Vista SP1 Still Pirate Friendly, Sort Of

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, February 12, 2008, 06:00 PM EDT

During the development of Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista, Microsoft representatives had stated on numerous occasions that the company planned to plug a number of holes in the OS to prevent pirates from circumventing the activation process or defeating the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) anti-piracy mechanism. According to Adrian Kingsley-Hughes’ blog at ZD-Net, however, even with SP1 installed, circumventing Windows activation is still quite easy.

“First off, the hack. The hack in question is another OEM BIOS hack but packaged under the name of Vista Loader. This hack is similar to the Paradox OEM BIOS. The Paradox hack was the most commonly used Vista activation hack (which is why Microsoft pulled the plug on it) but this one seems to have been quite popular, so I’m not sure why Microsoft didn’t pull the plug on this one too. Since other outlets have now named this hack as working on Vista SP1 I don’t have any problem with naming it here.”

Although I haven’t experimented with it, the “Vista Loader” Adrian mentions here - and a few other early OEM BIOS hacks - alter the MBR / Bootloader to trick Vista into thinking a system has the necessary SLIC table in its BIOS. Just trying to install any of these hacks could potentially destroy the MBR and render a machine unbootable, which isn’t necessarily a problem for pirates. However, for Microsoft, altering the MBR to disable these hacks represents a potential support nightmare. Imagine the number of support calls Microsoft would have to answer from unassuming users whose machines were no longer bootable after installing SP1. Technically, MS may not even be able to verify if the copy of Vista is genuine or not if the machine won’t boot, which could cause even more support issues. And support issues = huge expenses.

Personally, I think MS will try to plug all of the holes it can, as long as the measures minimize the risk of hosing a user’s system. And messing with the MBR is risky.

Tags: Vista, pirate, friend, SP1, Pi, RT, IE

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com