As if Vista didn’t have enough negative press already, Microsoft has confirmed that updating something as simple as your video card driver could cause the installed copy of Vista to deactivate and require revalidation.

The problem is that when Vista is first installed on a system, it indexes every piece of hardware and rates changes to that hardware based on device drivers.  It’s been suggested that Microsoft should have used hardware IDs (but those are not necessarily unique).

So when there is a change in the driver model and that is reported back to Vista, it could be enough to register as a physical hardware change.

As APC Mag puts it, “what this essentially means is that keeping your drivers up-to-date is a potentially very risky process.”  Since when should updating your drivers be as dangerous as swapping the motherboard with Vista?

The Volume Activation 2.0 system (as Microsoft calls it) is applied to every single version of Vista and is designed to curb piracy.

Every company has a right to protect their products, including Microsoft but it has a tendency of designing systems that are flawed, only partially work or flat out don’t do the job it was intended to do and all three apply to Vista at some point.

When OEMs cried out about this, Microsoft quickly created an activation loophole which can be exploited by just about anyone, given enough time.

With the crack floating around and pirated copies of Vista running rampant, Microsoft has failed in its mission but keep in mind that running pirated software is illegal and in the case of Vista, may be unstable (but it ships like that anyway).

Microsoft claims to be working on “a solution” that will alleviate some of the problems that Volume Activation 2.0 has been known to cause.

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Related:

Microsoft Windows Vista with SP1 can be run for free

How to get old(er) Bluetooth devices working in Vista

Free Vista Sunday, backup drivers with DriverMax

Microsoft’s Vista lead to a greener planet?

Wait six months after SP1 before moving to Vista

Entry was posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 5:59 pm under Microsoft, Tips, Vista.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.