The frankenbuild thing is really uncool and in the crackers scene it is
"noobs work";
even if he avoids the WGA Update, the Vista would expire in June, the beta
licenses get invalid then, no logon possible - Reinstall from scratch.
The most current problem in pirating is a "timestop" crack that disables
the 30day counter for activation and this is working, but can be easily
identified because a unsigned driver is running and the NT logs are full
of warnings of this "driver".
I think this Problem gets solved, soon.
and ( the major real "crack" - delivered from our Chinese Friends,
again.. ) :
the latest - manipulating the PCs bios-chip via Extracting the ROM,
hexedit OEM info into it, and flashing it back to the Mainboard; to trick
it into become a OEM Bios and accept OEM Keys ( which need no actiavtion
or at least will always pass WPA and WGA )
I just emailed (e-mail address removed) a list with hundreds of stolen and
misused Vista Keys that these new trick is using.
Of course lots of people have literally grilled their machines to toast
with a bios-flash, but an astonishing amount of folks report they passed
thru all copy-protection and WGA aftrer it was applied.
As this trick is done in Hardware, there is little that Microsoft may do
against this, only to block OEM keys from automatic activation or give
OEMs a list with new methods and new keys.
I always said : bundle Windows with a USB Dongle - or bind the Serial to
the MAC Adress.
