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Service Pack 1 Changes to Product Activation

Time: 03:40 EST/08:40 GMT | News Source: Microsoft | Posted By: Byron Hinson

Can't remember if we have posted this one of not: Software piracy continues to be a worldwide problem and Microsoft is committed to a long-term strategy of protecting intellectual property through innovative technologies. The introduction of technical measures to thwart piracy has kicked-off a cat-and-mouse game between software publishers and those who pirate software. Specifically, software pirates have been busy engineering circumventions to digital rights technologies including Microsoft's own product activation.

With Service Pack 1 for Windows XP, Microsoft will introduce additional technological measures aimed at ensuring licensed customers receive full benefits and to make it more difficult for those who pirate software to steal these same benefits. These changes are:

Ensuring licensed customers receive full benefits

Eligibility for Windows XP Service Pack 1 and Windows Update
Licensed customers will continue to enjoy product updates and access to Windows Update. Service pack 1 will fail to install on Windows XP installations using either of two well-known pirated product keys. Additionally, Windows Update will verify the product key used to install Windows XP against a list of valid product keys to ensure installations made with cracked or pirated product keys will not receive access.
Additional grace periods for hardware out-of-tolerance situations
Users will have up to 3 days to re-activate Windows XP after making a hardware change that triggers the need to re-activate. Previously, users were required to re-activate immediately upon the next boot after the hardware changes were made.
Volume license key (VLK) encryption
An encryption feature will be added to unattended setups of Windows XP with Service Pack 1. Customers who place their VLK in an unattended setup file (unattend.txt) will be able to encrypt the VLK such that it will be time limited and hidden from plain text.

Raising the bar on pirates

Product key inclusion in Installation ID for activation
In order to protect customers and Microsoft against product key attacks, the product key used to install Windows will be included in the Installation ID for all activations completed after SP1 has been installed. Internet activations will send the entire product key while telephone activations will send a hash value of the product key in order to limit the increase in size of the telephone Installation ID..
Repair of activation circumventions
Service Pack 1 for Windows XP will contain fixes to cracks used by software pirates to circumvent activation. Installations of Windows XP patched by a crack will require activation after SP1 has been installed.