Hackers got the Powah!

    Those guys work fast! Windows Vista Service Pack 1 has yet to be released to the public and it is hacked already.

    Yesterday I posted my personal view on why Windows Vista failed to live up to expectations. In that post, I may have let slip some minor personal reservations towards Vista, as well as to the upcoming Service Pack 1. I can be very subtle. Microsoft already distributed SP1 to manufacturers, and it "will start being available to customers in March".

    SP1 contains a lot of bug fixes, tweaks, new drivers as well as some changes to the controversial Windows Genuine Advantage software, which checks registered software, and then automatically sends reports to Microsoft over the internet on what it has found. Previously WGA would shut down certain functions of Vista if it is found to be not “genuine”. After installation of SP1, it will be less drastic, but still show warning messages that are annoying enough to badger users into forking over money to Micro$oft for a real copy of Vista. In addition SP1 will disable two popular hacks that were used to circumvent WGA.

    It seems, at the same time I wrote my previous post, a hacker got his hands on SP1 and had some fun hobbying around with it. And before his pizza went cold, you guessed it; he found a new hack to turn a pirated copy of Vista with SP1 into a “genuine” copy.

    Microsoft still has several weeks before SP1 will be released to the general public. I suspect some people in Redmond will be putting in a lot of overtime.