Can M$ Detect BIOS Mods?

They say that they can't tell anymore then that is an OEM

 

i agree with zzdiesel.

no, microsoft can't detect modded bioses.

anyway modded bioses don't come under the purview of microsoft.

it is the sole responsibility of the manufacturer of the motherboard.

 

I assume they'll do something similar to WGA, probably released with service pack one. I can't see them sitting around and hoping nobody will notice...

 

They seem to have shot themselves in the foot over this one. They can't really shut us down because they'll also get the legit OEM owners.

I'll say Micro$haft will conspire with the BIOS makers and make it harder for them to be modded as we buy new boards.

 

I'm not totally in agree with what has been said because it's partially true that Microsoft can't detect modded bioses.

If for "modded bioses" we mean hard coded bioses flashed into an eeprom, yes it can't detect it, but situation changes for all using emulators or software activators (like voatk or vista loader etc etc), because these are softwares and being such, can be detected.

So even with a possible service pack those who used bios mods are safe (or at least I hope so) while the others using software activation emulators risk to see theirselves banned.

 

of course MS could detect the bios mod if they wanted too. For now its too small a percentage for MS to worry about. all MS has to do is work in conjunction with OEM.

 

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You mean like they did with dell and all the other huge OEMs and xp preactivation...?
That was for slightly different reasons though. That was people selling computers with pirated copies, not just people pirating for themselves.

 

Wonderwoman is right ^^^^ ! ! !

They >can< but won't

 

After bit of searching, i can concur that m$ is capable of detecting modded BIOS's but detection and prevention are two seperate things. M$ was recently under scruteny after having 'silent downloads' to consumers computers without the constent of the user, which in my reading was allowed to be praticed.

It would similarly appear that the operating system is also not allowed to 'recode' hardware microcode or firmware without permission or at all for that matter as thats the responsiblity of the motherboard manufacturer, so chances them rummaging around you BIOS is unlikely. They can however, scan your system configuration, but must notify you. This is included in their typical privacy statment, which says what data is collected.

If M$ scans are permitted and if the scan collects sufficient data to suggest that the system that the OS is running on system that has a modded BIOS then they can make a rough estimation of how many BIOS's are modded to pass the validation checks M$ throws about.

The problem can only be tackeld from three ways as i see it, an update in SP1, a new form of WGA, or for them to completely knock out OEM activation in future OS's. An SP could easily knock a modded bios out, if they block the relevent tables in the bios. However if they do this, it could potentally affect unmodded bios's. The last thing M$ want is an agry mob of laptop waving consumers outside golden Gate$' frontdoor.

Secondly they introduce a new WGA that sends unique activation data home, and compares it with of course your PID. And if your PID appears to be invalid, for example, they could lock you out as they did with XP, which then would only affect users with invalid PIDs. and also a scan of your bios could also be used to see what data is hidden in your BIOS and if it matches what the motherboard manufacturer actually put there, especially if your make or model is NOT listed by the OEM for automatic activation ect.

But as may end users are lame at taking risks the chance of M$ doing anyting for modded bios's is low, as the main target is those selling off priated software and those with software emulated activation.

Then there are of course people like me who brought a OS with a genuine computer. the computer failed within a short space of time but dare i say this Dhell refused to do anything to repair the computer (no surprise) so i had an installation disc with a licence i perchased that was useless. When i tried to transfer activation, M$ denyed me the privage, so instead of pointlessly buying another copy i decided to mod my bios and install Vista on my custom built desktop pc with a genuine oem key which wouldnt work through their online activation service.

Its mostly speculation, so all i can say is we all have to ride it out and see if the stupid boffins at M$ will do anything to kick us all off our perches

 

I highly doubt they would go to the extent of detecting modified bioses. To do this, they would have to create a super algorithm to check every version of every bios of every oem manufacturer that they provide this to. It seems unrealistic.