Yep, now the playing field is really level! Microsoft has deigned to tip its corporate hat to competitors so that they can put their icon on the desktop! Wow!

And now, Microsoft can claim they are following the letter of the “law.”

Oh, BTW, Microsoft will not allow you to install more than one copy of Windows XP on computers at “home” (5o launches then it will not start). That’s just to make sure that all of you “lawbreakers” out there abide by their “law.” Wouldn’t want any of you to take advantage of poor old Microsoft that is just barely keeping ahead - well, the lost revenue from software licenses and stuff.

We have to keep order out west, ya know!

Give the community a week and someone will find out how to make key generators for Windows XP

Well well WELL well well!

Can WinXP Product Activation be reverse engineered?
It’s beginning to look possible…
So says this story in the Register.  It describes a little bit of code you can use, and then says:

This produces an almost identical .exe file, which with the aid of a hex editor can then be compared to the downloaded .exe, and this allows you to zero in on the key. 

Golly. *blinks*

And the product isn’t even released yet…

If you belong to the MS deveolpers group ($500 / year) they send you the Beta versions. This is probally how they came up with this. Since its a beta this may change with the final release and therefore means nothing to me at this point. If this is still true when the final is actually released then I may look at it further.

Ohhh… the story said something about a German group ( Fully Licensed GmbH ) who were doing an analysis on the product activation stuff.

Their website says thusly:

Fully Licensed GmbH is a start-up company building a secure and flexible infrastructure for online licensing and online distribution of software. It integrates software watermarking, automated code obfuscation, license enforcement, and web-based license management, while preserving the end-user’s right to privacy.

(snip)

Fully Licensed GmbH consider themselves to be an independent and unbiased mediator between software vendors and end-users. Their research and development branch every now and then analyzes licensing solutions implemented by other companies.

Apparently this wasn’t commissioned by Microsoft, or anything.  Interestink.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Raena on 2001-07-13 12:30 ]</font>