shockz Posted July 25, 2002 Share Posted July 25, 2002 July 25, 2002 | Paul Thurrott WinInfo: http://www.wininformant.com Article: http://wininformant.com/Articles/Index.cfm...ArticleID=26051 Rumors About XP SP1 Product Activation Changes Not True A bizarre rumor about Microsoft making sweeping changing to its Product Activation technology in Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) is completely untrue, the company told me today. The rumor, which was started by a small technology enthusiast Web site, had Microsoft changing the product keys for all of its customers using volume licensing. This rumors has since spread across the Internet and been embellished in various ways, including a version I came across Thursday morning claiming that Microsoft was making the change so it could charge licensees yet again for SP1. Not so, says Microsoft. "There is no truth in this rumor," Allen Nieman, the Lead Technical Product Manager for Licensing Technologies at Microsoft told me Thursday. "We are not changing the way volume licensing customers install or deploy Windows XP. We are not issuing volume licensing customers new product keys. Volume licensing customers are not impacted by any of the changes we are making to activation in SP1. The only folks impacted by the changes we are making in SP1 are people with illegal copies of Windows." As I first reported back in May, the Windows Product Activation feature in XP SP1 will get two minor modifications, neither of which will affect any legitimate users. First, Microsoft discovered that the majority of pirated XP copies out there are tied to single volume license product key. So Microsoft alerted the company about the problem, changed their key, and disabled it for use after SP1. So anyone using this pirated key will be unable to upgrade to SP1 or any future updates via Windows Update. Also, Microsoft is adding a three-day grace period for people that use the same product key to install XP on two different systems; in the past, there was no grace period and the user had to immediately activation via phone in order to use XP on the second system. This will give users some breathing room if disaster strikes and you have to install XP on a new system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hurting101 Posted July 25, 2002 Share Posted July 25, 2002 ...or maybe they're just saying that so nobody tries to crack it until the final SP1 is out :o ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
username Posted July 25, 2002 Share Posted July 25, 2002 as i said before, "i will believe it when Paul Thurrott says it" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shockz Posted July 25, 2002 Author Share Posted July 25, 2002 Oops! Sorry guys. This was already on the main page. You can close the thread if you want. Sorry :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Zollo Posted July 25, 2002 Share Posted July 25, 2002 I wonder how M$ will prevent people from generating keys other than FCKGW for use in the corporate ver. of xp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joswin Posted July 25, 2002 Share Posted July 25, 2002 We all knew this anyways, this is just the topping on the cake of 'confirmation' ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts