Microsoft will use the upcoming release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to disable the two most widely used exploits of the operating system's activation process, as well as do away with the system that reduces access to features and functionality for those users with counterfeit or non validated software.
The Vista SP1 update will make changes to the underlying code to prevent the two primary types of exploits that pirates currently use to generate counterfeit versions of Windows Vista: the OEM BIOS exploit and the Grace Timer exploit.
The moves come even as Microsoft officials say piracy is on the decline. "We're seeing indications from internal metrics, like WGA validation failures, that the Vista piracy rate is less than half that of [Windows] XP today," Alex Kochis, Microsoft's group product manager for Windows Genuine Advantage, told eWEEK.
The OEM BIOS exploit has two basic variants. The first involves directly editing system files and the BIOS of the motherboard to present information to indicate to the system that the copy of Windows had been installed by an OEM in a factory environment.
The other variant is software-based and tries to do the same thing by intercepting some of the calls to the BIOS and returning a result expected in a factory-based install, Kochis said.
For its part, the Grace Timer exploit resets the 30-day grace time limit between installation and activation. One of these, known as the 2099 hack, pushes that out to the year 2099.
Kochis acknowledged that any user who chooses not to install the SP1 update would not be affected by these changes.
eWEEK.com Special Report: Windows Vista: Microsoft's Longhorn Client
Vista SP1 will also bring changes to the customer experience with the Windows Genuine Advantage program, especially how it differentiates genuine from nongenuine systems in Windows Vista, as well as with Windows Server 2008 when it is released in the first quarter of next year.
Users whose systems are identified as counterfeit or have not been validated as genuine will be presented with clear and recurring notices about the status of their system and how to get a genuine copy.
This is a change in tactics from the current approach for Windows Vista, where counterfeit systems go into a state called reduced functionality mode, which essentially suspends, after 30 days, a number of features of the system until the user takes action to get genuine.
Microsoft saw Vista SP1 as an opportunity to make these changes in line with recent feedback from some of its larger enterprise and public sector customers, who felt the move to reduced functionality mode was an anti-piracy measure for the consumer and small-business space, Kochis said.
eWEEK.com Special Report: Piracy & Counterfeiting "Under this new system, no features will be disabled. Instead it will be a notification-based experience similar in some ways to what we have done with XP. A user of a system that has not been activated and gone through the 30-day grace period to activate will, when logging in on the 31st day, see a dialog box on a plain black background," he said. "That will give them two options: Activate Windows now, which will bring up all the options to do this, and activate Windows later, which takes them directly to their desktop, which will be exactly the same as it had been the last time they used it, except that there will be a plain black background and a message in the lower right hand corner over the system tray telling them that their copy of Windows is not genuine."
In addition, every hour a balloon reminder will appear from the system tray asking them to activate Windows, and the desktop background will be switched back to black if the color had been changed.
The Vista SP1 update will make changes to the underlying code to prevent the two primary types of exploits that pirates currently use to generate counterfeit versions of Windows Vista: the OEM BIOS exploit and the Grace Timer exploit.
The moves come even as Microsoft officials say piracy is on the decline. "We're seeing indications from internal metrics, like WGA validation failures, that the Vista piracy rate is less than half that of [Windows] XP today," Alex Kochis, Microsoft's group product manager for Windows Genuine Advantage, told eWEEK.
The OEM BIOS exploit has two basic variants. The first involves directly editing system files and the BIOS of the motherboard to present information to indicate to the system that the copy of Windows had been installed by an OEM in a factory environment.
The other variant is software-based and tries to do the same thing by intercepting some of the calls to the BIOS and returning a result expected in a factory-based install, Kochis said.
For its part, the Grace Timer exploit resets the 30-day grace time limit between installation and activation. One of these, known as the 2099 hack, pushes that out to the year 2099.
Kochis acknowledged that any user who chooses not to install the SP1 update would not be affected by these changes.
eWEEK.com Special Report: Windows Vista: Microsoft's Longhorn Client
Vista SP1 will also bring changes to the customer experience with the Windows Genuine Advantage program, especially how it differentiates genuine from nongenuine systems in Windows Vista, as well as with Windows Server 2008 when it is released in the first quarter of next year.
Users whose systems are identified as counterfeit or have not been validated as genuine will be presented with clear and recurring notices about the status of their system and how to get a genuine copy.
This is a change in tactics from the current approach for Windows Vista, where counterfeit systems go into a state called reduced functionality mode, which essentially suspends, after 30 days, a number of features of the system until the user takes action to get genuine.
Microsoft saw Vista SP1 as an opportunity to make these changes in line with recent feedback from some of its larger enterprise and public sector customers, who felt the move to reduced functionality mode was an anti-piracy measure for the consumer and small-business space, Kochis said.
eWEEK.com Special Report: Piracy & Counterfeiting "Under this new system, no features will be disabled. Instead it will be a notification-based experience similar in some ways to what we have done with XP. A user of a system that has not been activated and gone through the 30-day grace period to activate will, when logging in on the 31st day, see a dialog box on a plain black background," he said. "That will give them two options: Activate Windows now, which will bring up all the options to do this, and activate Windows later, which takes them directly to their desktop, which will be exactly the same as it had been the last time they used it, except that there will be a plain black background and a message in the lower right hand corner over the system tray telling them that their copy of Windows is not genuine."
In addition, every hour a balloon reminder will appear from the system tray asking them to activate Windows, and the desktop background will be switched back to black if the color had been changed.
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