Has Windows 7 been cracked already?

MyDigitalLife reports that a valid, working Windows 7 Ultimate activation key has leaked.

Windows 7 Ultimate has been cracked, and can be permanently activated with OEM style instant offline activation which will pass Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation, before even any Windows 7 is officially released according to Windows 7 release schedule. All hell breaks loose when a Windows 7 Ultimate OEM DVD ISO from Lenovo been leaked and posted on Chinese forum. The ISO was quickly grabbed to retrieve boot.wim, which was then used to retrieve the OEM-SLP product key and OEM certificate for Windows 7 Ultimate.

Although it may be true, there are plenty of problems with this post – just for starters, Windows 7 doesn’t have “Windows Genuine Advantage.” I also find it very hard to believe that an OEM key, easily retrievable from boot.wim, will validate Windows 7.

I can’t believe that MS made it so easy.

There’s more to this story than we’ve heard. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: The key has been quashed. I’m still surprised that ripping of an activation key is as simple as looking at boot.wim, although it looks like the ripped-off key only worked on Lenovo machines.

I just love this sentence in the Microsoft announcement: “Our primary goal is to protect users from becoming unknowing victims, because customers who use pirated software are at greater risk of being exposed to malware as well as identity theft.” Duh. Yeah, sure.