Windows 7 SP1 to start rolling out on Windows Update

alphanumeric said:

@ Jimbo Corporate versions of Windows 8 have to reactivate after a set time period. I think it's every 120 days. The new trick is fake KMS servers. Only now they have to find one every 120 days. I would think Microsoft is actively looking for those and taking them down when they can. It's still a cat and mouse game.

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Hi there
In any case it's still better than the method in W7.
Also I think people can still get heavily discounted versions of W8 LEGALLY so perhaps piracy isn't such a potential problem -- I know some people will always want to acquire software without paying for it - but if the price is what people consider "reasonably" then piracy goes down dramatically.

An interesting case is that of Adobe who effectively made the CS2 version of its Photoshop / Creative suite "Abandonware" and published serial numbers on its site and deactivated licensing on that particular set of products.

Piracy for the current level of photo shop CS6 has dropped dramatically - and this is nothing to do with better activation techniques either.

Unless you are a professional Shooter or want to mess around in 3-D the CS2 version is more than sufficient for 99.999% of what a typical user might want photoshop for. Great learning tool too.

Adobe - CS2 Downloads

Moral is this

1) You will never stop Piracy whatever you do. The better you make the algorithm the more people will regard it as a challenge to "Break it". Even the new Blu Ray encryption system has been broken (or at least by-passed) within days by AnyDVD. However these days distributing movies etc via Physical media like Blu Ray in any case is diminishing very rapidly -- and some TV productions now are distributed totally via Internet such as Netflix with that excellent series House of Cards.

2) You can MINIMIZE it by pricing the product sensibly.

I don't like the idea of a Subscription model but that method probably has the best protection against piracy - at least for software -- you can't stop people though recording the web stream of a movie or TV show and storing it on a disk for uploading to a torrent site later - even if you can build something into the browser -- might work in Windows though dubious -- but Linux --forget it.

Cheers
jimbo

I was thinking the low introductory price for Windows 8 was serving two purposes. It helped to get it out there and in use, and like you said, some people that would have pirated it if it was expensive, bought it at the low price instead. I'm sure Microsoft was hoping that would happen. Microsoft has to walk a fine line. if they make the activation mechanism to complex you get false positives or just general failures. Then you piss off the legal owners by calling them pirates. Make it to simple and a lot or people get a free ride, they lose income, and you get a lot of compromised PC's on the internet. As far as Adobe Creative Suite goes I'm sure the high cost of ownership is the big deciding factor for trying to find a pirated copy.

You're thinking there of KMS activation - it's 180 days
MAK activation is permanent.

The problem with all activation systems is that they are man-made - and anything man can make, man can break.
There are functional Activation Exploits available for Windows 8, the same way as there are for Win7 - but because of 8's lower public acceptance currently, it's less of a loss (the geeky type don't wanna know, basically).


The self-activated KMS Server type of exploit for Win7 is a rarity - most Exploits work by inserting a layer between the BIOS and the OS to trick the SPPSVC into believing that the SLIC table, Key, and licenses match. (Daz Loader for one - which is probably the most common of all)

There are a number of open KMS servers in the wild - googleable, last time I checked - which the pirates maintain to spread malware, and there are some rather inept Sysadmins who've opened their KMS Server to external access, rather than VPN, and the pirates regularly publish lists of them. Setting up the internal Server type of hack is rather pointless - it's basically hacking the system to accept the server activation so that it can then accept the KMS activation. Duh?

Maybe there is just very little interest in (i.e. requests for) pirated copies of W8.

It sounds like Windows 8 isn't worth stealing.

Layback Bear said:

It sounds like Windows 8 isn't worth stealing.

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:roflmao:

Layback Bear said:

It sounds like Windows 8 isn't worth stealing.

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That is my thought too...

Hi there
Believe me there's a market FOR ANYTHING. I've been working in enough places on this planet to have SEEN this in action.

Even in so called sophisticated Western Countries it's amazing how so called "intelligent people" get clobbered with the most basic of scams.

An interesting sideline on this was how the City of Lake Havasu in Arizona coughed up for LONDON BRIDGE (basically just a Traffic road Bridge) when they thought they were buying TOWER BRIDGE (The one you see advertising London a lot with the old Drawbridge).

If the Corporation of London managed to flog London Bridge --well it proves the point.

London Bridge at Lake Havasu.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=l...aS1MMm1PdrrgfAK&ved=0CDcQsAQ&biw=1159&bih=547

Tower Bridge --the one they really wanted.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=t...gWu-IGoAQ&sqi=2&ved=0CC8QsAQ&biw=1159&bih=547

If we had a few more salespeople like this the Eurozone's economic worries would be over. !!!

Cheers
jimbo

The London & Tower bridge sale mix up is an urban myth.

Ivan Luckin sold London bridge to Robert Paxton McCulloch, both have gone on record stating the mix up people think happened is just an urban myth.

OK, OK, enough already. I have W7 HP w/SP1 installed from a MS CD I ordered. My system is running fine without any further updates after the SP1 install.
Should one D/L the rollup (as in post #3) and install it ?

If you have all available updates post SP1 you shouldn't need the roll up. My last install with a SP1 iso, there were, I think, 101 further updates.

NoelDP said:

Installing SP1 will automatically break most Activation Exploits
Unfortunately, reinstalling the exploit is a simple matter

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I assume it is a constant battle for M$. It is gauling when most of us have paid hundreds if not thousands in software costs over the years and others are stealing from us in effect jacking up the prices we pay. Every counterfeit OS is a threat to all regular users as who knows what else they harbour. There is free software about. I have heard the excuses, because we can and so on.

Britton30 said:

If you have all available updates post SP1 you shouldn't need the roll up. My last install with a SP1 iso, there were, I think, 101 further updates.

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Seems not, 5 of my installs all updated with the roll up. It ran said it was replacing files and a reboot was required. Whether it did anything I can't tell. Sometime I'll have a go at a virtual machine and see what happens.
Maybe on Monday if the wife gets snowed in at home I can say got to do this for the guys on the forum. :busted:

Yeah Tony, it looks like you and I are in the middle of the approaching winter storm.