It's no secret that activation in Vista can be circumvented. There were a plethora of early attempts and several ways to do it now. What is Microsoft going to do about? Well, largely nothing. Their goal isn't to go after the little guy, but rather to stop the wide counterfeiting rings - and truthfully, that's no surprise either and is par for the course since they first began using CD keys years ago. With Vista, though, things may end up turning out different in the long term. Vista's existing anti-piracy measures already make it a higher-profile target for those seeking to exploit:
While Microsoft is not immediately taking action, Kochis did acknowledge on the Windows Genuine Advantage blog that this could be a problem. "Because Windows Vista can't be pirated as easily as Windows XP, it's possible that the increased pressure will result in more interest in efforts to attack the OEM Activation 2.0 implementation," Kochis wrote.
All of this, while not a surprise, is a bit humorous, since Microsoft originally denied that a flaw in Vista's registration was discovered last month, as well as other hacks.