__/ [ Kelsey Bjarnason ] on Sunday 30 April 2006 02:44 \__
> Silly little ponderance.
>
> I recently had to call up MS to re-authorize an XP install. Gave 'em the
> serial # off the box, got the code, away I go - except for one minor nit;
> they got bitchy about whether the copy of XP had been installed in another
> machine.
>
> I said this copy? No clue. We have like a dozen machines, every one has
> its own license tag glued to the case, so we've got the licenses. Did
> this installation medium get used more than once? Who cares? We have the
> licenses, so shut up and make it work.
>
> It was only later I pondered...
>
> The copy of the install disk I have does, I think, belong to the specific
> PC I was installing to... except that I was actually installing in a
> VMWare session. So, as far as XP is concerned, it's a different animal.
>
> However, this brings up a novel question. Suppose I took the vmware
> session, burned it to a CD, then copied the files to another machine,
> using the free VMWare player.
>
> The virtualized machine hasn't, presumably, changed at all - same vmware
> video card, same vmware net card, etc, etc, etc.
>
> So, can XP even tell that it's been transplanted? Not really sure. If
> not, then I wonder how effective the whole activation scheme would be in
> dealing with roaming copies of XP images being carted about as VMware
> sessions.
There are various methods for checking authenticity. One would be to send
packets with machine identifiers behind your back. Intel are incorporating
Windows-specific designs that aid DRM and encryption that is dependent on
hardware. In turn, this implies that the means for duplication checks are
available. Spying cannot be disabled either as you have no access to the
source code. Although Windows runs in a confined box (VMWare), it remains
fully functional and behaves in quite the same way. It also has access to
the hardware, of course.
Best wishes,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | The most satisfying eXPerience is Linux
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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