Service Pack 1 designed to alert user to illegal copies of Vista-early update this week

By Janine de Blois

Two popular cracks will be found by Windows Update (WU), Service Pack 1 (SP1), due in mid-March. The more common “Grace Timer” and its various versions, which extends the 30 day activation period perpetually. The other, more complicated, “OEM BIOS Emulation Toolkit”, emulates the pre-installed versions of Vista by large OEM companies.

This week WU will install an update to detect and alert users of Vistas operating with the above cracks. Users will be offered a solution by Microsoft and a link to a removal tool. Addressing concerns about the “kill switch“ aka “reduced functionality mode,” Alex Kochis, senior product manager for Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage programme, “It’s important to note that this update does not disable the exploits it finds. It simply alerts customers that exploits exist.”…”In the future, we will integrate the removal of the exploits with the detection.”

The kill switch is part of Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation system, and that system has caused nightmares for people and corporations because of Microsoft glitches. In August 2007, many Vista and XP users found their Windows systems disabled by Microsoft because of a Microsoft WGA server glitch. Reduced functionality mode went into effect on many machines that had validated their version of Windows, and countless people no longer had access to their PCs. With SP1 and the death of the kill switch, that should no longer happen. You’ll be frequently reminded that you need to activate Windows and the desktop background will turn black. Try to change it to another background, and an hour later Windows will turn it black again. You won’t be able to download signed drivers and optional updates via Windows Updates, but you’ll still be able to get critical security updates. And you’ll still be able to use Vista.