Microsoft has wobbled some more on Windows Product Activation (WPA) in WinXP, but from where we're sitting it by no means looks like the final wobble. The company seems to have just about decided on the extent to which it will loosen up on WPA, and at the moment the bottom line appears to be that it will be practically no trouble at all for practically everybody. But it's still going to be compulsory, it's still going bring more small businesses within the reach of Microsoft's policing systems, and it'll still strengthen the company's control of PC OEM and software distribution channels. At the moment there are a couple of versions of the XP RTM version available in warez channels. These are claimed to have circumvented WPA, and there's no real reason to doubt this. There's also a leaked Dell OEM version which is said to install without WPA on Dell machines. In addition to this, WPA has been extensively documented, and a while back tecChannel showed how easily it could be fooled.
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