full-disclosure - Vista Reduced Function mode triggered

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Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 14:26:52 -0500
From: "Geo." <geoincidents@....net>
To: <full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk>
Subject: 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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