Metallion
August 23rd, 2002, 06:39 PM
Alright, since this is now public domain I figured I'd share with you guys what is going to change regarding Product Activation in the forthcoming Service Pack for Windows XP. It appears all the changes are positive... I know there was some debate on this topic earlier so here's the skinny:
Customers who place their Volume License Key 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So if you've got an illegal copy of XP (you know who you are) then you'll probably either want to come clean or wait for a Trojan...i mean...pirated patch to be available online :D I think setting Windows Update to deny invalid cd keys is the perfect way to combat piracy. This may spark pirates to actually rip/hack the critical updates and you will be pretty much at their mercy for all of your updates...
Oh and if you're a system builder, look for a KB article explaining how to take advantage of that nifty encrypted key for unattended installs soon.
Customers who place their Volume License Key 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So if you've got an illegal copy of XP (you know who you are) then you'll probably either want to come clean or wait for a Trojan...i mean...pirated patch to be available online :D I think setting Windows Update to deny invalid cd keys is the perfect way to combat piracy. This may spark pirates to actually rip/hack the critical updates and you will be pretty much at their mercy for all of your updates...
Oh and if you're a system builder, look for a KB article explaining how to take advantage of that nifty encrypted key for unattended installs soon.