Hi. I posted earlier about opinions on XP.
Here is a more general question - what is this I hear about a very intrusive registration process for XP? I don’t mind doing it, but what is involved? Just a new anti-piracy scheme?
Phouchg
Lovable Rogue
“A new system in Windows XP, intended to curb software piracy, requires every Windows XP user to call Microsoft (or connect via the web) to obtain a long product activation key for each installation. As though the 25-character CD key on the back of the CD package in previous versions of Windows wasn’t enough, now users are expected to make a phone call to ask Microsoft’s permission to use Windows XP.”
Here’s what I know…
If you buy XP off the shelf (like at a Best Buy) you have 30 days to register your product. After that, if you don’t register and boot your PC, you will only get a registration screen. If you don’t agree to register then you can’t do anything…Windows will just shut down.
If XP is bought from a distributor then there seems to be no registration required. I.e. A consulting firm comes in and installs 300 new copies of XP on your company’s systems the version of XP the consultants buy from the distributor will not have a registration piece.
In addition, the registration process takes into account what’s actually inside your PC to determine its activation code. It will grab the unique ID number off of various pieces of hardware (what hardware it is capable of doing this too I don’t know) and use those to identify the machine it is in. You can change 6 items in your PC and the operating system will continue to work. Change the 7[sup]th[/sup] item and you have to re-register. (Actually I’m unclear whether it’ll let you change 5 things and die on the 6[sup]th[/sup] or let you change 6 things and die on the 7[sup]th[/sup] but hopefully you get the idea).
A slightly less GD/Pit-worthy description of XP’s Product Activation can be found here.
So let me get this straight… someone gets ahold of a Windows XP corporate distribution copy or a volume copy (without activation required) and 1 day later it is all over Hotline and ftp servers? What is to stop people from getting a copy of the OS which doesn’t have product activation and then making copies for their friends?
Then again, if you do it the legal way it isn’t going to be fun… Heck, I make about 6 changes of hardware in my computer in a day…
The evaluation versions of XP’s product activation (WPA) were showing much less tolerance for hardware changes than Whack-a-Mole states. A few weeks ago http://www.hardocp.com passed on a report which claimed that re-activation was required for simply changing RAM sticks. That, however, was from a pre-release version. Aside from that possible discrepancy, Whack is pretty spot-on.
Even though the “unique” identifier number created by WPA is encrypted, the information must be given to Microsoft, who of course can de-crypt the serial numbers in order to get an extremely accurate picture of exactly what hardware you are using in your computer.
There are a number of folks on the message boards at http://www.arstechnica.com who believe that the Windows XP activation scheme is touchy for a reason: re-activation will record when, how often, and to what hardware their users are upgrading. The potential uses of this information are best left for another forum.
The observation has also already been made in the IT community that WPA is not an effective means of curbing piracy. Most operating system piracy occurs in the workplace, and corporations are having none of the WPA bullshit: their versions of XP do not contain WPA, and theft of XP in that venue will continue largely unabated.
One can only conclude therefore that WPA is largely a test to gauge exactly what public reaction to this unusual scheme will be. This test, successful or not, will also yield MS a wealth of information about its individual users.
Oops. Let me point out that MS currently claims that the unique identifier number cannot be de-coded.
Personally, I don’t believe that. But that is one paranoid’s opinion, and I think my above post should probably be ignored unless this question lands elsewhere.
Won’t be long before someone finds a way around it, if they haven’t already.
I hear if they get 1000 requests from the same serial number they know its a pirated copy & so won’t activate it.