What are your opinions on this?

[Vlad The Impaler]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24065.html

[timwhit]

It's good if you ask me. It just goes to show that almost anything can be cracked....

-Tim

[Vlad The Impaler]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing; if it is really true....

[Groltz]

I don't like it. What if these punks generate a key identical to the legitimate one I already have? A sure recipe for conflict and grief.

[flagreen]

I don't like it. What if these punks generate a key identical to the legitimate one I already have? A sure recipe for conflict and grief.


Just to complicate the scenario you lay out above further, how about if the person who uses the cracked activation Key is also a licensed owner of Win XP, just as you are, but is just tired of having to call MS to reactivate his OS?

[Groltz]

Well, I am running the Corporate edition. It does not have Product Activation. It does have a key number like all other Windows OS's though, and it could cause serious problems later if the key was duplicated and distributed. I read somewhere that Microsoft was going to be collecting warez keys and putting code in the XP service packs that will cause a user's PC to become inoperable if a blacklisted key is found when the S.P. is installed. I don't know how true this is but I wouldn't put it past MS.

[Tannin]

It was inevitable.I see no harm in it. Microsoft have gone to a great deal of trouble to make life difficult for their genuine customers, so who cares what they want? They say it is designed to defeat piracy, but no pirate worthy of the name would be so much as slowed down by it. The only people who are really hurt by it are genuine paying customers, people with lives to lead and businesses to run and no time to play bullshit games with activation keys.

So far as I am concerned personally, MS can do whatever they like. No skin off my nose. All that activation has achieved for them is turn the probability that I would not buy XP into a cast-iron certainty.


Any legitimate owner who is harmed by Microsoft's policies - Groltz puts himself forward as a possible example - has recourse to law.

Not that it will do him any good of course.

Linux fans must think PA is Xmas!

[CougTek]

Linux fans must think PA is Xmas!
Indeed. Have you remarked the number of threads from people trying to move to Linux since WinXP arrived?

Unfortunately, WinXP still sells well :(

[LiamC]

Move to Linux?

Ditched the WPS Laser for a Brother on the Linux compatible list, Ditto the modem (Winmodem to hardware one). Video cards are NVIDIA. If I buy *any* hardware now, I check to see if its Linux compatible. Haven't made the move completely, but I'm getting there. But XP has certainly hurried me along.

[NRG = mc²]

Well, I am running the Corporate edition. It does not have Product Activation. It does have a key number like all other Windows OS's though, and it could cause serious problems later if the key was duplicated and distributed. I read somewhere that Microsoft was going to be collecting warez keys and putting code in the XP service packs that will cause a user's PC to become inoperable if a blacklisted key is found when the S.P. is installed. I don't know how true this is but I wouldn't put it past MS.


Sounds like what Headlight software did with GetRight some years back. When one tried to enter the serial from the classic "PC Oscar" program/database it wouldn't accept the code (or any other for that matter) and then redirect your browser to a page telling you off for what you did.

[Groltz]

I read somewhere that Microsoft...

I know that sounds really vague and "gossipy". I wish I had kept the source of where I read that but it was months ago and I didn't. :-?

[Groltz]

I know that sounds really vague and "gossipy". I wish I had kept the source of where I read that but it was months ago and I didn't.

However...This topic has come into the spotlight again (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25423.html)

(Last 2 paragraphs)

[Tea]

The Reg seems to think that the net result of all this window dressing has another purpose:



"It could provide new revenue sources for computer makers by encouraging software rivals to pay to distribute their own tools over Microsoft's wares. These guys are going to pay OEMs to put it on there, and OEMs are going to take money or whatever it takes.

The OEMs ship Microsoft's middleware, which is then used by Microsoft to generate revenue opportunities for Microsoft. Microsoft does not pay them, because as all of this stuff is a part of the operating system, they have to pay Microsoft instead. But if they want to substitute alternative middleware, then here lies an opportunity for them to offset some of the cost of the MS Windows licence by demanding money from the suppliers of that middleware.


History, it seems, never forgets a good evil idea. The MS - Standard Oil parallel grows ever stronger with each year that passes.

[Groltz]

Another small update:


The beta of Service Pack 1 for Windows XP has now shipped to testers and, as previously advertised, it declines to install if you're using a leaked WinXP licence key. But - again as previously advertised - it doesn't deactivate your installation, just stops you applying the service pack.

Screenshot (http://www.xp-erience.org/images/misc/sp1-4.jpg)

(I don't know how long this link will stay good, guys)

[Prof.Wizard]

It was about time to have this crack...
(hey, why you all look at me?!)