]

Yup. But the version MS was about to release contained updates to stop the more common hacks. This hack may have been one of them. There are other activation hacks out there that have been tested to work with SP1 RC.

Amusing

[NickCatal]

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...

So Vista's now available free?

[Malevolent Tester]

Just need to wait a few more months and hopefully Microsoft will start paying people to use it.

heh.

[Machine9]

Am I really the only person who is not super dissatisfied with Vista? I've honestly not experienced anything negative with it. I still prefer the ubuntu installation on my laptop mind, but gamers will be gamers, and Wine hurts my brain =(

Sweeeeet!!!!!

[wandazulu]

I still don't want it, though.

Re:What SP1?

[Puppeteer_23]

No. SP1 is RTM, but a pre-requisite update went a bit awry and THAT's what they pulled back.

For each pirated copy one is saved

[NWprobe]

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.

2007...

[Gription]

Right on the front page of the article it clearly says "4th March 2007".

Most likely their "slashdot" button has received some current activity as someone has finally gotten around to trying Vista...

Microsoft has fixed some activation cracks

[enosys]

Microsoft recently released KB940510. Here is what it does. I've read it detects the Paradox BIOS emulator and the timerstop crack.

Re:timewarp | flame

[Anonymous Coward]

timewarp

Again?