Vista cracked for real, no hoax

If you haven't heard, a keygen was released that brute-forced the correct CD key for Windows Vista. Martin McKeay did the math and let's just say, it'll take a really long time for anybody to brute force a key with available processing power we have today. Fortunately, you don't have to wait that long. PARADOX has figured a way to bypass activation in Windows Vista.

It works like this: select manufacturers (Dell, etc) are granted the right to embed certain license information in hardware, conveniencing the user and not requiring activation. The mechanism, known as 'SLP 2.0' ('system-locked pre-installation 2.0') has three conditions, a hardware-embedded BIOS ACPI_SLIC information signed by Microsoft, a certificate(an XML file) issued by Microsoft, and a special product key.

To use it, you first install Windows Vista without a product key and then load a device driver to emulate the "embedded" BIOS, install the certificate, and then finally a product key.

The land of Richard has full instructions and more details, and finally the files you need. (I have saved it all in case the site gets taken down...)

btw, md5 checksum for the file is af3bd1cf1d0d10a16a9c3871fda51135

Posted by Marcin on Sunday, March 4, 2007 in Security and Tech.