Windows 7 Activation Bypassed (Yes Again) for Keyless Activation
Windows 7 Activation Bypassed (Yes Again) for Keyless Activation
Posted 11/15/2009 at 9:15am
| by Justin Kerr
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It has long been said that software activation merely inconveniences and punishes honest customers, while pirates rarely have to deal with the same restrictions. It was true in the past, and it has been proven true again today with new reports from the pirate community claiming that the Windows 7 online activation has been successfully bypassed (yet again). Not only do those using the new crack not have to activate, but they don't even need a CD key at all. The crack apparently nullifies sppcompai.dll, and even takes care of those pesky popup reminders that would normally keep nagging you to activate.
The most unfortunate part of this story however, is the fact that the crack seems to take advantage of the leniency of the activation mechanism which was tweaked in Windows 7 to try and reduce false-positives or accidental activation errors. We can only hope that Microsoft's response to this hack will be even handed, and not encourage them to tighten up the activation process so much so that it makes it harder on legitimate purchasers or upgraders.
Have you had any "unfortunate" experiences with online activation? Feel free to share them below.
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KurtFanta
November 23, 2009 at 8:48pm
They could charge less, for sure there is no amount of raising or lowering of prices that will ever stop piracy, but jobs will be created at their company if they lower their prices. Something they should consider is that pirates will not have to deal with their poor DRM.
DOCS UP
November 17, 2009 at 5:49pm
There was no DRM up through Windows 2000.
And I don't seem to recall Bill Gates having to fly coach during those days.
pagen64
November 16, 2009 at 9:53am
If software companies like Microsoft and Gaming software. Would sell there product at a reasonable price, I think piracy would just about stop. And they would make more money in the long run. Take COD Modern Warfare 2 for instance i waited in line at midnight just to make sure my son had the game. But at $60 come on! if they sold this game for like say 15 or 20 more people would be willing to buy. Same with MS $400 for ultimate, And for What a few lousy features. Lower the prices and i bet they would sell a lot more. And piracy woud slow down.
Elric
November 17, 2009 at 9:11am
"If software companies like Microsoft and Gaming software. Would sell
there product at a reasonable price, I think piracy would just about
stop."
This. A million times. This.
Sure. There are always some dedicated pirates who will copy everything but that's true of every industry. The point is that when stuff is priced appropriately for the demographic, you will NOT get industry cirppling levels of piracy among that demographic like we have now with PC software. That was Apple's great accomplishment this decade in the digital content field not the iPod, iPhone, Mac, etc. It was 99 cent tunez, $1.99 TV episodes, and the mini-priced iPhone app.
Raspop
November 16, 2009 at 10:45am
I agree they could charge less, but no amount of raising or lowering prices will ever stop piracy.
Something these companies should consider is that pirates don't have to deal with their crappy DRM.
Techrocket9
November 15, 2009 at 4:20pm
On a Vista laptop I had OEM Home Premium x64 "deGenuate" after several months of use. It took a long while on the phone to get MS to issue a replacement key.
_____________________________________________________
An army of pacifists can be defeated by one man with the will to fight.
Shckr57
November 15, 2009 at 3:43pm
the cracks were out 4 months ago.
and the reason people crack it, not just to get it free, but bragging rights. not only is it a challenge that they love, but its to also prove that it can be done, and drm will never keep people from getting things free. now the people who dl the crack because they don't wana pay for anything, is a different story, they are the reason for drm. don't blame the hackers, blame your cheap friends, and yes, we all have them. lulz
schmitty6633
November 15, 2009 at 3:25pm
The actions of few (theives) harm many more (paying customers).
I guess there will always be people who ruin it for others. :(
If there was no piracy drm would not exist...
ar09
November 15, 2009 at 2:14pm
there is reason for the activation.
i always buy my own copy of the os.
but i think piracy is something that no one "wants" to do something about for some reason.
why not just going to where the internet servers are, and erasing all warez (and whatever) data? it is an easy thing to do.
Arrowdodger
November 15, 2009 at 3:42pm
Because the servers are usually in Switzerland or China or something where it's not as simple as raiding a building and deleting stuff. Especially once you start talking about BitTorrent where there isn't a central server, but rather every computer connects to each other and both shares data and finds other computers to share data with directly.
ar09
November 16, 2009 at 11:26am
?
if is easy for us to find stuff, why is so dificult to delete it?
Elric
November 17, 2009 at 9:19am
Re: If it's easy to find why isn't it easy to delete
Well, because there are these unfortunate things called "due process" and "jurisdiction" and that's not even taking into account the variance of copyright handling between countries.
And that's also not to mention the existence of the copies is not the problem, anyway. You delete a copy but do not punish the person making it available then another copy will pop up on a different server. That's the nature of copyable stuff.
Like most complex problems. a simple solution sounds good at first, until you dig into a real understanding of the problem and realize it's completely unjust, has unintended consequences, and would be nearly as bad as the problem under consideration itself.
Arrowdodger
November 16, 2009 at 2:23pm
Because there's 45,000 people downloading COD:MW2 right now. The only way to completely stop it would be to hunt each and every one of them down and force them to completely delete everything relating to BitTorrent and that download off their computers. By the time you've reached the last of them, there'll be another 45,000 to replace them.
The only alternative, would be to go after the tracker sites, like ThePirateBay, and IsoHunt, and SumoTorrent etc... That would involve the co-operation of multinational law enforcement agencies, all working together to identify server locations, recon those locations to discover who's involved, and finally raiding those locations and seizing the servers. It's what happened to TPB a while ago. Problem is, most of the big ones also have backup servers in other countries ready to go at a moments notice. Within an hour of taking one down, another will just be back up in it's place, in an area that will require cooperation with an entirely different set of law enforcement to take down.
All the while, things are relatively uninterupted for those downloading. Taking into consideration the varying laws on file-sharing, (ex, in Canada, it's legal to download, but not upload, it's not a fight capible of being won with force.
arch-chancellor
November 15, 2009 at 12:58pm
I updated my BIOS and had to call in. This was a day after installing WIN 7. Then a week later I changed my video card, that time all I had to do was just an internet activation.
(By the way, my spell checker is catching stuff in the main body, but not the subject line. Why?)
snapple00
November 15, 2009 at 10:58am
I guess there will always be poor, deadbeat theives. Oh well.
LVmonkey
November 15, 2009 at 3:37pm
when almost every single hardware piece of your puter is cheaper then the OS there is a problem with pricing, imho. To think that just about everything in my new box is cheaper than the fragile and less tangable OS at the wheel... i dunno, man, i dunno.
snapple00
November 15, 2009 at 10:16pm
Whats wrong with the OS being the most expensive? There has to be a 'most expensive' part in your computer..
It takes thousands of man hours to code and maintain the OS for years to come. A hardware part is designed and fabricated in a shop.
And my most expensive part was definately my gfx card.
I don't understand why people think a quality OS should be free or super cheap just because they can't hold it in their hand.
Arrowdodger
November 15, 2009 at 3:44pm
It's like $30 bucks through DigitalRiver still isn't it? Why would you pay full price? :)
Dexter243
November 15, 2009 at 10:24am
Nutcracklng snack
i have all ready seen the cracked ver and so far it up dats just fine
and as of a few years ago microsoft can no longer install a program that will scan your system with out your permishion like the windows genuine patch that buged so many with cracked cd's and keys with xp do to a lost law sute
i think the no cd key activater activats it as if it is a oem ver from what i have seen
and the hacked ver of win7 has ben out for 3 or 4 monts befor you could even buy it here in the us it has ben out for a long time and i am not talking about the 7000build nether i meen a full win7 ult oem some times i think Microsoft leaks this for fun
just to creat stories and popularity and so the public will fill sory for them but i will tell you right now i have a mac and will all ways have a mac but i like Win7 it is the first time micrsoft has built a real nice os so dont be afrad to up grade to it you will be very happy with it to bad Vista owners cant get a refund to help off set the cost of win7 that has not got a new pc in the last 3 monts
im sory Vista after the sp1 was much better but i feal like i have ben running a bata for the last few years just to buy it agen after thay fixt all the problems I FEAL SCREWED
fry
November 15, 2009 at 12:21pm
Huh??
Please buy an English dictionary and then try re-typing this post.
jrocknyc
November 15, 2009 at 12:31pm
Ovensunnyveted smane oundronistoubly slimmatti brusly jectionipenthetierinteneglovery!
fnordfnord
November 15, 2009 at 10:10am
This contempt for the customer that has already paid for the license is what drove me to Linux five years ago. I happily paid for my Windows licenses, but I also changed hardware a few times a year and formatted every six months. MS' attitude was clearly "Hey, we know this is a hassle for you honest folks, but really, what are you going to do about it? We're the only game in town so you'll suck it up." Meanwhile the pirates were unemcumbered. Thanks for the respect MS.
Certainly my defection is meaningless in changing things, but at least I'm not one of the peons that must bow and request permission to use something they already paid for.
snapple00
November 15, 2009 at 10:20pm
Too bad businesses aren't run on the honor system. Too many losers think they are entitled to owning software without doing as much as paying a dime.
Don't act like that is the reason you left Windows. A simple 5 minute phone call every 6 months? Your right, MS really hates you..
BobbyPhoenix
November 15, 2009 at 10:49am
This version of bypassing the WGA does not conflict with the OS, or any other MS software. It is being used now, and you can scan for updates, and it actually scans the computer with the result of "passed MS WGA". All it does is completly bypasses the dll file, and tricks the OS into telling MS it is a legal purchased copy. Unless MS can send a patch (which seems hard to me since if it will scan now and get a passed state) people will have a fully activated copy of W7 forever without ever paying a cent.
bikerbub
November 15, 2009 at 10:36am
same. last time i installed it, it was for a computer that didn't even have an ethernet plug, so i had to call in and listen to the rediculously bad automated activation voice. the speech recodnition was so bad that i just ended up typing in the numbers because it wasn't worth it.
ascendant
November 15, 2009 at 9:51am
actually you can update pirated copies of both vista and windows 7. my uncle hasn't had an official copy of windows since ME, and he's had no troubles installing service packs and regular updates.
yr
November 16, 2009 at 10:43am
There are some updates that require "validation".
Also, I think that this whole update thing is really dumb. When Microsoft patches something or sends an update, it's usually to fix something that wasn't done right. They usually don't add too many features (usually those go in service packs). So, it makes sense that Microsoft should let people update their Windows, activated or not, simply because thier software is DEFECTIVE. They should deal with piracy seperately, or when adding new features, as when validation is usually required.
ascendant
November 15, 2009 at 9:42am
only issue I've ever had with Windows activation is with the copy of Vista Ultimate 64 bit that came preinstalled on my Dell. It keeps popping up telling me I may be a "victim of software piracy". This is the exact same initial installation of Vista from when I purchased the unit, not even a system restore in the 6 months I've had the computer. All I have to do to make it stop with those annnoying "reminders" is restart the computer, and then I won't see them for maybe another week (this computer is on 24/7, and is for business purposes)
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