This is a rare post, straight from the trenches of Windows XP activation de-activation activism.

In the never-ending battle of anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better, fought bare-knuckled between Microsoft’s finest anti-piracy gang, and those who seek to circumvent their attempts to force ‘product activation’ on the masses, another blow has been struck against Microsoft.

After months of planning and scheming, Microsoft finally rolled out yet another anti-piracy measure in the form of Microsoft Genuine Advantage only to have a workaround found within hours of its release.

For those that care to know, the tactics employed by these dastardly pirates are so simple it is almost embarrassing. Simply disable the ‘Genuine Advantage’ ActiveX applet once installed, and then… well… nothing. That is it!

To me this constant battle is a waste of time. Humans are an inquisitive bunch, and everyone knows that as soon as you are told that you can’t do something, the first thing you want to do is prove them wrong! I would even argue that Microsoft (and while I mention it, Adobe) have become their respective market leaders due not only to the value and usefulness of their products, but also the fact that they are so widely pirated. Think about it. By the time you are in a moral and/or financial position to legitimise your software, you are already accustomed to one brand, and more than likely you will purchase the very product that you had used for free for so long.

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and software activation/validation gotta be circumvented. It is the way of all things, and the sooner Billy Gates understands this he might realise that the funds used to (unsuccessfully) stop people copying his software might be better spent making said software any good in the first place.

UPDATE: BoingBoing has since posted another way to get around the validity check. Simply paste this into the address bar and press enter before clicking on Custom or Express:

javascript:void(window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all')

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 28th, 2005 at 7:35 pm and is filed under That Other OS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.