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Windows Operating Systems Software

Free Upgrade From XP Home to XP Pro Lite 540

Posted by Zonk from the think-these-things-through dept.
Novus writes "The Register reports that many of the features of Windows XP Pro, such as Remote Desktop and user management, can be enabled in Windows XP Home simply by changing two bytes in an installation data file. Another explanation can be found here."
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Free Upgrade From XP Home to XP Pro Lite More

Free Upgrade From XP Home to XP Pro Lite

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  • Why not just download XP Pro, its just as illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Novanix ( 656269 ) * on Saturday June 04, 2005 @05:34PM (#12725452) Homepage
    If you are so bent on having the pro features and are willing to copy all the files off the CD, hack it, and then re-burn it (not to mention making sure not to screw up the bootable ability of the CD), why not just download Windows XP Pro? Both are illegal(take a look at the EULA), and downloading is easier and will still allow you to upgrade to SP2.

  • Now it is proven (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04, 2005 @05:35PM (#12725455)
    that Windows upgrades are cheaper than Linux

  • Saturday Afternoon Flaimbait (Score:5, Funny)

    by suso ( 153703 ) * on Saturday June 04, 2005 @05:35PM (#12725457) Journal
    That's nothing, I heard that you can make Windows secure by changing 106,351,876 bytes before installing.

    Ta-dit-boom!

  • Sweet! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lisandro ( 799651 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @05:35PM (#12725459)
    I know a... um... friend of mine who tried it on his partents' system and it works just peachy!

  • wow those efficient MS coders (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04, 2005 @05:36PM (#12725462)
    Are you trying to tell me, MS coders are so amazing that it only took them 2 bytes of data to program all these features?

    -SJ53

  • crippleware (Score:4, Insightful)

    by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro&gmail,com> on Saturday June 04, 2005 @05:37PM (#12725467) Journal
    I thought Crippleware died out years ago , aparently not.

    • Re:crippleware (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Lisandro ( 799651 )
      Heh, guess you haven't tried software lately...
      Or cellphones...
      Or digital cameras...
      Or minidisc players...
      Or DVD players...

      (...)
    • Geez, I always thought that MS makes the most successful crippleware ever - not intentionally though...

    • Not even slightly dead (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @07:06PM (#12725969) Homepage Journal
      It's not like it's easier on Adobe to make differerent, variously crippled versions of Photoshop. It's actually more work. They do it because it works for their shareholders: you sell a basic version with features disabled for $x, and make users pay for more features. Yeah, it's the same cost to them to print a CD either way, but the price of things is ALWAYS set by what people are willing to pay, not by what it costs you to make.

      At least in the non-free software world. Rather different economics there.
  • ...now if only MS released XP on CD-RW so I could make those changes without sacrificing the bootability of the CD. (e.g. the reason I have an XP CD on my desk almost constantly.)
    • You can still make it bootable. You need to use the -N option to mkisofs (or equivalent) since the loader can't find the kernel on a standards-compliant iso9660 filesystem, but other than that it's a pretty normal bootable cd.

    • Re:Damn (Score:2, Informative)

      by thebes ( 663586 )
      What sacrifice of bootability?

      1) Rip ISO using WinISO or similar utility. The resulting image retains all Boot Sector info

      2) Update/Upgrade/Integrate/Hack installation directory

      3) Open the iso created in 1), delete files in image (boot sector info remains intact) and drag and drop new files.

      Where's the problem?

    • Re:Damn (Score:3, Informative)

      by Ark42 ( 522144 )
      When slipstreaming a SP into Windows 2000 or XP, I've just used "Bart's Boot Image Extractor" (bbie.exe) to extract the boot sectory from the original CD, and burned a bootable CD with Nero. It works just fine.

  • WTF? The Register reports? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lonesometrainer ( 138112 ) <vanlil AT yahoo DOT com> on Saturday June 04, 2005 @05:46PM (#12725525)
    Ok, yes in fact they do... somehow. They credit the c't magazine in their first sentence for the report. Shouldn't the editor also credit heise (c't) for that?

    Or will we see some RSS-IT-news channel being credited for everything interesting in the near future?

  • XP Super CD (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I believe the XP "Super CD" floating around the net uses these techniques. It has about 6 different versions of XP all on one CD, ready for install. MSDN, Home, Professional, OEM, etc

    Or quite possibly it just replaces the Setupreg.hiv files for which ever version the user chooses to install.
    • Setupreg.HIV??? Wow, that sure puts AIDS in a whole new light.

    • Re:XP Super CD (Score:3, Informative)

      by klui ( 457783 )
      No, it doesn't. These "super" CDs use a Microsoft utility to bind common files in all forms of Windows XP (for instance, there are ones for Office, Windows 2000, 2003) to one physical location on the CD instead of different and separate locations. Saves a lot of space as there are a lot of common files.

    • Re:XP Super CD (Score:3, Interesting)

      by TubeSteak ( 669689 )
      Ummm... A friend of mine had one of those. 5-in-1

      It was from winbeta.org (looks like they're out of the warez biz?)

      The kicker was that the proper cd key was included in the EULA screen
      (hit F8 to continue) So that you could boot & install off the cd.

  • Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)

    by iamdrscience ( 541136 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @05:49PM (#12725538) Homepage
    This is only a marginal improvement, I can already change "XP Home" to "XP Pro Lite" by changing only 4 bytes and adding 4 more to the end.

  • No thanks.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mangus_angus ( 873781 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @05:50PM (#12725542)
    I'd rather just go mug someone on the street and then go buy a Legal Copy.

  • another fine example.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Paralizer ( 792155 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @05:50PM (#12725543) Homepage
    of Microsoft's business tactics. Not that I blame them, from a business standpoint why have one product when you can have two with none of the extra work? Personally though, I don't agree with selling two versions if the difference is apparently so small, once the public learns of the tricky afoot it's not good publicity for the company (like they need anymore of it).

  • Win Activation (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HermanAB ( 661181 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @05:52PM (#12725552)
    A two byte hack to get rid of Winblows activation would be more useful...

  • For the love of God. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Gannoc ( 210256 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @05:58PM (#12725585)

    Hey, another slashdot dupe. I read the same article and almost identical comments 7 years ago when someone realized you could change NT 4 Workstation to NT 4 Server by changing a registry entry and rebooting...

    Tiered versions are extremely common in the commercial software industry. Customers don't want to pay for features they don't want, while other customers will pay extra for features they demand.

    When it is done correctly, it uses the same codebase. The fact that you're able to hack the versioning is completely meaningless.

  • Two things. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Tuxedo Jack ( 648130 )
    One: If you do this, you can't get SP2. However, people knowledgeable enough about reghives and the registry aren't likely to place their main system in infection's way, so that problem's negated.

    Two: Is GPedit enabled in this? That's the most useful tool in all XP Pro - screw that wussy little RD (VNC is far better) - and it stops a lot of crap from happening on a machine.

    • Re:Two things. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nxtw ( 866177 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @06:54PM (#12725895)
      I just integrate SP2 into the install disc; problem solved.

      VNC is far better? *cough* RDP has a ton of features missing in VNC, such as:

      • Sound support
      • Automatic color depth and resolution changing support
      • Remote printer/serial port access
      • Client file access
      Remote Desktop is also much speedier. Even with the latest, greatest, fastest version of VNC, Remote Desktop is still much more responsive. On Windows XP, you can even use a certain file from an old Service Pack 2 beta and support multiple remote users on the same machine.

      and the eaiest way I've found to avoid getting "crap" is to not run as administrator. *poof*, no more problems. I'm surprised more people haven't figured that out yet.

      • VNC does have advantages (Score:3, Informative)

        by bogie ( 31020 )
        Oh like say actually accessing your real desktop and not a completely seperate terminal server profile. For remote access I'd rather access my real desktop thanks.

        And ever tried UltraVNC with the Mirror Video Driver? Its just as responsive as RDP.

        RDP has advantages over VNC but VNC has come a long way and has nice features like File Transfer, Chat, decent speed, a bunch of different viewer, multiplatform support, and also an encryption plugin. So point out what VNC is missing and I'll do the same for RDP.
  • I remember the (slightly larger) hack on Windows NT 3.51 to turn Workstation into Server. Not only did it remove the network restrictions, the system actually performed better.
  • Now if I can only find the two bits that changes my XP machine back to 2000...
  • Won't you guys get in trouble for posting this, The DMCA, the dmca

  • false advertising (Score:3, Interesting)

    by b17bmbr ( 608864 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @06:21PM (#12725718)
    if microsoft is advertising pro and home as two distinct products, when in fact they are not, isn't this false advertising? it's like buying a ford with a V6 and finding that it's really a V8, just two cylinders turned off, and only a ford supplied wrench can open #7 and 8. forgetting linux for a moment, when apple sells Xserve 10 client, it's only 10 apple share clients. there's unlimited samba, ftp, etc., and they're not selling a "pro" version of os x. my guess is that if these features are already built into the OS, then a lawsuit is waiting to happen. i'm sure millions of users would like the features turned on since they're already there.
    • Don't think it would come under false advertising as "home" and "pro" don't really imply anything as to regards to what it contains like V6 and V8 would.

      Besides, a lot of graphics card manufacturers do this anyway (fairly openly too I think?), as did Intel with the 386SX and 386DX chips I believe. If it was a false advertising issue it probably would have came up by now.
      • as did Intel with the 386SX and 386DX chips I believe.

        IIRC it was the 486. The SX was a DX with something disabled (FPU?).

        Not really false advertising as such - they are different products, there's just not a very big difference.

    • Re:false advertising (Score:2, Insightful)

      by gzunk ( 242371 )
      No it's not false advertising at all.

      It's like buying a ford advertised has having the power of a V6, and then finding out that the way ford made it was by turning off two cylinders of a V8.

      You still have a V6 - it's just been implemented as a { V8 - 2 } rather than a { V6 } itself - but the end result is the same.

      As for your lawsuit statement regarding appleshare clients - complete nonsense. You can't sue someone for not providing something that you weren't entitled to.

    • Re:false advertising (Score:4, Interesting)

      by myov ( 177946 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @07:32PM (#12726102)
      It's been done many times before. One example is USRobotics about 10 years ago. The Sportster (low end) and Courier (high end) modems were the same physical product. The couriers simply received an init string somewhere along the production line.

      Naturally, USR changed the products once the string leaked out.

  • Typical anti-MS logic (Score:5, Funny)

    by ClosedSource ( 238333 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @06:23PM (#12725722)
    Geek #1: Windows really sucks!
    Geek #2: I know what you mean. Only an MCSE would use Windows and you know how dumb they are.
    Geek #3: I just read on Slashdot that you could upgrade Windows XP home to professional by just changing a few bytes.
    Geeks #1 and #2: Sweet, how do you do it?

  • Priceless (Score:5, Funny)

    by VStrider ( 787148 ) <<ku.oc.oohay> <ta> <zm_sinnaig>> on Saturday June 04, 2005 @06:25PM (#12725743)
    Price difference? £20.
    Product difference? 2 bytes.

    The look on a WinXP Pro user's face? Priceless!

    Microsoft - how do you want to be robbed today?

  • has been in german magazine (Score:3, Informative)

    by FlashBuster3000 ( 319616 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @06:31PM (#12725768) Homepage
    Germans which are interested in it may also buy the latest computermagazine c't where it is described in detail.

  • So... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EMIce ( 30092 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @06:40PM (#12725805) Homepage
    Do the slashdot editors think that all information should be considered like the information in radio waves? That once the information comes your way, you can do with it as you please? This would view would make cracking a shareware program perfectly ethical, if we are to believe the slashdot editors are ethical.

    How about legality? Any lawyers reading this?
    • How about legality? Any lawyers reading this?

      Its Saturday - what do you think?? ;)

    • Re:So... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SLi ( 132609 )
      Disclaimer: I don't live in the US, however I do know US law fairly well, particularly copyright law.

      There are two different issues here:

      1. Whether it is illegal to disseminate information on how to do this "hack"
      2. Whether doing this "hack" and using the resulting product is illegal

      Facts, such as "by changing two bytes of a work makes it behave in way X", as in (1), are not subject to copyright in the US. Copyright only protects the fruits of creative expression, but not facts or ideas of any kind (for

    • Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Luke-Jr ( 574047 )
      Maybe the Slashdot editors recognise that people have natural rights to modify and share information. Once you know something, nobody has the right to tell you what you can or cannot do with it.

      Just because it is illegal does not mean you should obey such unjust laws.
  • if there is any way to make such tweaks to an already installed system?
  • It sounds like more of a lateral move.

  • Integrating SP2 "too much trouble for most users"? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by InvisiBill ( 706958 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @07:01PM (#12725936) Homepage
    There is one big drawback, though. Users won't be able to install Service Pack 2, unless they integrate SP2 in the installation CD. And that's probably too much trouble for most users, who of course are better off buying a legal version anyway.
    WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe /integrate:C:\WindowsCDFiles

    Yeah, that's way harder than using regedit to modify install files and copying the boot sector of the install CD to a new one...

    Sincerely,
    Your friendly neighborhood slipstreaming [nyud.net] advocate

  • Who knows what hidden functionality there is? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Georules ( 655379 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @07:02PM (#12725942)
    How many bytes do I have to tweak to upgrade my XP Pro to Longhorn?

  • Another Trick (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04, 2005 @08:04PM (#12726249)
    You can modify the setupp.ini file in the /i386 folder on the CD for more tricks. You can turn an OEM disk into an upgrade version that will accept OEM keys (and properly activate with Microsoft) my simply copying the setupp.ini from an upgrade version into the /i386 folder, and changing the last three bytes on the "PID=" line to OEM. This little file is the only differential between XP Home OEM, XP Home Retail, and XP Home Upgrade.

  • Encourage readers to steal. Great job editors! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Beatlebum ( 213957 ) on Saturday June 04, 2005 @09:00PM (#12726530)
    Can someone explain the difference between hacking XP Home to turn it into XP Pro and downloading a warez copy? Is one slightly less wrong than the other?

    Alternatively swing by Best Buy and steal a copy.

    • Ethics (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Truth_Quark ( 219407 )
      Situation 1:
      An entity sells an operating system. After purchasing the operating system, taking it home, opening the package and inserting the media into their computer they are informed that they must agree to an EULA, which is then presented on screen in such a way as nearly all people don't read it.
      Some of the patches that are automatically installed by this entity on the purchaser's computer change the EULA.

      The Purchaser uses the product in such a way as to not comply with the EULA

      Ethical question:

    • Can someone explain the difference between hacking XP Home to turn it into XP Pro and downloading a warez copy?

      The former only became illegal when the DMCA was passed. The DMCA makes a lot of previously legal and still necessary actions illegal, so the fact that it's illegal under the DMCA is by itself irrelevant to the morality of the act. So it comes down to the morality of boosting the performance of a factory-crippled product. You can buy products for doing that at any auto-parts store.

      The latter? XP

  • It does not shock me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Orion Blastar ( 457579 ) <orionblastar AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday June 04, 2005 @09:04PM (#12726544) Homepage Journal
    after all, Microsoft did that with NT Server and NT Workstation. Andrew Schulman had shown that with a few registry tweaks, NT Workstation could be turned into NT Server quite a long time ago. It even fooled server programs like MS SQL Server, Exchange, SNA Server, etc that they were running on NT Server. The only big difference were the support files found on NT Server that NT Workstation did not have.

    If someone looks at it hard enough, they can find registry tweaks to turn XP Starter Edition into a non-crippled version. It might resemble XP Home then. Then apply the XP Home tweaks to turn it into an XP Pro Lite type OS.

    When you think about it, Microsoft keeps the kernels the same, but makes changes to the registry and support files. Tweak the registry, and you may be able to overcome limitations.

    The IP connection limit is built into the TCP/IP stack of XP, but most P2P networks have a modified version that allows the user set their own number of connections, like say 100. I am sure that is against the EULA, but people run it anyway.

    The more crippled Microsoft makes an OS, the more people will discover or find or invent a way around the crippling. Take DRM for example, people have already found ways around it, the new DRM on an Intel chip just makes it more of a challenge for people to find a way around it. Most likely someone will find or invent a way to fool the DRM functions that files are legit, via software or something.

    Microsoft refuses to understand that it must meet the customers' needs, and that making a system more complex or trying to lock it down more, only upsets the customer. They will either seek underground methods to get around the limitations, find an alternative, use an older version of software/hardware, or just learn to suffer with it. In any case, it causes Microsoft bad PR, and a bad reputation.

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