Windows 7 Receiving Revamped Activation Software

Microsoft has never been known as being a company to stand by idly while its software is hacked and cracked, and it’s no surprise that its flagship desktop OS is where a lot of the focus goes. Since the introduction of WGA, or Windows Genuine Advantage, activation in Windows has become an inane process, one that’s riddled to the nines with complications and needless nags.

Beginning with Windows Vista, cracking Microsoft’s activation schemes has proven itself to be complicated, but crackers have always prevailed. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m not exactly against cracking or applying a crack to the activation for Windows, as long as your copy is legal. The fact is, WGA and Windows’ activation scheme is far from perfect, and it seems like the painless way to deal with it is to crack it. Yes, it’s just that sad.

The reason Windows’ activation scheme bothers me is that about two years ago, I was prepped to spend a night on benchmarking a couple of graphics cards. I tend to work really late, because it’s the best time to focus. To my surprise, after swapping out a GPU, I booted into Windows and it essentially locked me out. I had to activate once again. That in itself isn’t a major problem, but for one, this was late at night, so I couldn’t call because the offices were closed, and two, reactivating your Windows is inconvenient. If you’ve ever had to call Microsoft for it, you know what I mean.

Why am I saying all this? Because, there’s a clear need for improvement here, and Microsoft seems to be completely ignoring it, for whatever reason. I own legal copies of some expensive software, such as Adobe’s Photoshop, Autodesk’s 3ds Max and Maya, and all three get around this issue in a similar manner. If you want to carry over a license, you can simply open up the application, deactivate the license, and it becomes available again. As far as my experience tells me, there’s some lenience here as well, so if you forget to deactivate, you can usually have a freebie go. Or, if the user does indeed forget to deactivate, there should be no reason to just allow another activation and raise a nag if the same license is found in more than one location (Nero works similarly).

Why doesn’t Windows, or Office, have the option to just deactivate, at least with the full retail versions? It seems so common-sense to me. I guess there’s not much real reason for concern, as Microsoft’s latest update is going to be optional, but even so. It just seems so bizarre to me that Microsoft could easily add in a simple feature, but instead prefer to allow people potential headaches and would rather spend a bunch of money on customer service to help those who are locked out of their OS.

Called Windows Activation Technologies Update for Windows 7, this update will detect more than 70 known and potentially dangerous activation exploits. Activation exploits are sometimes called “hacks”, and attempt to bypass or compromise Windows’ activation technologies. This new update is further evidence of Microsoft’s commitment to keeping customers and partners secure. The update will determine whether Windows 7 installed on a PC is genuine and will better protect customers’ PCs by making sure that the integrity of key licensing components remains intact.