Pirates disable Windows activation again
A
new activation crack method has been discovered and
implemented to bypass Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
activation: remove and disable Windows Activation
Technologies (WAT, older versions were referred to as
Windows Genuine Advantage).
The hack in question works by bypassing activation
altogether, and thus does not require a product key.
By blocking, preventing, removing, and disabling access to,
or the loading of, all activation and licensing related
Windows system files, slui.exe (the exe required to activate
Windows 7) will fail to start, resulting in the permanent
circumvention of Windows activation.
Still, disabling WAT isn't the end of the story: after the
30-day evaluation period is expired, Windows 7 will still
start nagging the user to activate the operating system, the
wallpaper will be set to black, and a watermark saying "This
copy of Windows is not genuine" will be placed in the bottom
right-hand corner.
You can continue to use the operating system indefinitely,
but the side-effects can be annoying, so pirates have
created tools to clean these up.
Most of the tools support all editions of Windows 7 (32-bit
and 64-bit) and Windows Server 2008 R2. In addition to
removing and disabling WAT from the Windows system, the
tools clean up the side-effects by stopping relevant
services and patching certain DLL files.
During the early days of Windows Vista, pirates also tried
to permanently bypass Windows Vista activation by stopping
the activation grace period countdown timer.
These attempts were foiled by Microsoft with updates to the
operating system, and we can expect the same to occur this
time around since this method involves patching many system
files, especially with the next WAT update or with Service
Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
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