More information on the Vista SP1 activation hack
My post on the Vista SP1 activation hack has generated a lot of feedback (especially in the form of questions) from both individuals and other media outlets.
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12.2.2008 Hack Available to Download the Official Vista SP1 Straight from Microsoft
That's right! There is a hack available that will permit you to access, download and install the official release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 straight from Microsoft.
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17.10.2007 Microsoft Serves the Official Version of the Hack Used to Access Windows Vista SP1
Do you remember a time when Windows Vista SP1 was not available as a public download? In the pre-Release Candidate Stages of Vista SP1, Microsoft restricted the access to the service pack only to selected testers.
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12.12.2007 Vista SP1 Beta Build 6001.17036 v.652 Kills Hack to Download the Service Pack
Microsoft is making headway toward the final release of the first service pack for Windows Vista. A new beta build of the first refresh for the operating system is now live following the initial beta release.
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12.11.2007 Hack Windows Xp All in One
Include:
CIA Commander
WPa kill
Activate
Enable Updates
Windows genuine validation bypass
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31.1.2006 Short TimerStop.sys hack
Huskieguy731 report this very short TimerStop.sys hack in
our forum.
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3.2.2007 Microsoft WGA Update Anti-hack
Since the Windows Genuine Advantage debut as a pilot on 9/2004 Microsoft is slowly making the program more annoying and intrusive.
In the beginning the WGA was an opt-in feature, and then slowly it became mandatory. Users who choose not to validate their copy of Windows can not download updates from Windows update (they still can download critical security updates via automatic update feature in Windows).
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4.5.2006 Microsoft Decries Vista PatchGuard Hack
Microsoft officials say they are unhappy that security software maker Authentium has decided to bypass the controversial PatchGuard kernel protection feature in its next-generation Vista operating system, and said that the tactic could lead to eventual problems for users of the company's software.
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27.10.2006 Zune Hack: Trade Any File, Quick
Someone clever figured out a way to transfer any type of file onto the Microsoft Zune portable media player, after which the files can be wirelessly traded to other Zune users.
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25.11.2006 Hack into a Windows PC - no password needed
A security consultant based in New Zealand has released a tool that can unlock Windows computers in seconds without the need for a password.
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9.3.2008 Hack to Force Enable Aero in Windows 7
Windows 7 has a nice little Windows Aero troubleshooting tool to find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects, and then enable and turn on Aero support (and also Aero Peek) in Windows 7.
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12.1.2009 Microsoft could be teaching police to hack Windows Vista
Microsoft may begin training the police in ways to break the encryption built into its forthcoming client PC operating system Vista.
The news was revealed in a parliamentary committee session, where Professor Ross Anderson of Cambridge University warned MPs that if such a move was being considered then the police should start learning sooner rather than later.
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19.2.2006 Microsoft "Hack Day" is creative play at work
A group of 75 Microsoft developers set out Thursday to brainstorm at an internal event called "Hack Day."
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8.4.2006 Hack claims Vista to ship on December 5th
Veteran Zdnet hack and exiled Evertonian Colin Barker reports that Microsoft has lined up a surprise 5 December "general release date" for the consumer version of Windows Vista.
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14.10.2006 Researcher Reveals 2-Step Vista UAC Hack
A Web application developer has uncovered a two-step process (PDF) for exploiting Windows Vista's User Account Control, essentially by having a Trojan piggyback on what could be a legitimate download.
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17.5.2007 Microsoft Exec Rages Against Vista Upgrade Hack
Sarcasm can be a powerful tool, and a Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) executive recently wielded it against industry sources who claim that a loophole exists in one of the software giant's licensing policies.
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15.4.2008 Researchers hack wired keyboards, hijack keystrokes
A team of Swiss researchers say there are several ways to recover keystrokes from wired keyboards by simply measuring the electromagnetic radiations emitted when keys are pressed.
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20.10.2008 One More Reason to Upgrade to Vista: 6-Minute XP Hack Is Frightening!
Six minutes... that is all it took to hack Windows XP, and to completely take over the operating system. Nick McGrath, Director of Platform Strategy at Microsoft U.K., witnessing the XP hack first hand, described the effortless attack and compromising of the platform as "enlightening and frightening.
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13.11.2007 Hack Available to Download Windows XP SP3 RC from Microsoft
That's right! Now you can get your hands on the first Release Candidate for Windows XP Service Pack 3! And all it will take is the implementation of a simple registry hack designed to allow Windows XP users to access, download and install Service Pack 3 Release Candidate straight from Microsoft.
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22.11.2007 Anti-Hack Update For Windows Vista Rev from Microsoft
The release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 not only heralded a long-awaited update of the operating system, it also meant the end of two common Windows Vista anti-activation exploits - the Grace Timer exploit and the Paradox OEM BIOS activation crack.
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12.5.2008 Hack Available for Windows 7 Pre-Beta Build 6801 Locked Features
Although Microsoft showcased a much more feature-complete variant of Windows 7 pre-Beta Build 6801 Milestone 3 at the professional Developers Conference 2008 and Windows hardware Engineering Conference 2008 in Los Angeles the past couple of weeks, the bits that made it out of Redmond contained a variety of locked features across the operating system.
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10.11.2008 Hack to Activate and Switch Window in Windows 7 By Mouse Over Hover Without Click
When there are many windows open on desktop of Windows 7, normally users will click on another window in order activate the window into front or foreground and switch to the task or window.
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19.5.2009 Hack to Turn Off and Disable Windows 7 CD or DVD Writer Burning and Auto Tray Ejection Feature
Windows 7 inherits the capability to burn or write to CD and DVD burner or writer, with additional support to directly burn ISO and IMG disc images with Windows 7 Explorer.
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18.8.2009 Windows 7 Hack Brings Build 6801 Closer to Build 6956
Microsoft ensured that the Windows 7 development milestone delivered at the Professional Developers Conference 2008 and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference 2008 delivered less than what it showcased at the two events.
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10.12.2008 Hack windows home edition cd into professional edition
Easy way how to spare some money. Raymond found this hack from Technipages and think it's pretty cool. It enables the features found in Windows XP Professional on your Windows XP Home Edition installation with this hack. It will allow you to turn your Windows XP Home CD into a Windows XP Professional CD.
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27.12.2006 New Vista OEM Activation Hack - Vista Boot by gkend
Thanks to Steve Jobs for this article on his blog and to our forum members to clecha, Nighthief and fitterphil120 for most of the findings. One again the Chinese come up with a new method to trick out the Vista Activation. We have seen Softmode and VistaLoader, however Vista Boot by gkend does promise even more.
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21.5.2007 .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 for XP SP3 and Vista SP1
Microsoft has made Service Pack 1 for .NET Framework 3.5 for Windows Server 2008 available for download. Designed to integrate seamlessly with Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008, .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 is now live on the Microsoft Download Center.
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11.8.2008 Making 64-bit Vista SP1 Say It's Vista SP1
Making a 64-bit copy of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 confirm that it is actually Vista SP1 might require a minimum amount of effort on behalf of the end user, such as right-clicking My Computer and selecting Properties, but things are a tad different when an application is programmed to identify the operating system versions or the service pack releases.
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25.8.2008 32-bit Vista SP1 = 1GB 64-bit Vista SP1 = 1.5GB
If you think that Windows Vista was a fast operating system, then just wait for the first service pack. According to data released by Microsoft, Vista SP1 with weigh in at a maximum of 1.5 GB.
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30.8.2007 64-bit Vista SP1 Runs Faster than 32-bit Vista SP1 and 32-bit XP SP3!
The 64-bit edition of Windows Vista delivers not only support for larger quantities of system memory, with the high-end editions supporting as much as 128 GB of RAM, but also some extra horse power hidden under the hood.
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29.4.2008Microsoft slams the door on Vista pirates
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes: With the launch of SP1 Microsoft promised to put an end to two popular hacks used by pirates to allow a non-genuine install of
Windows Vista to function in the same way as a genuine install. Testing that Ive carried out in the lab today suggests that Microsoft has been true to
its word.
The two most common hacks used were the OEM BIOS hack and the grace timer hack (of which there were two flavors which
were widespread).
Testing both these methods of circumventing Windows activation and Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) has shown me
that SP1 effectively ignores both these hacks. Systems that previously were shown to be genuine prior to the installation of SP1 then require
activation - and if the system isnt activated it is marked at non-genuine and enters the nag state.
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11.02.2008SP1 Unsuccessful in Preventing Vista Hacks
It seems that Microsoft has been unsuccessful with SP1 in preventing hackers from
turning a pirated, non-genuine copy of Vista into genuine copies that pass activation. The article initially looked at two of
the most popular hacks (OEM BIOS hack and the grace timer hack) but after a little digging ZDNet were able to transform a non-genuine install into a
genuine one. 'After a few minutes of searching the darker corners of the Internet and a few seconds in the Command Prompt I was able to fool Windows
into thinking that it was genuine.'
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11.02.2008Those who can't hack (much), write
Since there have been computer intrusions, it seems, there have been crackers (that is, black-hat "hackers") wanting to write books detailing
What They Did. But often, the better the hack, the less the urge to write a book about it...
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14.10.2008TiVo Owners Uncover Storage Hack
Owners of Series3
high-definition TiVos will
soon be able to expand the
amount of programming they can
store on the digital video
recorder using an external
Serial ATA hard drive. While
the SATA ports have been on
the TiVo since the beginning,
a hack to activate them only
surfaced over the weekend...
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08.05.2007Engineer Demonstrates iPhone Hack After Acknowledging Apple's Patch
Though security consultant
Charlie Miller went through
with a scheduled demonstration
late yesterday afternoon of
how he and his colleagues
discovered how to hack the
Apple iPhone to obtain
personally identifiable
information from it, he and
his company's Web site both
acknowledged that Apple had
patched the vulnerability...
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03.08.2007Windows Vista Service Pack 1 in the Wild
By now many of you may have seen reports of Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 in the wild. For a while, it was merely speculation (and several
good hints) towards Release Candidate Refresh 2 (RCR2) being the Release to Manufacturer (RTM) build. There has been a 'registry hack' going
around for a few days now to enable the option to download SP1 via Windows Update. This 'hack' is actually straight from Microsoft, which was
given to beta testers on Connect January 23rd.
According to Geeks Anatomy, Jeff DaVos (a Windows Vista SP1 beta program leader) has said
on the Connect news group that this is indeed the same release being used for RTM, and that “What you got is what we’re all running our
Vista machines here internally - we definitely RTM’d”.
Note: As I am sure Microsoft will say, using anything except for
files downloaded from Microsoft directly is a risk. If you plan to install SP1 via the registry changes, you are accepting this risk.
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08.02.2008What does the Sarah Palin e-mail hack say about Yahoo?
There's an underlying issue in the debate raging about the reported hack into the Yahoo e-mail account of VP nominee Sarah Palin, and it actually has
very little to do with the governor: Is there an e-mail vulnerability we should know about?..
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18.09.2008'Contractor error' suspected in $12,000 FEMA phone hack
FEMA is now investigating a hack attack against its voice mail system that racked up $12,000 in international calls, with preliminary evidence
indicating that "contractor error" was probably involved...
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22.08.2008The Vista license loophole that isnt
Ed Bott: Software licensing is often hard to understand. But that’s no excuse for so-called Windows experts to deliberately publish sensational
stories that turn the facts upside-down.
I’m talking about the fuss that Scott Dunn and Brian Livingston kicked up in
yesterday’s version of the
Windows Secrets
newsletter, in which Dunn breathlessly proclaimed the existence of an “upgrade hack” in Windows Vista that “allows end users to
purchase the ‘upgrade edition’ and install it on any PC with no need to purchase the more expensive ‘full edition.’”
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04.04.2008Photos: Installing Vista SP1 beta
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes: Earlier today I downloaded the standalone installer for Windows Vista SP1 build 6001.16659 and installed it on a few systems
to see what it was like -- and I thought you might like to take a look at it.
Don't expect huge UI changes after installing SP1
-- the changes are small and subtle. In fact, if you're not familiar with Windows Vista, you might miss the SP1 changes. I've put together an image
gallery showing some of the most significant changes.
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28.09.2007Microsoft Exec Rages Against Vista Upgrade 'Hack'
Sarcasm can be a powerful tool, and a Microsoft executive recently wielded it against industry sources who claim that a loophole exists in one of the
software giant's licensing policies. In a scathing blog post last week, Eric Ligman, Microsoft's senior manager of community engagement for
small business in the U.S., took aim at reports that Microsoft is giving users the option of buying the Vista SP1 upgrade edition and installing it on
any PC, which allows them to avoid paying more than $100 for the more expensive 'full' edition of Vista.
In an article that
appeared earlier this month in the Windows Secrets newsletter, Associate Editor Scott Dunn suggested that Microsoft's failure to close this
loophole in Vista SP1 suggests that the vendor approved the back door in order to make Vista more appealing to sophisticated buyers.
But
according to Ligman, "the fact that there are people writing articles advising people to illegally install software that they are not licensed for
'because they can get it to physically install' just shows how clueless some people are and how willing they are to share that with others.
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15.04.2008Why installing Vista SP1 might fail via Windows Update
When you try to install Windows Vista SP1 via Windows Update you can get error: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is not available for installation from
Windows Update and is not offered by Automatic Updates.
To help ensure a positive update experience, Windows Update will temporarily not
offer Windows Vista SP1 to systems that have the following device drivers. In some cases, these device drivers are problematic on Windows Vista-based
computers when you update to Windows Vista SP1. By installing updated device drivers, you will resolve the issue and enable Windows Update to offer
Windows Vista SP1.
Click read more to view a list of drivers that don't work well with Vista SP1:
Read full story.....
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20.03.2008Changes to UAC in Vista SP1: Much less than meets the eye
A video is making the rounds showing how Vista SP1 has significantly improved Vista's immensely annoying User Account Control (UAC). But there
appears to be less to the improvement than meets the eye --- hardly any changes were made to UAC in SP1, and it remains a very big Vista annoyance.
Microsoft blogger Michael Kleef
has
made a video that he says illustrates how much better UAC is under SP1 than before SP1. It very nicely shows that when you create a new folder in
Program Files, you only need to go through one UAC prompt under Vista SP1, rather than four previously.
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17.05.2008Vista SP1 to be just 45MB over Windows Update?
Mary Jo Foley got a chance to
see a note sent to certain
testers of Vista SP1 earlier
this month and quite a few
interesting factoids have
turned up in it:
Q: How big is SP1?
A: Windows Vista
SP1 is approximately 45 MB
when delivered over Windows
Update and is designed to not
significantly change the UI or
regress application
compatibility.
Q: What are some examples
of support for emerging
technologies and
standards?
A:
With SP1, Windows Vista can
boot via EFI (Extensible
Firmware Interface) on an x64
machine. SP1 supports ExFAT, a
new file format that will be
used in flash memory storage
and consumer devices Support
for SD Advanced DMA Support to
improve transfer performance
and decrease CPU utilization
is part of SP1
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30.07.2007Visual Studio 2008 SP1, .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 released
This afternoon, Microsoft unveiled a slate of new enhanced releases, including an updated .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 that had been in beta only since
February, and the first service pack for Visual Studio 2008 only six months after its premiere...
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12.08.2008Yahoo! Hosts 'Hack Day' in India
A motley crew of some 100 Web developers gathered at Taj Residency here for Yahoo's Open Hack Day, which made its first appearance in Asia over the
weekend.
The one-day event on Friday attracted students, employees of software companies and even the unemployed, who toiled over
24 hours to create new applications based on Yahoo's application programming interfaces (APIs) and technology.
This was the
third in a series of
Open Hack Day held over the
past year, and the first in Asia. Yahoo kicked off its inaugural Hack Day in Sunnyvale, United States, in September 2006, and held the second one in
London, United Kingdom, in June this year.
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12.10.2007New UK police powers to hack without a warrant
To the outrage of civil liberties groups and the government opposition, the UK Home Office has begun permitting police and MI5 officers to hack
("remote search") people's computers without their knowledge and without a court warrant. Information gleaned can then be shared with other
European forces, in line with a shift in EU policy. The goal, as with all such moves, is to track down terrorists, paedophiles, and cybercriminals.
One method for stealth surveillance involves installing spyware on targetted individuals' computers, normally by sending people emails with
infected attachments. This can, of course, be done from anywhere. Another method entails hacking directly into people's wifi networks from close
range.
Read full story.....
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06.01.2009Microsoft acknowledges Vista SP1 Refresh 2 = RTM
Which build of Vista SP1 became the release to manufacturing (RTM) edition? This was definitely a topic of high speculation in the last few weeks,
even before SP1 hit the RTM milestone. Many were adamant that SP1 RTM was, or would be, different from the final release candidate, while those on the
other side grasped at straws to prove their suspicions. The Microsoft Watcher, also known as Mary Jo Foley, has finally received confirmation from
Microsoft that the Vista SP1 RTM build (6001-18000) is none other than Vista SP1 RC Refresh 2. The latest official statement from the software giant
is:
"RC Refresh 2 code is the same as RTM. In final stages of a product Microsoft likes to get as much validation as possible before
releasing. The release candidate ended up being a high enough quality to be approved to release to manufacturing."
Read full story.....
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08.02.2008Hack into a Windows PC; with Winlockpwn.
A security consultant, Adam Boileau, based in New Zealand has released a tool that can unlock Windows computers in seconds, via a Firewire port,
without the need for a password.
With this tool, called Winlockpwn, one could "unlock locked Windows machines or login without a password
... merely by plugging in your Firewire cable and running a command".
The hack, which affects Windows XP computers but has not yet been
tested with Windows Vista, was first demonstrated, at a security conference in Sydney in 2006, but Microsoft has yet to develop a fix. But now that a
couple of years have passed and the issue has not resolved, Boileau, decided to release the tool on his website.
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08.03.2008The Vista SP1 saga: the best ad for Mac and Linux yet?
Alex Zaharov-Reutt: First, it was a 5 year delay for Vista minus plenty of features, drivers and software compatibility. A year later, Vista SP1
launches, but few can get it yet. Then two SP1 pre-updates launch, only to have many reports of endless rebooting. What more can Microsoft do to
convince people to try a Mac or Linux?
I wouldnt exactly call the delay of Vista SP1 a comedic situation, but the whole thing
seems to have gone from comedic to shambolic in less than three weeks since the February 4 announcement that Vista SP1 had gone to RTM.
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21.02.2008
