Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Receive the latest technology news and information.
Microsoft
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
Cloud Computing
View all newsletters




Privacy Policy
 

Vista bug forces legit users to reactivate OS

Microsoft releases fix, says problem 'rarely occurs'

February 26, 2007 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - A bug in Windows Vista's built-in antipiracy technology is telling some users that they need to reactivate the operating system after they install new device drivers or run newly installed software.

Microsoft Corp. quietly issued a patch designed to fix the flaw in its Software Protection Platform (SPP) technology late last month. Criticized by some when it was announced last fall, SPP is an updated and more aggressive version of the Windows Genuine Advantage antipiracy tools that Microsoft included with Windows XP. But because of the bug, SPP may suddenly demand that a copy of Vista be "activated" even though the user and/or the computer maker did so earlier.

"You may be prompted to activate Windows Vista on a computer on which Windows Vista activation was not previously required," Microsoft said in a support document last updated Feb. 15. "Although this problem rarely occurs, it may occur during typical use of a Windows Vista-based computer. For example, this problem may occur under one or more of the following conditions: You install a device driver, you install a program, you run a new program, you remove a program."

One Vista user commenting on Microsoft's Windows Vista Validation Issues support forum reported that he ran into the bug after he had updated his PC's BIOS.

Vista must be activated within 30 days of its first use, or else it drops into what Microsoft calls a "reduced functionality" mode -- a crippled condition in which only the operating system's Web browser works, and then for only an hour at a time.

Unless a PC's hardware is substantially changed, activating Vista should be a one-time chore. Many hardware vendors preactivate the operating system for users before their machines leave the factory. But if users are asked to reactivate Vista, they only have a grace period of three days, not 30, to get everything on their systems shipshape.

Microsoft said the reactivation flaw crops up when a program running with administrative credentials removes a system setting. That in turn can trigger the failure of a BIOS validation check, which is part of the activation process. For example, running Intuit Inc.'s QuickBooks 2007 software can bring up the reactivation demand, Microsoft added. But, it said, "this problem may also infrequently occur when you install other programs or device drivers."

And the issue is a bug in the operating system, Microsoft acknowledged. "This problem does not occur because of an issue in the installed program or device driver," the company said in the support document. "This problem is caused by a system problem in Windows Vista."



Jump to comments

Microsoft

Additional Resources

WHITE PAPER
Approximately 60 percent of data migration projects overrun time or budget, while some fail completely. Download this white paper, "Enhancing Your Chance for Successful Data Migration," to learn the critical steps you need to take to execute a data migration project with minimum cost and risk to your business.
WHITE PAPER
Read the Gartner research note to learn why the TCO of a server-based computing deployment used to deliver all applications to users is around 50% lower than that of an unmanaged desktop deployment.
WHITE PAPER
Economic downturns have a tendency to accelerate emerging technologies, boost the adoption of effective solutions, and punish solutions that are not cost competitive or that are out of synch with industry trends. This IDC White Paper presents the results of an IDC survey of 330 companies in Western Europe, Asia/Pacific and the Americas that measures the receptiveness to Linux and takes into consideration changing views driven by the disruptive economic environment that businesses face today.

What People Are Saying