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Microsoft Anti-Piracy Measures

Locked

I have a client with a customer owned computer running Windows ME. This presumably is a leagal copy of windows installed by the retailer and the customer has receipts to that effect.

After running the latest Windows updates in mid March and re-booting, he recieved an error message stating that Microsoft had detected a duplicate serial number and to contact Microsoft’s anti-piracy hotline.

At this point the computer shut down and failed to boot. Further analysis rvealed that the file system had been altered “No longer FAT 16, 32, or NTFS” and is beyond my ability to recover.

Is this Microsofts latest version of lunacy or could this have been a virus?

Topic

I doubt it

In reply to Microsoft Anti-Piracy Measures

I emailed my friend in Microsoft in concerns to your question. He said,
Microsoft would never damage or destroy intellectual property! If the partition was changed to some strange file system I would bet money on a virus.

Microsoft does not have any exhaustive piracy checks beyond the activation and registration. It is true that a patch can check the pid, but would only cause a reactivation at best if the pid was not of a valid algorithm.
I trust his word and the only thing that i can imagine which is a reach is maybe the virus was bios flash that hosed you? Like I said, it’s a reach, sorry.

Some truth under XP

In reply to Microsoft Anti-Piracy Measures

I agree with jkarkas that it is most apt to be a virus that hit the PC.

Many, if not most, of the virus writers hold a personal grudge against Microsoft.

That said, Microsoft is using a similar scheme for XP systems. They have a list of ‘published’ product codes, and are denying Windows Update access to any user that has 1 of the specific product codes.

I believe that installing SP1 for XP on one of these systems “may” disable the system.

The “fix” for XP systems, is to purchase a legal license, then MS will provide the code to unlock the PC.

Again, I have ONLY heard of this procedure for XP systems.

Chas

Talk to them

In reply to Microsoft Anti-Piracy Measures

The best thing would be to send MS an e-mail with all the details and the o/s seriel number, ask them about this problem.

It is possible to have a duplicate seriel number from some legit suppliers. I have known suppliers who use only the one copyof the software to load up several machines, when you ask for a licenced disc to take with you they just grab one from the shelf. Later when you try to use the disc for something you find out it has a different seriel number to the one loaded. And if you do not ask for a licenced copy to take with you they just made extra profit.

XP does the same thing

In reply to Microsoft Anti-Piracy Measures

Ring up M$ and talk to them in most cases they will give you geninue copies of the OS/Programs if you can prove you have purchased what you believe to the the real thing. They may also be able to provide a patch that fixes the mess as well. However what they will require is absolute proof that you have bought the real thing and exactly where you got it from. Incidently if you are running a pirate copy of XP whatever and try to install SP1 it will trash the OS as well. Its M$ way of trying to cut back on piracy but is of little help to the hapless victim.

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