Early taste of Vista Pirates

Arstechnica talks about the early cracks develop for Windows Vista. In an excerpt: The crack for Windows Vista (which is called “Vista BillGates”) is not a true crack, as it replaces components from the final version of the operating system with those from earlier betas. This allows the would-be pirate to use a product key that worked with Beta 1, Beta 2, RC1, or RC2, with the Gold release of the operating system. This allows the OS to be activated normally over the Internet, but does not bypass the activation system itself. Microsoft had made these earlier betas available to the public on a limited basis.

The other piratical news today is that a copy of the Enterprise edition of Office 2007 was also made available on the ‘Net. This version, like other “Corporate” editions of Microsoft products, uses a volume license key (in this case, Volume Activation 1.0) and does not require activation over the Internet.

I am sure there are lots of pirated copies of Windows Vista made available to the public but being restricted on software updates from Microsoft would make consumers want to buy the original version. However, if you do not frequent the internet much and doesn’t care about latest software downloads (there would also be pirated copies available later on), you wouldn’t mind a pirated copy.

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