Posted on 03/02/2007 7:31:22 AM PST by sionnsar
Bengt writes "The Inquirer has a story about a brute force Vista key activation crack. It's nothing fancy; it's described as a 'glorified guesser'. The danger of this approach is that sooner or later the key cracker will begin activating legitimate keys purchased by other consumers. From the article: 'The code is floating, the method is known, and there is nothing MS can do at this point other than suck it down and prepare for the problems this causes. To make matters worse, Microsoft will have to decide if it is worth it to allow people to take back legit keys that have been hijacked, or tell customers to go away, we have your money already, read your license agreement and get bent, we owe you nothing.'"
haha, security, windows, business
Hence my statement "in the vast majority of cases." Unless, of course, you're implying that replacing your motherboard is a frequent occurrence. I've never had a problem with BIOS upgrades in terms of activation.
Seeing as the motherboard is the most basic (and least likely to be replaced) component of a computer, replacing it makes it seem to the software that it's on a different machine.
My comment was meant as a general statement - apologies if it seemed to be aimed at you in particular. The issue of protection of IP is one that seems to be ignored in most of these discussions. Perhaps it's because not that many of us actualy generate what we could call IP of our own - we are for the most part consumers, not creators of IP.
It's not hard to spot the envy and schadenfreud of the non-creators and the something-for-nothing crowd. You have to ask yourself - what have THEY created lately? How many jobs have THEY provided? Dig a little deeper, and what you find is sheer envy of the creators and what Rand characterized as the hatred of the good for being good.
Microsoft's continuing arrogance is backed up by the fact that people in general, are nothing but sheep that will baa baa baa, but do nothing to change their buying habits.
Fair enough. Sometimes here on FR its hard to know a general reply from a personal one... :-)
AHHH! AnyDVD the lazyman's way. "HA!"
I replaced my motherboard recently and all that happened was it asked me to reactivate, and it only took 5 seconds with a couple of clicks.
PS: I was using XP. I haven't yet tried reactivating Vista.
It was a funny ploy.
Your understanding is not correct.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Then what is? I was just going by what I've read on a couple of different sites.
Some people here on FR seem to pull the puter out of the box and switch it on and never do anything but send e mail and post on blogs. Nice world if that's all you do. If you have several programs other than vanilla, it becomes a full time job just keeping 3 computer network going at home. Activation is just one more hassle to work around I don't need.
PS. I make my living with my computer, so it really matters that I be able to be up and running every day. I can't just walk away and say, maybe next week.
I haven't used Vista, and I've never had to reactivate XP (on multiple machines) despite changing a few things in all of them.
As for the BIOS and MAC address, these days that would make it motherboard-specific. I think it's more than that, and I remember reading something in the past where there is a threshold of how much can be changed before reactivation is triggered. It wasn't clear to me at the time. I'm not entirely sure.
First, there is no "theft" in copyright cases unless you somehow manage to steal the copyright. There is only infringement. Quit listening to the RIAA and MPAA.
Second, with technology it depends on how you use it. A guy who bought Vista and likes to try (or has a job doing) different hardware configurations will love this tool to be able to use what he legally purchased without constantly having to jump through hoops to keep Vista activated -- and that's if they'll let him reactivate again.
Also read that you can install a working vista installation using only the update Vista DVD if you install vista twice over itself on a clean partition.
details here:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/pcs/how-to-install-a-vista-upgrade-on-a-blank-hard-drive-232770.php
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/12/cheap_vista_for_everyone/
Because Microsoft isn't an unwilling victim in this. The simple fact that a portion of every Zune purchase goes directly to the record labels shows that Microsoft is a willing accomplice. No other digital music player manufacturer pays that tribute.
remember ghost is trying to make an exact mirror of your old EIDE drive onto your new SCSI drive, bit for bit...
sometimes this can get funky, what I would suggest that you do would be to re-install , your old EIDE hard drives... put the ghost image back on it... then get an external hard drive and do a backup of you critical data.(OR back up your data to DVD's, although an external drive is MUCH nicer)
then, re-install the new SCSI drives then do a fresh install of the new OS.
I, for one, do not approve of software piracy, even if I do disagree with some of the predatory strongarm tactics Microsoft uses. In my opinion, if you disagree, just don't buy their product and they will change. Personally, I enjoy using some of their products, and have heard Office 2007 is nicely done.
Problem is, they do try to structure it so you HAVE to buy their product. Anyway, I was looking a an installation CD of Windows XP the other day, and it said "Made in China". Given that China has zero respect for intellectual property rights, the irony is, in a somewhat twisted way, amusing.
My brother runs his own PC tech support business, and had heard that WAS the case, so he was naturally a bit nervous about what the future was bringing to him. (In the past, if he spent x hours reimaging a PC, with Vista it might be x hours + y hours now. Not including phone support with Microsoft, which has turned him, on occasion into nearly a raving lunatic)
I have since heard that Microsoft changed it prior to the general release of Vista, so changing the motherboard would not require the hoops, but...I have not heard any confirmation on that.
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