From: "Gary Britt" 

I tried the keyfinder.exe program that supposedly shows your windows
product key and it showed a key that is completely different from the key
on the sticker on the bottom of my laptop?

Gary

"/m"  wrote in message
news:1ldfa29d9rlnc0hnha6tapske44m61vju7{at}4ax.com...
> On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 09:45:30 -0500, "Geo"
 wrote:
>
>>"Adam Flinton"  wrote in message
>>news:4221a503$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>>
>>
>>> Esp if the virus makes it so no new number will work. Imagine
the "phone
>>> queues" of a global nature where people are calling to
re-init winxp.
>>
>>all it needs to do is change the serial number to a random number. I don't
>>think anyone realizes just easy it would be to completely hose the whole
>>product activation thing. Microsoft has designed windows to watch to see
>>if
>>it was tampered with (that setting that changes workstation to server) and
>>they have now designed their strategy for updates to depend on stuff that
>>can be changed by software that executes on the users machine.
>>
>>I've always thought this was a really nasty security issue, first they
>>wanted the stupid serial number stickers on the outside of the computer
>>where anyone can see them, write them down, and post them to the internet
>>thus getting your key blacklisted. Second even if you remove the sticker
>>there are programs like http://www.nthelp.com/40/productid.htm which can
>>simply read the number and display it so you can copy it down.
>>
>>Imagine what would happen if the next big virus changed this setting to
>>one
>>of the blacklisted serial numbers. It would basically mean users have to
>>reinstall to fix the problem and if you happen to have an OEM version
>>which
>>now isn't going to let you reinstall without calling well...
>>
>>So when is MS going to realize that software piracy is a law enforcement
>>issue and why it's a bad idea to take the law into your own hands? It's so
>>easy to frame users so that MS thinks they are running pirated windows..
>
>
> I don't think they are ever going to realize that.
>
> /m

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