Microsoft to Kill the Grace Timer and OEM BIOS Windows Vista Cracks with Vista SP1
section: windows, for your questions: KezNews forum, 4.12.2007
With the advent of Windows Vista, cracks also became available being designed to bypass the activation process of the operating system.
The new activation infrastructure and the Windows Genuine Advantage, set in place by the Redmond company, proved insufficient to deal with Windows Vista cracks. But no more. While cooking the first service pack for its latest Windows client, Microsoft announced that the refresh will mean that the free Vista ride would be over for users of the operating system with two specific activation workarounds implemented: the Grace Timer and OEM BIOS.
"We know that Windows Vista is a lot harder to counterfeit than Windows XP, but we also know that pirates will keep trying. We currently see two primary types of exploits pirates often use to generate counterfeit versions of Windows Vista. One is known as the OEM Bios exploit, which involves modifying system files and the BIOS of the motherboard to mimic a type of product activation performed on copies of Windows that are pre-installed by OEMs in the factory. Another is called the Grace Timer exploit. This exploit attempts to reset the 'grace time' limit between installation and activation to something like the year 2099 in some cases," revealed Mike Sievert, Corporate Vice President, Windows Product Marketing.
Windows Vista Service Pack means that both cracks will be rendered useless, although Microsoft is anything but prompt when it comes to respond to Vista cracks. The Redmond company confirmed the existence of the 'timer crack' or '2099 crack' via Alex Kochis, Senior Product Manager for Windows Genuine Advantage, since January 2nd, 2007. The OEM Vista activation crack has been brought into focus in the early April of this year. But, the two Vista cracks will only be addressed in Vista SP1, all the way into 2008. "We're going to disable, again in the service pack, two types of popular activation exploits that are in wide use today. They are the Grace Timer and OEM BIOS exploits," Kochis stated.
"Implementing exploits involves extreme alterations to key system components and can seriously affect system stability. So we are taking action. SP1 will include updates that will target those exploits and disable them," Sievert added.
source:
news.softpedia.com
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Comments (58) showed (40) -
Show all comments blah, blah, blah m$
for how long??
well, we'll just have to come up with another one, won't we? can hardly wait!!
awww too bad so sad m$ i have a true slic table in my bios can't disable that one. i
don't know how they are going to disable vistaldr cracks since they use grub and load the
slic table before the os even loads. paradox i can see because of the royal.sys file.
won't take more than 30 days from the release of sp1 to get a new working crack.
why cant he just admint, that its about the m0ney?
sounds more like ms is trying to scare everyone into buying a copy. didn't work for xp
and won't work now. even if they could kill the cracks they can't afford another
activation disaster because of the problems users had with legit copies.
why even bother developing another crack, perhaps it might be possible and easier to
doctor the service pack itself to avoid installing the "patches" that disbale the
cracks......
just turn off the update feature now along with the nags.
adios, and you can
keep using the shitty software.
may gates bury himself in his own damn code for
windows.
i already solved the problem. i switched to ubuntu nearly 6 months ago. now i can get all
of the features of vista without all of the crap....
you don't have to use crap like linux , just turn off the updates . i got rid of vista ,
anyhoos and use xp . ihave been running xp sp2 for a couple of years without a single
security update .
if anyone wants to try and hack me , please feel free . don't
believe everything you read , boys and girls : )
a keygen will be needed :)
vista crap who carez about vista wga.... after a week yu will see new cracker for
activation !! microsoft world biggest losser
my guess is all that will be needed to do is extract the setup package, delete the patch
for the wga fixes,
remove the dependencies for it to still install, then recompile
the servicepack.
otherwise i'm sure ms's way of 'fixing' the exploit will
just require another .1 update from the paradox versions to bypass the method ms used to
detect it.
worst case scenario is we use the last beta build before they add
the protection.
not much else will probably be added from the rc builds to the rtm
version other than wga shit anyway.
so once you get vista sp1... call m$ and bitch about the software being locked...us
serials from public computers like schools or circuit city, comp usa or frys
also, thanks for the heads up...turning off auto update right now....
lousy article. mao won't buy it!
i want to see them try to disable the vista bios exploit without killing a bunch of oem
machines. this is going to end badly for them.
i edited my bios, install vista
and activated it, then formatted and went back to xp w/ student id key.
maybe
the software patches that exist now will go down, but new ones should spring up.
how many legit users who paid top dollar are going to be infuriated when their os will
lock them out...hehe
it's ver simple,it all comes down to numbers,they(microsoft),are like 10 thousand
programers who dont give a sh*t about vista,and we(crackers),are like 400
million...hehehe,bend over microshlt!!!
so basically what you're saying here is that you actually like vista and want to use it,
but just dont want to pay for it?
damn those microsoft people for having jobs and
wanting to make a profit. why arent they more like the red cross?
yep!just like how they forceably try to lure folk away from earlier versions of xp,by
manipulation certain applications that only can work with sp2.let it be known,spacks are
there only for their benefits,thus rarely does any pc run faster after the fact now does
it.
just like that messenger ver8 bullshit they threw at us all,in a blatant attempt
o they could spy on us all,let alone using 50mb xtra ram for that unsolicited priviledge.
its odd how i have legitimate licences,but yet i prefer to choose to run cracked
windows regardless,but despite in doing so i always revert back to the proven + less buggy
original xp windows without the sp2 crap.
4 years in the same operating system
without ever needing reinstall quantifies the facts.conversely i had the latest and
greatest xpsp2 fully updated and with a few weeks the software needed reinstall to counter
the exploit obviously with the gaping hole open up by microsoft themselfs.
so without
further a do,just disable auto update trojan inviting junk,if it aint broke why fix it i
say.
she'll be right.
vista is about to be free. no drm wga blah blah blah.
i think mother boards
and cpu should come with os as well.
"vista is about to be free. no drm wga blah blah blah.
i think mother boards
and cpu should come with os as well."
please clarify ?
thank you
i doubt whether they can distinguish a legit copy from a cracked copy on the oem
versions. if they do they will have more complaints about activation. ms has already said
they won't disable the system with sp1 but it will have reminders to buy a legit copy and
disable a few features.
m$ blowz - messerchmidt - pags2
from what i understand, they're just going to
make oem users enter the key from their case sticker for verification. so even if you have
a "legit" oem bios, you're still screwed if you don't have the serial number from the
sticker. at this point, you will also be forced to use cracks, i'm afraid.
there are two tipes of oem cracks softmod the oem info is "flashed into the bios" and
oem emulation that is a file that is loaded on eatch boot that emulats the slic table and
makes the pc think its a oem machine on both cases the key is there already. now the
question is both types of bios emulation are a 100% exact copy of a real oem os pc so how
can microsoft catch the fake one im afraid thats not possiblethey risk to "shutdown" the
good ones.
goddam why do you sad people even care ? why dont you all just use linux or some other
open source thing. all i read is microsoft this microshit that, vista is crap bla bla. i
dont like vista realy dont but windows is made for people to use. the average joe not the
basement geek who can remenber thousands of commands. people dont like it dont use it.
like it ? pay for it programers need to be payed also. dont like to pay ? shit use linux
is cool and its free.
this eternal god-damn f'cking cat & mouse game bores the living f'ck out of me. ms
patches cracks, new ones get released. ms disables those, new ones get released. there's
no point in even bothering with these threads. as long as you're not a f'cking computer
illiterate malware-yes-clicking retard, you don't have to worry about paying for any
microsoft sh't; not now, not 10 years from now.
f microsoft, f the riaa, f the
mpaa and f corporate america.
i found a fiz, i reinstalled xp ;)
whatever microsoft do to prevent piracy, they will never prevail as hackers are powerful
than them.
even if they introduce a million of anti-hacking innovation, theres a
million of hacker waiting to create another catactlysm exploit!
scorpion master:
you are correct, but every legitimate oem pc has a sticker on
the case that says which version of windows it was licensed with. each sticker has a
unique key for that version of windows. so all microsoft has to do is have sp1 look at the
serial number installed and if it's one of the "generic" keys issued to an oem, it will
prompt you to enter the key on that sticker to verify that you indeed paid for the version
that is installed. this will not pose as much of a problem for folks using vista business
or home premium, since you can just go to the nearest electronics store and grab a key
from a display model. but it will be really hard to come by keys for ultimate at that
point...
to poster above: where did you see/hear about the coa method from?
i did already install the sp1(beta) and i cracked the f#cker again..tnx to the old
paradox crack..what's the point?
i removed the watermark that came up again..it's
legitime..believe it..
beta sp1's been out for ages on vista. i haven't heard anyone complain that it's
rendered the oem crack useless.
jay, the coa method has been lurking since way before sp1. the discussion was to
originally deploy this check through wga in april, but wga has consistently proven to be
easily circumvented, so i was told by an individual in redmond that it would make its
appearance in sp1. it appears to be hard-coded into many key components of vista sp1,
making cracking a much more difficult task, since you have to find and eradicate all of
the references for a crack to work successfully.
noprobs/fred, the changes will
not show up until the rtm of sp1 for this very reason, they want cracks to appear for the
beta/rc builds so they can tweak the final code to make it as difficult as possible to
circumvent.
the point is not to eliminate piracy, but to make it harder. those
of you that are hard-core into this will always find a way, that's not the group that
microsoft is targeting with the changes to oem activation, it's the user who says to his
buddy "hey, i have a copy of vista ultimate that works on a dell/hp/gateway/etc without
activation or anything, let me burn you one".
i hope this clears things up a
bit, i didn't mean to offend anyone with my opinion...
switch to mac
pretty much all microsoft employees make shitloads. my uncle works there.
it's run
by the richest man in the world.
and they do it by f**king over the people who pay
them.
i'm not all against ms's software, and i use it.
but i don't pay
for it because:
a) microsoft has plenty of money
b) they don't care about what
their customers want.
c) cracked software theoretically runs faster than the ones
constantly running wga checks.. which is effectively spyware.
because the software is too f**king expensive.
do talk about vista and xp and msoft. run windows pirated or legal. the most iportant
thing for msoft is - do not use anything else
don´t beleave everything you read!!!!!!!
it's showing evaluation copy after update.
time left 14days only... damn vista sp1.
any have original vista ultimate
key/any working crack with sp1
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no activation???? noooooooo
By max on 04.12.2007 - 21:12