Black screen of darkness to haunt Vista pirates
Microsoft Windows' infamous "blue screen of death" has become synonymous with an operating system crash or freeze, but that's nothing compared with what users of pirated copies of Vista worldwide can expect from now -- a black screen of darkness.
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12.9.2007 Black Screen of Death for XP SP3 and Vista SP1 Upgrades
Microsoft has warned end users that performing Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 upgrades from copies of XP SP2 and Vista RTM, respectively, that have Onekey Recovery 5.0 installed will cause the operating systems to display a black screen following reboot.
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9.8.2008 Vista SP1 Application Compatibility Update Fixes Black Screens of Death
With the release of the gold version of Service Pack 1, but also with the maturing of the software and hardware environment orbiting around the Windows client, Windows Vista's compatibility level has continually increased.
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14.8.2008 Black Friday brings down online retailers
Amazon, like many other online retailers were brought down yesterday from eager users trying to get their hands on some limited offers from the sites.
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29.11.2008 Black Xbox 360 With HDMI, Improved Features
Rumors of a hardware refresh for the Xbox 360 began earlier this year, when photos of a prototype console with HDMI output and a revised scaling chip appeared on the Web.
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22.3.2007 XP Black Edition USA 2007 DVD
Thanks to odeeee and other posters to for this download. No Viruses....Cracks....for the programs it comes with.....Falsly reported as Viruses....Coz they R Crackz.
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7.5.2007 Winstep Xtreme 7.1 - Black XP Visual Styles
Thanks to hwh1226 for this download. A powerful, multi-paged desktop replacement, program launcher and document organizer that can be used as an alternative or supplement to the normal Windows desktop.
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18.6.2007 Microsoft: Vista's 'Black Screen of Death' Is a Hoax
Many other news sites have just picked up the original article believing that it's legit. We have already updated our original post from last night and are posting the following to correct any disinformation out there.
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12.9.2007 MS preps black Xbox 360 as PS3 spoiler?
Is Microsoft preparing a spoiler for Sony's PAL-region PlayStation 3 launch on 23 March?
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9.2.2007 German hacker denied entry into U.S. for Black Hat training
Thomas Dullien, a prominent security researcher who has been a fixture at the annual Black Hat security conference, has been denied entry into the U.S. to attend and conduct training at this year’s confab.
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30.7.2007 Windows 7 Ultimate Black Edition 2009 Beta 32bit
Dont modify this Seven® Black™ Edition 2009 R1 Beta in anyway and for torrent uploaders dont add any viruses.
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11.3.2009 Microsoft presenting at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas
Hi everyone, Stephen Toulouse here. As you probably know, all throughout the year we attend various security researcher conferences all over the world. One of the biggest and the best is the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. And of course the MSRC, as well as a number of other Microsoft teams, will be down there this August.
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11.6.2006 Windows 7 RTM Black Screen of Death after Forced Shutdown Actions
Microsoft has informed users of an issue that prevents Windows 7 from starting after the computer the OS is installed on has been forced shut down.
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7.10.2009 How to Install Vista Language Packs MUI on all versions of Vista + video tutorial
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, and Vista Business versions of the Microsoft licensing restrictions can only preserve a language!
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23.9.2008 The Vista Built-in Super Administrator Account Has Survived in Vista SP1
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is designed to evolve the RTM version of the latest Windows client from Microsoft, made available in November 2006 to business customers, and in January 2007 to the general consumers.
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15.2.2008 Vista SP1 Is Out, XP SP3 Old News, the Pink Edition of Vista Is In
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is now nothing more than water under the bridge, now that the service pack was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, shipping to general users on March 18.
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27.3.2008 Tell Hasta la Vista to XP - Time to Upgrade to Vista SP1
Like it or not, this is the right time not only to upgrade to Windows Vista Service Pack 1 but also to tell hasta la vista to Windows XP.
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30.6.2008 Instant Change Vista Product ID with Vista ProductID Changer
In past we have reviewed number of application to recover product key like Product Key Finder, WinGuggle, Windows product Key Finder.
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1.11.2009 Vista SP1 RC1 Flies Past Vista RTM and Windows XP SP2
Despite the fact that Microsoft has expressed its official position regarding testing Windows Vista Service Pack 1 ahead of its finalization, there is simply too much of a hunger for the service pack.
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27.12.2007 Vista SP1 Won't Resolve the 4 GB RAM Limitation of 32-bit Windows Vista
32-bit Windows operating systems, and Windows Vista makes no exception whatsoever to this rule, are limited in terms of the amount of system memory that can be addressed to no more than 4 GB.
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4.1.2008 Vista Loader 2.1.3 - Windows Vista Activator 2008 Support SP1 with No Boot String
Vista Loader is one of the most successful Vista activation crack available to date, second only to physical modify (hardmod) the BIOS to include SLIC table to make BIOS Vista activation-compliant.
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15.5.2008 x64 Vista SP2 JPG Rendering Performance Inferior to x86 Vista SP2's
The JPG rendering process on 64-bit flavors of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 is inferior to that on the 32-bit variants of the operating system.
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10.6.2009 Microsoft to Kill the Grace Timer and OEM BIOS Windows Vista Cracks with Vista SP1
With the advent of Windows Vista, cracks also became available being designed to bypass the activation process of the operating system.
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4.12.2007 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 Windows Vista on Super Nintendo, As Real As Vista on PSP
We're puzzled and confused... How can a console that's at least ten times less powerful than the acclaimed PSP cope with Windows Vista's requirements?
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15.8.2007 Vista RTM vs. Vista SP1 - Office 2007 benchmarking
Enough with benchmarking the OS - let’s see if Office 2007 is any faster on Vista SP1.
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26.2.2008 Microsoft Says Vista SP1 Needs to Speak the Same Language as Vista RTM
Microsoft says that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 needs to speak the same language as the RTM version of the latest Windows client. Otherwise there's no game.
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2.4.2008 Vista SP1 to Cure the Vista RTM Wow Hangover
When Windows Vista was unleashed in January 31, 2008, Microsoft was promising performance, security, innovation, all wrapped up under an umbrella of a Wow user experience.
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11.4.2008 Vista-For-Free coupon with Vista ready PC's
Microsoft and the world's leading PC vendors have reached an agreement to promote the long-awaited Vista OS by offering PC buyers worldwide a free upgrade coupon, as a way of encouraging them to buy a Vista-capable PC as early as possible, according to market sources, citing information leaked from Taiwan-based PC makers.
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11.10.2006 Can Vista SP1 help polish Vista’s tarnished image?
Call it complaining. Call it whining. The end result is the same: Windows Vista’s image is tarnished. And it’s corroding more and more rapidly as the weeks are going on. Thanks to pacpis for this news.
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21.8.2007Windows Vista Gets Another Dose of The 'Blue Pill'
Once again security researcher
Joanna Rutkowska took the
stage at Black Hat, and once
again she set out to prove in
glorious detail how to exploit
and attack Microsoft Windows
Vista.
Rutkowska blew the lid off
last year's Black Hat event
with her landmark presentation
ahead of the official Vista
release where she demonstrated
a virtualized rootkit called
Blue Pill that took control
over a Vista machine.
This year she
brought a new pill and a few
more tricks to take Vista to
task.
"I'm going to talk about
Vista kernel protection and
why it doesn't work,"
Rutkowska boldly declared to
the overflow crowd.
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03.08.2007Black screen of darkness to haunt Vista pirates
Microsoft Windows' infamous "Blue Screen of Death" has become synonymous with an operating system crash or freeze, but that's nothing compared
with what users of pirated copies of Vista worldwide can expect from now - a black screen of darkness.
In an e-mail to a large
Windows Vista OEM distributor titled "Pirated Vista - A darkness descends!", a local Microsoft representative made it quite clear what Vista pirates
can expect to happen to their unlicenced installations.
A copy of this e-mail was obtained by Computerworld:
Good Afternoon, As of this week, Microsoft have
activated a function in Vista called 'Reduced Functionality'. This is a specific
function in Vista which effectively disables non genuine copies of Windows. Therefore, anyone who has a pirated copy of Vista will
experience...
winbeta.org - 11.09.2007
Apple to offer discounts of up to 15% on Black Friday
While Apple is remaining tight-lipped on what we can expect from their stores on Black Friday, one analyst is predicting consumers will see discounts
of up to 15%. According to Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu, Apple's Black Friday sale will be more aggressive than usual. Apple products are
traditionally more expensive than their non-apple counterparts and price reductions are not commonplace for the tech giant. In past years, Apple has
offered Black Friday discounts between 5 and 10%. If Wu's prediction is correct, consumers will be seeing a reduced price on the iPod, iMac, and
MacBooks. However, Wu is skeptical as to whether or not the iPhone will be subject to the Black Friday discounts.
Read full story.....
neowin.net - 27.11.2008
Connecting the Black Friday dots: What to expect from CE retail
In anticipation of the coming annual Black Friday spending surge, analysts have come out of the woodwork to voice their predictions. This afternoon,
we took some time to parse some of them...
betanews.com - 27.11.2008
Analysis: Is Black Friday truly good for an ailing US economy?
As the final figures for last Black Friday's and Cyber Monday's sales show positive gains, is this really proof that the US economy isn't as
lumbering as the housing market and credit crunch would indicate?..
betanews.com - 01.12.2007
Microsoft Takes Vista to
Hacker Confab
The annual Black Hat
conference in Las Vegas plays
host to the world's top
hackers and security
professionals, who come
together to discuss the
industry and delve into code.
Microsoft is playing a major
role at this year's event,
inviting attendees to find
holes in Windows Vista...
betanews.com - 04.08.2006
New DS bundles arrive in time for Black Friday
In order to keep sales of its popular portable gaming system at a high level, Nintendo debuted two new DS packages for consumers to debut Black
Friday...
betanews.com - 20.11.2007
Microsoft Manager Says It Considered Banning Vista Virtualization
In a story for the Associated
Press this afternoon, one of
the directors of Microsoft's
Windows Client Product
Planning team is quoted as
saying that a Black Hat
security conference
demonstration last August
scared Microsoft to the point
where the company seriously
considered removing
virtualization capability from
Vista entirely...
betanews.com - 24.02.2007
How eWEEK Got Hacked at Black Hat
Brian Prince: A group of reporters from Global Security Mag were kicked out of the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas after stealing password
information from another reporter who will remain namelesswe'll call him "me."
winbeta.org - 08.08.2008
Nokia N82 goes black for everyone but the US
The workhorse Nokia N82 mobile phone has been generating a lot of buzz on the Web, especially now that it's available in a steely black, but US
consumers are still wondering when the phone will be available here through carriers...
betanews.com - 07.02.2008
Black Hat: Vista users urged to beware of IPv6
Vista users would be wise to
turn off the Teredo IP
tunneling system that is
enabled by default in
Microsoft's newest operating
system, since attackers may be
able to exploit it for
phishing, pharming and other
mischief. James Hoagland,
principal security researcher
for Symantec Corp., issued
that warning Thursday during a
presentation at the Black Hat
2007 conference.
Hoagland -- along
with fellow researchers Matt
Conover, Tim Newsham and Ollie
Whitehouse -- conducted an
extensive analysis of Vista.
They found that while
Microsoft has significantly
improved security in the
latest version of Windows, new
vulnerabilities were likely
created in the process.
Hoagland
said the best example may be
Vista's default enabling of
Teredo. The software giant has
embraced Teredo as a way to
help users transition from
IPv4, the long-standing
protocol that is quickly
running short on IP address
space, to IPv6, a more
advanced protocol that vastly
increases the number of IP
addresses available to
networked devices...
winbeta.org - 03.08.2007
Microsoft Cashback goes offline to Black Friday shoppers
UPDATED Like Sears and several other major retail sites, Microsoft Cashback became a temporary technical casualty on Black Friday, a time when
generally hesitant consumers were actually trying hard to buy holiday gifts...
betanews.com - 01.12.2008
New Zune HD images leak, shows black and silver colors
New images of Microsoft's Zune HD has leaked, and according to the pictures shown, the Zune HD appears to be sporting black and silver color
options. We've previously reported that Microsoft confirmed that Zune HD was coming this fall, and that it was set to hit amazon in September.
Microsoft plans to go international with the Zune later this year. Amazon has listed the Zune HD, and users can sign up to be notified when it will
be available. Pricing information has yet to be revealed. Black Zune HD Silver Zune HD
Read full story.....
neowin.net - 05.08.2009
Will 'Cyber Monday' fare better than a weaker 'Black Friday?'
Today could be the day for some of the best online deals to be found all year. But will consumers bite? Internet market research firm comScore
released its "Black Friday" figures, showing a drop in online sales by 4%...
betanews.com - 01.12.2008
Will a Black Friday sales surge spell real profits?
In the consumer electronics space, high sales volumes don't necessarily add up to high profits. But as some see it, if Black Friday pricing is well
planned and executed, retailers and manufacturers both stand to gain...
betanews.com - 26.11.2007
Microsoft: Vista's 'Black Screen of Death' Is a Hoax
Many other news sites have just picked up the original article believing that it's legit. We have already updated our original post from last night and are posting the following to correct any disinformation out there.
Has Microsoft adopted an even tougher stance on piracy? According to recent e-mails warning of new, harsher anti-piracy measures in Windows
Vista, that was believed to be the case.
Australian PC World printed an e-mail Tuesday it says was sent from a Microsoft representative to an unspecified large Vista OEM distributor. The
e-mail describes a new initiative which renders computers running a pirated copy of Vista unusable by making the screen totally black.
Microsoft was quick to debunk this e-mail warning of a Black Screen of Death. A Microsoft representative told Wired News "the reporter
received inaccurate information," and that the company has not rolled out any updates to Windows Vista's anti-piracy platform.
winbeta.org - 12.09.2007
Black Friday brings down online retailers
Amazon, like many other online retailers were brought down yesterday from eager users trying to get their hands on some limited offers from the sites.
Sears.com, Saksfifthavenue.com, lowes.com, victoriassecret.com, amazon.com and many others were overwhelmed with internet traffic from users that
the sites experienced down time due to too many users trying to get cheap black Friday deals. Much like last year, Amazon.com was hit the hardest
again, offering electronics, video games, and personal media from 10% - 70% off some items, making Amazon.com a hot spot for online shoppers. Last
year, Amazon.com was brought down due to black Friday shoppers trying to access the web site to save on things like Xbox360, and many other things.
Read full story.....
neowin.net - 29.11.2008
Black Hat 'supersizes' in Las Vegas
The 11th annual Black Hat
security conference will
occupy more space at Caesar's
Palace this year in order to
accommodate more people, more
topics, and, of course, more
controversy.
The conference kicked off
over the weekend, starting
with four days of
topic-specific training,
before concluding Wednesday
and Thursday with two days of
public sessions.
If past conferences are
any guide, expect the overall
total attendance to be more
than last year. With that in
mind, Black Hat is expanding
its footprint within the
Caesar's Palace resort
here.
But
count out at least one
prospective attendee. On
Sunday, Thomas Dullien, CEO of
the German company Sabre
Security, reported in his
personal blog that he had been
denied entry to the U.S. for
reasons having to do with H-1B
visa regulations. He says that
U.S. Customs officials
detained him over material he
was carrying to Black Hat in
order to teach what was billed
as an "intense course
encompassing binary analysis,
reverse engineering and bug
finding." ..
winbeta.org - 30.07.2007
XP Pro to receive WGA similar to Vista SP1
Remember how everyone was excited about how Vista SP1 received a WGA update to not block you from your computer?
Well, the same is coming
to Windows XP. (Professional only, though. Who would want to pirate XP Home?)
From the WGA Blog:
With this update to
WGA Notifications in Windows XP, we've implemented a couple of related features that draw on the notifications experience we designed for Windows
Vista SP1. After installing this version of WGA Notifications on a copy of Windows XP that fails the validation, most users will discover on their
next logon that their desktop has changed to a plain black background from whatever was there previously (see below).
The desktop
background can be reset to anything else in the usual ways, but every 60 minutes it will change back to the plain black background. This will continue
to happen until that copy of Windows is genuine.
Also, the user will see the addition of what we call the "persistent desktop
notification." This notification is similar to a watermark but works a bit differently. The image (see below) appears over the system tray and is
non-interactive in the sense that you can't click on it or do anything to it.
As with previous releases, if a copy of Windows fails
validation, notifications will appear above the system tray regularly - and we will continue to have the pre-logon message, the logon interrupt
message and the messages that appear from the system tray.
jcxp.net - 27.08.2008
Western Digital Launches Terabyte 'Black' Drive
Western Digital on Tuesday launched a new pair of its "Caviar Black" drives, available in both 750-Gbyte and 1-terabyte capacities.
The
WD Caviar Black 750 GB (model WD7501AALS) and 1 TB (model WD1001FALS) hard drives will be available next week through select distributors and
resellers, WD said. The MSRP for the WD Caviar Black 750 GB is $199 and the 1 TB is $249 USD. Both drives are covered by a five-year limited
warranty.
neowin.net - 11.06.2008
