I have serious reservations against the activation. So, it has not been cracked in this manner. I am not as concerned for business partners who buy corporate license copies, as the scheme will not be present in the same manner, at least not if early news is correct.

My problem with activation is inconvenience to legal users, although MS has promised to solve this by resetting activation after a time to allow for hardware upgrades.

As a MSCE I look at the activation with strong reservation and serious misgiving.
I have no time to play licensing games. I am not recommending upgrading anything to XP until the dust settles. MS is annoucing several deals where large companies or businesses with a site license will not have to deal with the activation code.
This leaves individuals users in the cold. Cracked on not cracked this registration schema is counterproductive and will generate more gripes and problems than it will solve.
Software piracy can be brought down to a halt by other means such as the already active MS departement that audits large and small institutions and companies. Individual piracy is rampant but does not impact the bottom line as it is claimed for the simple reason that pirated software is not supported at all.
Companies that use pirated software should be ut out of business anyway as I do not see how one can trust a thief. MS approach to the problem is wrong as it assume that everyone is a thief.
I do use software that has been copied to test on a machine before considering a purchase. If we decide that is it can be an asset to our activities, we purchase has many licenses as we need.
In effect, the first copy opens a market more than it closes it and goes into 'try before you buy' theory. It has saved us from making serious mistakes.
In short, don't buy the products, do not recommand it and do not support it. If we make enough noise about it we may pass our point across, even if MS is bull headed, stuborn, aggressive and a royal pain the butt.
The XP beta advanced server is one hell of a product and I would hate not to be able to use it due to MS arrogant stupidity.

Just curious, if you actually did go to the store and buy Windows XP you could only install it on one home PC? And if you do it has to be connected to the internet? And then what happens if you're on a laptop and you can' connect to the internet and you're needing to reinstall the system?

You don't have to be connected to the Internet in order to activate your copy of Windows XP or Office XP. You can ring a processing centre, they will take some information from you and then give you the activation key.

With regard to the laptop issue, with the final code, you will have 30 days in order to activate Windows, so that should be long enough to at least get to a phone.

--Philip

Just curious: have you ever tried to give someone a Windows serial number over the phone?

I did. It ain't easy. It usually ended with one of the parties involved (usually whoever wanted said serial from me) physically going to wherever the other party was.

RasEm Brsiq

I'm curious: Whom did you have to give your Windows serial number to over the phone?

And in answer to your question, no I have not, I'm yet to find a need to give anyone my Windows serial number over the phone, but I've been given passwords over the phone and I didn't have any problems in deciphering what the other person was saying.

Two possible reasons I can think of: Either I'm giving the serial to people who I've earlier given pirated copies of Windows (but, for some reason, didn't bother to give the serial to) or I'm selling PCs with Windows to... well, how is the P.C. way to say this? ... "intellectually-challenged" end users who wouldn't know what to do with documentation if I gave it to them and would most likely endup mis-placing them.

Anyway, Windows serials are *not* like other passwords. You don't have any words that you can puzzle out. All you have is strings of letters and numbers. I suggest you try it, give someone a string of 25 characters that looks like a Windows serial and see how many they get wrong.

RasEm Brsiq
P.S. Of course, we could go the way the military went and start screaming "Fox, Romeo, Mike, Lema, ... etc." at each other :-). In fact, here's a good idea for the next product activation scheme from MS: why don't we imitate the authintication procedure they use for nuclear missile launch orders? I'm sure that's quite secure ;-)

"Microsoft was also quick to point out that piracy has other consequences rather than purely legal risks. Nieman noted that customers who acquire pirated software are ineligible for technical support, product upgrades, and warranty protections."

Pick my a** off the floor.......their killing me.....I can't stop laughing!!!!!

More users go to help rooms in a day than Microsoft probably has in a week. Their paying customers don't call their daft and inept tech support agents. How can users forfeit themselves from something they don't want? Then again Microsoft the billion dollar corporation is too big to care about the unpaid overworked computer nerds that sit in these Windows help chatrooms and help other users with their problems.

Just read:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/20494.html

Special the part about UCF!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Great guy's)

Jachra

Pardon my typ'o's, but Mcrosoft is talking about build 2505.
While surfing over the web, i already found a build 2509!

I'm going to test the hack again on this build!
However i am not sure if this is a real version, since Microsoft claims that there is only RC1! (Yeah, Right)

Jachra

Life is sweet, but so are roses!

build 2517 was just released...however, these are small upgrades to rc1. even if it still works now, that doesn't mean it will work in rtm, and that is around two months away. they have plenty of time to fix it.

Too bad i know some betat-testers myself...
They all claim thave received the gold-version by Microsoft.

So this leaves a nice problem for Microsoft.

Jachra

They'd be lying. We're doing RC1-build 2505. Some people think Release Candidates are 'gold code'.. In all actuality (which many people have brought up) they can change code up through to RTM. I refer to RC's as "PrimeTime Bug Fixing".

But, since RTM occurs generally 2 or 3 months before the product ships (End of July, Early August, or Late August/Early Sept at the latest), the MSDN people will have it in their hot hands ahead of time. Then again, it always seems there's some 'weak link' at Microsoft that manages to leak the retail code before release anyway :)

Microsoft can keep telling people "it's not that easy", but that just stirs the cauldron and next thing you know you have 60 or 70 people worldwide aiming to break the thing. A few people on a bridge is ok, but a few too many can make it break.. :)

---D

I stand corrected, as of today Interim build 3505 is on the board. This is not the latest RC, just a middle build.

--D

3505 is server, not client WinXP

Noticed that as soon as I hit the Submit... I guess the Server tier is going to come out after the client tier.. Kinda sordid how that one works.

Really disappointing they're trying to plug Advanced Server and screw people out of features in Server. Advanced Server of Win2000 runs like crap on this dual-proc machine, but Server runs very well. I liked it when Advanced was for 4+ procs and Server was for 2 or less.

--D

The headlines would have a field day if product activation in the "gold" code had some major problem that wasn't detected until after widespread shipment, and was completely missed before because they had made a last-minute WPA overhaul to "thwart" pirates, and the new code hadn't been properly tested on a large scale...

While this is unlikely, the possibility is amusing.

Well, How does it that there is a rumour that the Beta-tester already have a GOLD-version...
Anyone want a copy....... NOT!..

So, back to the drawingboard then....

Jachra
;-))

Oh you mean that 249 dollar per incident Tech Support? or the "Pay for the call to Seattle and wait for an hour on hold" Tech support?

Product Upgrades? They're free anyway, WindowsUpdate will let you use a hacked version to update.

Lets be realistic, a 'pirated' copy of Windows works just as well as a 'non-pirated' copy.. One costs 0, the other costs money. The thing is, with paying 0 for something, you expect nothing of it. With paying money, you have expectations. Considering Microsoft's blunder of putting Macros in an e-mail program, I expect my Microsoft software to have possibility of viruses and hacks.

Then again, I'm a MSDN Universal member (at 2500$ a year *grumble*), so I guess I can play for free anyway.

I just figure what will happen will be identical to what happened with Office XP. A business key will get leaked that doesn't require activation (I.e. pushes 'already activated' state), and then the technology will have been circumvented. Since the business keys are already activated, it doesn't phone home at all.

MSDN people are limited to 10 installs (at least of the beta), but since I'm on the beta anyway, it's rather moot..

It all sounds like a bunch of silliness to me. Admittedly it'll stop people that don't have the net (or don't use Astalavista) from burning off a copy of their CD, but even the most casual of copiers has probably been to Gamecopyworld at one time or another.

Lets start the countdown to see how soon after Gold gets released and the WPA gets circumvented. After all, MSDN Users get first crack at the Gold a few months before it starts getting sold if I recall.

I will admit, XP has been very stable and reasonable here. However, since Domains aren't supported in XP Home, I'm less than happy. After all, Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME all do.

Just my 2 cents worth.

---D

Yeah, right... didn't know that you were so dumb. Never update a cracked XP!!!!
Search support.microsoft.com for wrong product keys of Office 2k!!!

If you update XP and you have wrong Product Key, you may have to reinstall.

LOL
Jachra

"The inner, technical workings of product activation in Windows XP may change up until the time we do release the final code," and added, "The steps documented in this article for bypassing product activation in Windows XP will not work on final gold code."

Read As: "Damnit! Uh... we're going to 'fix' that 'feature' right now!"

"Nieman noted that customers who acquire pirated software are ineligible for technical support, product upgrades, and warranty protections."

Read As: "God knows how much of the OS we leave confusing and screwed up just to suck more money out of people."

I can't wait to bring a Windows XP rig to a lan party and end up having to do an emergency format at 2am while I'm jumped up on soda and goofballs.

Oh wait. I'm never going to have an XP rig.

Confusing and screwed up? You can't figure out Win2k/9x? Might wanna consider an iMac or a PalmPilot or something, build up to it, it's ok...

At least they're honest about ONE thing: "Microsoft does concede that product activation will eventually be cracked ..."

Yep...Come hell or high water I will have ONE legitimately store-bought copy of XP running on two or three computers. Have a nice day.

thats bull windows xp has not even hit RC 2

Thats why he said he WILL no he IS. Read better or something...

What, exactly, is you point?