Windows Vista's registration features hacked

'Security is fundamental to the Windows Vista architecture' is what Microsoft always said.
With all the talk about Microsoft's stepped up efforts to curb piracy through Vista's new activation methods, it seems that the OS is running in to its own security problem. Cracked copies of Windows Vista started flooding the internet soon after the operating system was released to manufacturing and ahead of its official release. Existence of the crack was first reported by Australian technology publication APC on 8th Dec, and now all the news source have confirmed it.

Windows Vista must be "activated," or authorized by Microsoft, before it will work on a particular machine. To simplify the task of activating many copies of Vista, Microsoft offers corporate users special tools, among them Key Management Service (KMS), which allows a company to run a Microsoft-supplied authorization server on its own network and activate Vista without contacting Microsoft for each copy. The 'MelindaGates' hack allows users to download a VMware image of a KMS server which activates Windows Vista Business/Enterprise edition. So this happens without alerting Microsoft.