Microsoft Disbling Internet Activation For Large OEMs
Microsoft has announced it will no longer allow people to authenticate installs of Windows over the Internet, requiring them to call the software giant for activation keys. Starting February 28, if you bought your PC from a large computer manufacturer, when you reinstall Windows, you’ll need to call Microsoft before you can actually use it. Microsoft says that product keys from the largest manufacturers are being pirated and spread all over the internet, and by doing so, they can fight piracy. Any copy of Windows XP preloaded on a PC from any of the top 20 manufacturers will be affected.
One form of piracy occurs when Product Keys are stolen from Certificates of Authenticity (COAs) that have been placed on direct OEM machines where the Windows software was preinstalled using SLP. Pirates take the Product Key from these COAs and sell them to resellers or customers who then use them to activate a hard disk loaded copy of Windows.
This may not work. Crackers usually use phone activation to bypass internet activation anyway, and have created programs that generate the phone activation code. Still, it will make activation and piracy that much more difficult.
(via Weblogs)
