I tested the actual SP1 on 3 different computers and looks like the OEM key does not need re-activating. There is no option to slipstream SP1 into the DVD, except for some reverse engineering. Tried one on a Thinkpad T60 Vista Business, Sony All in one Desktop VGC-LS30E (which already had the SLIC and RSDT info in the BIOS) and a HP DV9000T laptop with the mod BIOS. All are working with no issue of activating the keys again. I in fact wiped clean the drives of the Sony desktop and HP laptop and installed the OS from scratch.
IMO SP1 final contains no code to prevent the bios mods so far. (I guessed probably right!) Otherwise your Vista should went to the black screen reminder thing. M$ decided to handle this via WGA check. This has several advantages for them: It's no fixed content of the OS and the code can be easily updated via WGA update. So they can wait and react when they want to. There is probably a timer integrated which will force to WGA check it in the future. It could be that you have to enter your COA-sticker code to verify it. This is only my speculation. IMO it's strange why M$ stated to disable the OEM bios exploit and they are still working.....silence before the storm will grow????
I've done the SP1 update on two different machines with modified BIOS, a DFI Lanparty, and an ASRock, and both remained activated. SP1 does do genuine checks, just look at event viewer after it's finished. I also did a clean install with the SPI ISO Image that's floating around, and it too activated.
For me personally i do not see how microsoft can stop a modified bios, as they have no control over what manufacturers put in there bios updates etc. I do see how they can stop the vistaloader crack as they can put something in the code to stop the cracks being applied to the boot record, but to stop an actual bios is a tad harder to do as they would have to check every single pc bought since they started shipping computers with vista installed which would be a complete nightmare and could turn people away from using it! They could tell if you had an asus bios slic table on say a gigabyte motherboard but if you had the asus slic on an asus motherboard how could they tell it from a legit pc unless they stop all of them?
Just installed the SP1 from a torrent site. Installed ok. Still activated with Dell OEM Bios crack. Alice
Has there been any confirmation yet that SP1 RTM breaks the Paradox Softmod (OEMTOOL) crack? I can't seem to find a straight answer on any forums. Thanks!
I also installed sp1 in my bios modded fully activated vista modded by yen. And vista is still fully activated looks like microsoft lied. Howie
hihihihi !!! too coooool in fact, i think when they wrote "SP1 will disable fake-OEM activations" they was meaning software-OEM activation ... which is obvious that theses type of activation are the more easily defeated by M$ ... OEM BIOS Activation which require the flashing of the BIOS Motherboard will obviously continue to work beacuse they can't defeat it. imagine if they defeat this, all the genuine computers that come from HP, DeLL, IBM, ect ect will became disactivated ... i think it works like this ... i hope c ya =)
I think so too they can only kill the soft mod because i installed the final rtm sp1 (6001-18000) that the final verson I checked on the internet Howie
Modded Bios smashed with SP1 Modded Bios smashed with SP1 I have ultimate running after modding my bios and ive recently tried the sp1 update (correct version), after about 30 mins and at near completion i got the message: "service pack did not install, reverting changes" After this my installation of vista ultimate was not genuine and it was asking me for a key, i fortunately had the foresight to back everything up before hand so al is fine now but i thought this wasnt meant to be possible? I have the RTM version installed with a fully modded bios from here and this happened, does anyone have any ideas? I have 4x1 gb of memory installed and was wondering if this could have been the problem? Any insight would be appreciated Kyle
This doesn't seem to be a problem with the modded BIOS to me. Maybe just something in the SP1 installation f**ked the system registry, files etc. up.
Thats what i think too, if you tried the software emulation crack and leave some ytails of it, SP1 migth think there is a activation crack and disable the installation.... Or many more things.... As for me I have SP1 with no problems V. 1840 RTM of SP1 and a cheap Asrock board with AMI bios...