Pirates crack Vista fully

Slinky Sausage writes: "There have been "sort of" cracks for Vista floating around since the code went gold — but now, a piracy group called Pantheon has fully broken the copy protection. Amazingly, they are using functionality Microsoft itself built into the activation system for OEMs to preinstall Windows onto PCs. From APCMag.com which broke the news: "This crack doesn't simply get around product activation with beta activation files or timestop cracks — it actually makes use of the activation process. It seems that Microsoft has allowed large OEMs like ASUS to ship their products with a pre-installed version of Vista that doesn't require product activation — apparently because end users would find it too inconvenient.""