[nylug-talk] [Full-disclosure] Vista Reduced Function mode triggered (fwd)

[Jay Sulzberger]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
  Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 14:26:52 -0500
  From: Geo. <geoincidents at nls.net>
  To: full-disclosure at lists.grok.org.uk
  Subject: [Full-disclosure] Vista Reduced Function mode triggered

  The other day I used my router to limit my Vista laptop from talking to
  anything but one subnet on the internet. 3 days later suddenly some things
  would not work.

  Solitaire failed to start, click on it and you get the magic donut showing
  it's starting up then nothing.

  Right click on network and pick properties you get the magic donut showing
  it's starting up then nothing.

  So I removed the routes so Vista could once again phone home and within a
  minute or two both solitaire and network properties worked just fine.

  Now this Vista system is less than 30 days old and has already been
  activated. So the claims that Reduced Function mode only kicks in if you
  don't activate within 30 days is bunk if this is Reduced Function mode.

  So I decided to trigger RF mode on purpose to see how it responds. I stopped
  the Software License service which claims that doing so will trigger RF
  mode. 24 hours later solitaire, network properties, and control panel all
  show the same behavior, the magic donut showing they are starting up then
  nothing. No events in event log, nothing.

  I then started the Software License service and presto like magic these
  functions work again. So I'm convinced that the machine being routed so it
  can't talk to MS triggered RF mode within a few days. Now to me this seems
  pretty clear even though it wasn't a real scientific method of testing. And
  further, this looks to me like an accident waiting to happen. I mean imagine
  if MS fell off the planet we would have a pretty major problem as the bulk
  of the worlds computers started shutting down, talk about a security issue?

  So anyone here with a bit more technical expertise want to pick up this ball
  and run with it?

  Geo.

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