Windows Vista RTM leaks onto the wild wild web

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 12 November 2006 09:02

Your IT - Entertainment

Days after Windows Vista went RTM, the first reports of the final version leaking onto the web have emerged. That didn’t take long, did it?

The software pirate community has been hard at work trying to get the final RTM version the Vista business edition onto the Internet for download through P2P sites, and according to a number of reports on the Internet, they’ve succeeded.

Reports of Vista RTM activation cracks have also surfaced, but therein lies one of the dangers of piracy – one never really knows if you’re getting what you think you’re getting, and who knows how the contents have been manipulated to damage you and your data.

We at iTWire definitely do not condone piracy in any way, shape or form whatsoever, and highly recommend that anyone wanting to get the final release of Vista do so through the proper official channels.

However, reports suggest that the Vista RTM has been spied upon P2P networks, through bittorrent download websites and on Usenet, with the build number reported to be 6000.16386.061101-2205.

Given Microsoft’s constant updates of the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) software to trap the pirates, it also seems totally futile to try and pirate Vista, as it would seem Microsoft will be able to find out and are likely to try and disable any pirate copies, causing grief to pirates and making them waste a lot of time, bandwidth and megabytes in downloading the pirate software in the first place, and then going through the whole installation process.

So... while some out there might be tempted to give it a go, it’s clearly not worth it, with a long battle ahead for the pirates and Microsoft as both sides work to break, and then repair, Vista’s anti-piracy controls.

If you really want Vista, and you want it to run nice and smoothly... buy a new computer with Vista pre-loaded. That opportunity will come worldwide on January 30, 2007, where the world’s early adopters will rejoice and splash their cash on Microsoft’s latest and greatest.

Or... there's always a Mac, Linux or your existing Windows OS. There's never been a greater range of OS choices!