Microsoft Product Activation

[User Needs]

Service Pack 1 Changes to Product Activation

http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/basics/act...indowsxpsp1.asp

Microsoft Product Activation:



Service Pack 1 Changes to Product Activation

Software piracy continues to be a worldwide problem and Microsoft is committed to a long-term strategy of protecting intellectual property through innovative technologies. The introduction of technical measures to thwart piracy has kicked-off a cat-and-mouse game between software publishers and those who pirate software. Specifically, software pirates have been busy engineering circumventions to digital rights technologies including Microsoft's own product activation.

With Service Pack 1 for Windows XP, Microsoft will introduce additional technological measures aimed at ensuring licensed customers receive full benefits and to make it more difficult for those who pirate software to steal these same benefits. These changes are:

Ensuring licensed customers receive full benefits
Eligibility for Windows XP Service Pack 1 and Windows Update
Licensed customers will continue to enjoy product updates and access to Windows Update. Service pack 1 will fail to install on Windows XP installations using either of two well-known pirated product keys. Additionally, Windows Update will verify the product key used to install Windows XP against a list of valid product keys to ensure installations made with cracked or pirated product keys will not receive access.
Additional grace periods for hardware out-of-tolerance situations
Users will have up to 3 days to re-activate Windows XP after making a hardware change that triggers the need to re-activate. Previously, users were required to re-activate immediately upon the next boot after the hardware changes were made.
Volume license key (VLK) encryption
An encryption feature will be added to unattended setups of Windows XP with Service Pack 1. Customers who place their VLK in an unattended setup file (unattend.txt) will be able to encrypt the VLK such that it will be time limited and hidden from plain text.
Raising the bar on pirates
Product key inclusion in Installation ID for activation
In order to protect customers and Microsoft against product key attacks, the product key used to install Windows will be included in the Installation ID for all activations completed after SP1 has been installed. Internet activations will send the entire product key while telephone activations will send a hash value of the product key in order to limit the increase in size of the telephone Installation ID..
Repair of activation circumventions
Service Pack 1 for Windows XP will contain fixes to cracks used by software pirates to circumvent activation. Installations of Windows XP patched by a crack will require activation after SP1 has been installed.
For more Information...

For answers to frequently asked questions about these changes, please see our FAQ page.

For a detailed explanation of the changes being made with Service Pack 1 for Windows XP, see our technical market bulletin.
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Last edited by user needs at Today at 2:29 pm

[cus]

warez will come through..
some hackerz and crackerz will crack XP service pack for it to install.. nothing can stop warez at the moment..
all software released so far can be hacked! even me (newbies) can hack simple software using the registry, and opening the program in visual basics..

XP has already been cracked, so people like me can use a pirated copy.. i dont agree with it, but as soon as the prices drop for the professional edition.. then i will buy a genuine copy , until then, bill gates can kiss my ass

[Pelletgun]

Microsoft must think that everyone with the pirated copy will install service pack 1. Why the hell with someone install that knowing it will keep their copy of Windows XP from running?

[Woogieman]

I'm with you, Pelletgun! What's a good reason to install it any way? Simply to be able to say "Me Too!" isn't a good enough answer, IMHO. Maybe to the people that are addicted to all the M$ tools (I.E, Outlook,etc), I suppose it's a "must have", though.

Remember the ONLY reason for this Service Pack was to comply with the Court's order to "remove" the M$ only tools. M$ has wiggled that around to mean that they don't have to actually remove anything, just allow these items to be hidden from Mr/Mrs Joe Average who's computer savy extends as far as the on/off switch.

The only other reason was to kill a few of the thousands (per the latest M$ internal security report) bugs still left in XP. It seems there will still be hundreds of bugs left when M$ stops supporting XP and moves on to future versions. When you use Windows, you live with bugs - that's life...

[TheCrossMovement]

They should make a movie about it. They could call it: Windows XP: A Bugs Life . Ha!

[BigHead50]

I really see no need for worry, Warez and Masters like khauyeung will find a Quick "workaround" or easy crack for this SP1......

MS Products have Always been Very easy to Crack, It just takes a day or 2 and the fix is found.....

Don't worry........

I am burning a slipstream corp version SP1 right now that "should work fine, Until October.....by then, someone will have a way around these newest "preventive measures" that MS has Planed for SP1 and the UPdate site.........

Well, my CD is "done" so I'm off to test this install.......

SeeYa

[pcservicetech]

They did do the court thing, not poked around much yet but when installing extra windows components I saw that WMP and Mesenger are now in there

[~*McoreD*~]

hey BIGHEADover50, don't forget to share your test results with us, ok

[Crowdirt]

Hi Folks....so lets see, as I remember it from centuries ago, "Pirate" ships fought and plundered other ships filled with gold from the "Ancient" cultures of Central and South America. Basically the "Pirates" finished up with loads of Gold from others that they got by "Questionable" means. So who has all the "Gold" these days? I think you can guess the answer to be M$.....

@ Crowdirt

Lets be honest here, Microsoft are hardly the pirates here. It is their product to do with and charge what they see fit (we are an entrepreneural society in the USA). I am not defending a monopolistic enterprise, just setting you straight.

hope that helps

Zo

*edit*
paint it any way you want, it does not change the real truth




Last edited by zonko at Today at 12:37 pm