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  3. Humm! Microsoft VISTA cracked [modified]

Humm! Microsoft VISTA cracked [modified]

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved The Lounge
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  • A Offline
    A Offline
    Albert Dadze
    wrote on last edited by
    #1

    http://apcmag.com/5512/pirate_crack_vista_oem_activation[^] and this http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39679[^] Ever wonder if these story are very true. Sure they could be. I believe not only that but many other cracks exist though.:sigh::sigh::sigh: And Microsoft are not the only guys who have good programmers.:^):^):^)

    Albert Dadze

    S L J 3 Replies Last reply
    0
    • A Albert Dadze

      http://apcmag.com/5512/pirate_crack_vista_oem_activation[^] and this http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39679[^] Ever wonder if these story are very true. Sure they could be. I believe not only that but many other cracks exist though.:sigh::sigh::sigh: And Microsoft are not the only guys who have good programmers.:^):^):^)

      Albert Dadze

      S Offline
      S Offline
      szukuro
      wrote on last edited by
      #2

      Or perhaps: And Microsoft are not the only guys who have good programmers.:^):^):^)

      P 1 Reply Last reply
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      • A Albert Dadze

        http://apcmag.com/5512/pirate_crack_vista_oem_activation[^] and this http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39679[^] Ever wonder if these story are very true. Sure they could be. I believe not only that but many other cracks exist though.:sigh::sigh::sigh: And Microsoft are not the only guys who have good programmers.:^):^):^)

        Albert Dadze

        L Offline
        L Offline
        Lost User
        wrote on last edited by
        #3

        1. It was inevitable 2. Who cares? At the end of the day it's still only Vista. ;P

        "Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest." - Isaac Asimov

        W 1 Reply Last reply
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        • L Lost User

          1. It was inevitable 2. Who cares? At the end of the day it's still only Vista. ;P

          "Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest." - Isaac Asimov

          W Offline
          W Offline
          WillemM
          wrote on last edited by
          #4

          They should add cracks to the glass interface ;P

          WM. What about weapons of mass-construction? "What? Its an Apple MacBook Pro. They are sexy!" - Paul Watson

          1 Reply Last reply
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          • A Albert Dadze

            http://apcmag.com/5512/pirate_crack_vista_oem_activation[^] and this http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39679[^] Ever wonder if these story are very true. Sure they could be. I believe not only that but many other cracks exist though.:sigh::sigh::sigh: And Microsoft are not the only guys who have good programmers.:^):^):^)

            Albert Dadze

            J Offline
            J Offline
            Jorgen Sigvardsson
            wrote on last edited by
            #5

            Well, that explains why I didn't have to activate the OS when I reinstalled an XP/OEM-copy on a Dell machine here at work. :)

            M 1 Reply Last reply
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            • J Jorgen Sigvardsson

              Well, that explains why I didn't have to activate the OS when I reinstalled an XP/OEM-copy on a Dell machine here at work. :)

              M Offline
              M Offline
              Mike Dimmick
              wrote on last edited by
              #6

              For XP, the largest OEMs distribute firmware-locked versions of the OS - it reads some strings from the machine's BIOS to decide whether it can load. These locked versions don't need activation, since they won't work on other manufacturers' PCs (or even on other models from the same OEM). The article seems to indicate that for Vista, this was moved to an ACPI table rather than just scanning the BIOS chip. This no doubt reduces the number of different builds necessary to locate the information. However, looking in the same place means that a hack that succeeds will work against many systems. If you can manage to load some other code earlier in the boot process than the checking occurs, you can subvert this mechanism. It sounds like this has been done. For example, it should be possible to replace the boot sector on a bootable DVD with your own code which fakes the ACPI table or OEM strings, and then chain the original loader. More simply you stick a JUMP instruction around the code that does the check, although since so many Windows binaries are now signed (and the signatures checked) this may not work as well. Basically, once the code is out of your hands, you can't trust it.

              Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder

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              • S szukuro

                Or perhaps: And Microsoft are not the only guys who have good programmers.:^):^):^)

                P Offline
                P Offline
                peterchen
                wrote on last edited by
                #7

                For a project the size of Vista, you need the geniuses in project managment, not in programming. Meaning that with geniuses in PM, you can make it with average code monkeys, but wiht just-average PM, the most brilliant coders can't save the day (unless they start to manage). Thoughts? I dimly remember a statistics for (I'm not sure) W2K or Vista: If every developer would break the build just once in two years, they couldn't make a single full integration build ever.


                We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
                My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighist

                S 1 Reply Last reply
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                • P peterchen

                  For a project the size of Vista, you need the geniuses in project managment, not in programming. Meaning that with geniuses in PM, you can make it with average code monkeys, but wiht just-average PM, the most brilliant coders can't save the day (unless they start to manage). Thoughts? I dimly remember a statistics for (I'm not sure) W2K or Vista: If every developer would break the build just once in two years, they couldn't make a single full integration build ever.


                  We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
                  My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighist

                  S Offline
                  S Offline
                  szukuro
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #8

                  I don't have first hand experience with larger projects, but I can imagine this being true. Also it is quite obvious that it takes a lot of effort/time/money to create a software as complex as Vista. Finding a vulnerability or bug and exploiting it however takes much much less.

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