Last week Microsoft signed off on Windows 7 RTM (release to manufacturing). The software was sent out to various OEMs in order for them to start preparing their upcoming hardware to be released with Windows 7 pre-installed.
While the OS is finished and ready to go live, PC owners still have to wait until October 22 for the software to be released to retail.
However, a ‘cracked’ version of the completed OS has made its way onto the internet and there are currently a number of people running the full release version of Windows 7 on their PCs.
Technically speaking, calling it a ‘crack’ is slightly inaccurate. The truth of the matter is that an OEM license key has been leaked, and the culprit has been identified as Lenovo. Somehow, the OEM license key was extracted from a Windows 7 Ultimate DVD image that Lenovo had in its possession.
Some forumites are reporting that the activation process is as simple as entering the CD key which can be found online, while other sites are claiming that a mild software hack is required in order to trick Windows 7 into thinking that any machine is one of the authorized OEM machines.
A similar leak occurred with Windows Vista. Unfortunately for Microsoft, it is difficult to formulate a solution for the problem at the moment. The reason is that if MS were to blacklist the OEM activation-key it would cause problems for legitimate Windows 7’s OEM use.
Microsoft was unable to solve a similar issue which occurred with the release of Vista until it released Vista Service Pack 1, which automatically disabled the OS in machines that were exploiting the leak. It remains to be seen if Microsoft finds a short-term solution, but there is a good chance that this will not be possible until the release of Window 7’s first service pack.
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