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Volume License Product Keys: Changes with Windows XP Service Pack 1 | |
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| Time: 07:32 EST/12:32 GMT | News Source: ActiveWin.com | Posted By: Robert Stein | ||
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Thanks Smiviz. Software updates are intended for use by legally licensed users of Microsoft products. Microsoft is striving to ensure that licensed users continue to get updates uninterrupted by software pirates. Users of pirated software hurt licensed users by taking bandwidth from download servers and software updates intended for licensed users. Microsoft has determined through investigations that most pirated installations are made with either of two VLKs. VLKs are used by corporate or other volume license customers to install Windows XP on their computers. These two particular VLKs, however, were never in use by a customer in a production deployment. Product keys are 25-character alphanumeric codes arranged in five groups of five characters each and used during setup to install the product. The product key produces the product ID number that, after setup is completed, is displayed on the General tab in the System Properties dialog box. | ||
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| #1 By 6859 (204.71.100.215) at 8/29/2002 8:58:50 AM |
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"The Windows XP SP1 installation will fail on computers with the following product IDs:
XXXXX-640-0000356-23XXX XXXXX-640-2001765-23XXX " Nice going MS...ya dopes. Why would you actually tell the pirates which ones were going to be killed? MS should have left that a surprise! |
| #2 By 9640 (195.92.168.168) at 8/29/2002 9:56:30 AM |
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I did notice the two product IDs listed when I read the article but thought best not to post them with my original link as it would only benefit people who pirate software. I'm sure Microsoft have thought about this and probably want to make people aware that pirated versions of Windows won't be supported. From what I know SP1 will disable Windows Update on PCs with illegal copies of Windows XP installed.
Smiviz http://www.lee.ic24.net/ |
| #3 By 6253 (12.237.219.240) at 8/29/2002 9:56:40 AM |
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Cthulhu, Microsoft had to provide this specific warning because there are known to be some legally licensed organizations where people have gone and used the pirated key.
For example, system admin is in the imaging lab on the 3rd floor, but the company's legal key is at his desk on the 1st floor, but he's a pirate at home, so he knows he can do a quick Google search and slap the pirate key into the company's deployment. He figures that he has saved some elevator time, and everything seems to work. A year later, he's been laid off, and everybody is puzzled as to why their legally purchased Windows XP won't take SP1. By looking at their product ID, they can determine for themselves that their installation was done with a pirate key. It probably won't stop PSS from being flooded by calls (because most people aren't smart enough to read messages displayed on their screen in front of them, much less go looking for the product ID display), but it's a try. |
| #4 By 6859 (204.71.100.215) at 8/29/2002 2:29:32 PM |
| #3, three words: too freaking bad. Piracy is the enemy. If his corp is legally licensed, then he should have relatively immediate access to their legit license. Stooping to snarfing a pirated license makes it his fault, and if it was the company for which I am employed he'd be out the door. I have no sympathy. |
| #5 By 8589 (65.100.121.60) at 8/29/2002 3:14:58 PM |
| Notice that both of them have the number 640. If you have OEM instead, it proves you have a legit copy. |
| #6 By 3653 (63.162.177.140) at 8/29/2002 3:23:09 PM |
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#4... you are right... PIRACY IS THE ENEMY. I don't blame Microsoft, or any company for that matter, when they try to protect their assets. That is their right, NO that is their RESPONSIBILITY.
People are so sensitive when it comes to software piracy, but give me a break. Even when a sysadmin makes a copy for convenience sake... its still AGAINST THE RULES. I'm completely willing to abide by those rules, and even stricter rules. Hell, none of us seem to have a problem with car locks. Do we? Well, the concept is the same. The OWNER is looking to PROTECT himself. |
| #7 By 6253 (12.237.219.240) at 8/29/2002 3:33:17 PM |
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#6, Nobody is arguing in favor of piracy. I'm only saying that there is good reason for Microsoft to go public with these two product IDs.
#4, Fine. He's out the door (in my example, he was already laid off), but firing him doesn't solve everything for the poor schmucks left behind. Microsoft is simply giving organizations a chance to check their product ID's. If there's a match, then they know what has happened and can deal with it accordingly. If he did work for your company, you would want to know these product IDs just to figure out what he did and fire him for it, unless he simply admits it. There are umpteen gazillion admins in the world who still remember the old days when you could get away with typing ten 1's in the CD Key of most Microsoft products. Later, the eleven digit CD Keys would typically accept ten 1's followed by a 2. Heck, plenty of Microsoft employees used this trick internally. Sometimes the excuse was to save a few seconds. Sometimes it was because people took their CDs out of jewel cases and put them in carrying cases, but Microsoft stuck the CD Key sticker directly to the jewel case instead of the insert, so there was no easy way to keep the sticker with the CD. In the past, once you got past install, there was never any ramifications from using the wrong CD Key, and it continued to work on product after product. So I can understand why some people might have assumed that the XP key didn't matter once you got past activation. (The product ID is not the same as the key, and the key is never displayed after activation.) In my example, the admin had the legal key back at his desk. But until you print it out from the Microsoft eOpen web site, all Volume License customers have to log onto that SSL site using a Passport to get their keys. That site isn't always up, it isn't always tolerably fast, and Passport's reliability/speed doesn't help. The company's eOpen account might be tied to the Passport of someone who is unavailable. There are all kinds of reasons that people might have difficulty getting their hands on their correct legal key. I'm not saying that they should use a pirate key. That's definitely wrong. But there are clearly factors which might have caused average Joes to do the wrong thing, and there needs to be a way to identify what's happened and move forward. |
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