How Does The Serials Thing Work?

[abrogard]

I've never understood how the Serials thing works.

And I've had all kinds of hassles with it over the years with different O/S's and upgrades and second hand machines and broken machine needing repair and reinstalls and whatever...

Is there a clear outline of it somewhere?

Say I have a machine at home and I install Windows on it. Then I take that serial over to another machine at home and I try to make another installation and use that serial again it won't work, will it? I don't think it will.

Now if that first machine crashes - say system disk crash for instance, or mobo failure - then I have to rebuild that machine and install Windows. Now this time it will accept the serial, won't it? Or won't it?

I think it will. I think I've done it in the past. I've done nearly everything over time without ever thinking about it.

But how does MS know when I try to put on a second machine that it is already on one machine (that might be switched off, might not have been used for days, weeks) - and then knows in the other case that it is not on any other machine?

I am obviously wildly confused about the whole thing.

So how can I get a clear knowledge?

 

[ussnorway]

Is there a clear outline of it somewhere?

No

Say I have a machine at home and I install Windows on it. Then I take that serial over to another machine at home and I try to make another installation and use that serial again it won't work, will it? I don't think it will.

It may work... the type of key will decide if its allowed on more than one machine at a time or even a different machine to the one it come with.

Now if that first machine crashes - say system disk crash for instance, or mobo failure - then I have to rebuild that machine and install Windows. Now this time it will accept the serial, won't it? Or won't it?

in all cases a mobo failure is the end of that machine... once you replace the mobo it is always a new machine in terms of licence.

with modern machines the magic word is "activated"... if it says yes to that then Microsoft has said ok we agree that this machine is not a fake.

So how can I get a clear knowledge?

ask Microsoft

 

[Neemobeer]

I'd say to know how Microsoft licensing works clearly you would need to work for Microsoft. You can get some pretty detailed info about your license from slmgr one such command you can run is slmgr /dlv this should give you how many rearms you have left. A rearm is when you reactivate the license. Running out of rearms doesn't mean you can't reinstall, but you generally have to call the Microsoft activation hotline. Another thing to note is home licenses will have a very low rearm count such as 5 while a Pro will have a lot more somewhere around 1000.

 

[abrogard]

Ah, so I needn't feel so bad about not knowing. Apparently no one does - unless they work for Microsoft you say.

Well I don't think that's right. I mean it shouldn't be right if it is right. I should - we should - clearly know what we can and can't do with these things they 'sell' us.

I guess it'd be all written in the fine print there. They'd have themselves covered that way. I don't read all that, do you? Why not? Because whenever I've tried I just finish up confused.

Perhaps someone will come along who's researched it and knows - or someone who's pieced together an overall pic from their experience (that's what I'll do in future, take note of everything that happens, build up a log, a database).

Depends which OS someone suggested. Well I work currently with XP and Win7. Two varieties of win7 - Ultimate and Pro.

But I don't see it matters really unless they keep changing their overall rationale, for that's what I"m after - what is supposed to be the way it all works.

 

[Neemobeer]

I strongly urge you to get rid of your XP devices, since it's been EOL for awhile now and there many known un-patched vulnerabilities and you are setting yourself for malware infections.

 

[abrogard]

I like XP very much and it fills my needs. I know it has limitations but my needs don't conflict with them.

The only thing that worries me is this 'ransom' virus. You know? When your machine has all its files encrypted and you are to pay a ransom before they will be unencrypted. They talk on the news this morning about a recent reported case. Many are not reported I think

That worries me.

But it is not just an XP vulnerability, is it? So simply moving from XP won't help me.

I can't understand why there is not much publicity and many patches, apps, to defeat this threat.

 

[Neemobeer]

That's because the bad guys can simply change there tactics or find other vulnerabilities to infect your system

 

[abrogard]

No, that's not a good enough reason because there is something special about this one kind of attack: it encrypts whole hard drives. Truly, apparently, from everything i've heard, does that.

Now that takes time. A lot of time. My computers take forever to do a little video conversation or something similar.

And space - when there's limited space all progs that write to disk take longer. If I asked a typical compression prog to compress my drives it would take quite some time.

So the nature of the work and the sheer amount of time it is going about it should make this thing especially vulnerable to discovery.

 

[Neemobeer]

Ransomware doesn't encrypt the entire hard drive, it only encrypts a specific set of file types. This makes it possible for the victim able to pay the ransom. The most common ways to get infected are via a phishing email attempt to trick the user into going to a specific site or via malvertising. Which is ad space that is purchases by the cyber criminals that hosts embedded iframes that contain generally either angler or nuclear exploit kit landing pads that host the malware. The most commonly exploited technologies are Java and Adobe Flash. The exploit kits are not limited to vulnerabilities in these pieces of software.

 

[Neemobeer]

Cryptolocker is one of the more well known ransomwares, if you would like to read about how it works you can check out the whitepaper here Cisco Talos Blog: Cryptolocker 4 White Paper Available: The Evolution Continues

 

[holdum333]

Hi! here's a Beta from malwarebytes. Nice to know they are working on this problem.
Introducing Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware Beta

 

[abrogard]

I'm downloading the beta. Hope i haven't just been tricked.....

thanks for the link about cryptolocker.

yes, i didn't expect it would encrypt the total drive, i spoke loosely. i even thought loosely. frightened by the concept. actually many people, my family for instance, would have only a few megabytes of personal stuff, they could well handle a total disk crash.

however i handle the archives for the family and I have gigabytes, terabytes of stuff and I was contemplating losing that and in the contemplation seeing that it couldn't be encrypted instantly.

and i still think so but now that i stop to think i realise that many people may have much very, very important stuff - book-keeping stuff perhaps, diaries, contacts - that in fact would only be a few megabytes really.

well such people should have a good offline backup regimen.

and so should i. but christ, the time and effort to back up terabytes. i need to invest in tape drives i think.

now i'll go read the white paper and see just how wrong i am about everything...

 

[holdum333]

Hi @abrogard This is Beta. Malwarebytes has been around sense 2004 and are a trusted company, but I'm sure you understand Beta.
You need to back up your stuff. I's not that hard. They make very large external drives these days!
This would take awhile to fill up!!
Link Removed