When Microsoft launched Windows Vista, it was supposed that I’ll include some security features that will make it more secure and will avoid software piracy.
It doesn’t matters how many security features does Microsoft incorporates in to they software, because as soon as the official release is launched it will take about a week (or many times even before the official release) for hackers and crackers to develop a patch or find ways and enjoy of illegal software.
Sometimes it could be a little exciting to have some illegal software, but remember that software piracy is stealing and that is something penalized by law in all countries. If you are cracking software to test security features it is OK, but just keep it for your self and notify to the software vendor about the vulnerability that you found.
Windows Vista is this case was not the exception. At the beginning I could found on the Internet a patch that when it was applied to the operating system (before trying to do any activation) the timer included on it was frozen, so in that way you didn’t have to activate your operating system. Once Microsoft discovered this vulnerability they soon released a patch that was delivered by the Windows Update system, making this patch useless.
Since Windows Vista can also be activated with a KMS Server many illegal KMS Servers appeared over the Internet allowing people to continue activating illegal copies, other method used was installing a Windows Server inside the Windows Vista OS using a virtual machine, so in that way an illegal virtual KMS Server activated the Windows Vista copy, the only thing that you have to do is to turn on your virtual KMS Server every 6 month to validate again the Windows Vista key.
If you could install a virtual KMS Server someone else can do it for you… in some warez and torrent sites you could find the Windows Vista version called “Melinda Gates” which you downloaded, burn it into a DVD and that you installed on your PC with the KMS Server. The problem that I found on those methods was that I was going to have storage space in my hard drive that was going to be used by the virtual server and every 6 months I was going be turning it on to validate the license key.
The most effective way that I have found up to date is to embed certain license information into the hardware, just like PC manufactures do. Large manufactures like Lenovo, HP and Dell ship their products containing Windows Vista that does not require any activation for the convenience of the end-user.
This mechanism is commonly know as “SLP 2.0″ (system-locked pre-installation 2.0) and consists of three elements:
- The OEM’s hardware-embedded BIOS ACPI_SLIC information signed by Microsoft
- A certificate issued by Microsoft that corresponds to the specific ACPI_SLIC information, which is an XML file
- The product key that corresponds to the installed edition of Windows Vista.
If all three elements match Windows Vista’s licensing mechanism considers the given installation a valid system-locked pre-activated copy and that does not require any additional product activation procedures.
Because of obvious reasons I will not upload any file to do this, but what it is impressing is that if you check your operating system at the Windows Validation website you’ll see that you have a legal copy and you can update your system with new patches any time you want.
For Microsoft it will be more difficult to detect if you are using an illegal copy, unless someone reports that the license key that you might using as stolen.
I have already tried this in the Business, Ultimate, Home Premium and Enterprise editions of Windows Vista. I didn’t get any problems later neither with the updating.
If you will like to know a little bit more of how this procedure works just drop a line to info@proitzone.com
Just do this for educational purposes or if you have a legal copy and license of your Windows Vista, I’m not responsible for any misuse, legal problems or software/hardware damages that this may cause.
This is just to show you that it really doesn’t matters how much security does Microsoft adds to their products, there is always someone that is going to be one step beyond them 
March 19th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Nice website!!