SLCentral Forum - Microsoft sneaks in product activation change with XP Service Pack 1

07-21-02, 07:50 PM

Rob

Free agent

Join Date: Jun 2001

Location: Surrounded by frickin' idiots.

Posts: 600

Microsoft sneaks in product activation change with XP Service Pack 1

The free ride for warez users may be over this fall.

As service pack 1 for Microsoft Windows XP gets closer and closer, more information is being released to the web as to what is being bundled inside. Together with the usual bug fixes and new user customizability interface, is a slight little programming change that will render non-purchased CD keys of XP useless.

I guess it�s no secret why Microsoft is wanting to do this considering that many people are sharing XP media and using corporate CD keys to bypass the product activation put in place with the original release. So what are corporations to do? Microsoft is planning on reissuing new corporate CD keys sometime around the official release of the patch.

Quote:

Microsoft has decided that the cost of current corporate customers having to get a new CD-key is less that what they are losing in the market of Windows XP being distributed as a corporate installation amongst warez users. Microsoft is also planning to warn those with corporate editions of Windows XP to not let the CD-keys slip into the mainstream. The EULA is going to be rewritten to fit a new type of �Corporate release� and it�s been rumored that if a customers key is to get into the market, Microsoft may take legal action against those consumers.

What Microsoft does to protect their software is their own business and I can�t fault them for trying to recover some of the money lost due to piracy but what I am skeptical is just how this is going to affect how corporations will have to deal with this issue from a desktop standpoint. For example, most likely my corporation will have about half of its entire desktops rolled out with this new operating system by the time this patch comes out. Do we then have to go back and manually change the CD key before pushing out the service pack? Like everyone, we will just have to wait and see.

More information on this can be found over on BetaONE.

08-02-02, 09:58 AM

Cutriss

Dancing Hero

Join Date: Feb 2001

Location: Over there

Posts: 1,163

I believe I'm likely in the most ideal situation for this. I have a single authentic copy of XP, and the corporate release. I can use my legitimate CD key on each and every installation, and they'll never authenticate it with Microsoft. And since I don't give my key to anyone else, it won't ever be in widespread enough usage to warrant warez investigation.

In effect, I've beaten the casual copying game.

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