Vista RTM cracked by pirates before release

apcmag.com ^ | November 12, 2006 | James Bannan

[HAL9000]

Excerpt -

Well, so much for closing piracy loopholes! With Windows Vista and Office 2007 only just going Gold, and not even available to Microsoft beta testers, developers or volume licence subscribers, the first cracked versions have already hit the pirate boards.

The Windows version which has been released is called Vista BillGates. It doesn’t feature any activation cracks itself, and the supplied product key is just for the installation.

The activation crack is a separate download, and works by replacing the licensing components with components from beta builds. Then using a product key from Beta 1, Beta 2, RC1 or RC2, the Gold version of Vista can be activated online.

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[Echo Talon]

So is it a case of Pirates 1, Microsoft 0? I don’t think so – not yet, anyway. You can tell a lot about the strength of a product by the nature of the methods used to circumvent its copy protection. Some apps simply need the right product key, others need a key plus a cracked executable.

Nice try.