by @Macarlo

The final release of Window Blinds from Stardock announced yesterday September 26, 1999 for everybody has been cracked today, September 27, by Predator, president of the crackers group called Faith2000.

READ ALSO

WindowBlinds Tested Successfully on Win 2000

Hi, All. This Monday September 27, 1999 I was working easy on my Windows 2000 Professional IDE, examining with my SoftICE an application compressed by Aspack, when a cracker sent me an e-mail:

"Hello, good father! WindowBlinds 1.0 has been cracked..."

WindowBlinds is a new type of utility for customizing the look and feel of Windows. Change aspects of the titlebars, buttons, etc. of Windows with personalities/skins to make Windows look and work the way you want it to.

WindowBlinds is distributed as a self-extracting setup routine which will install to a directory of your choice. It's a Shareware ($19.95 to register).

WindowBlinds is actually one of the most downloaded software of the world. In few days on CNET Download.com WindowBlinds was downloaded above one million times.

Stardock, developer of Object Desktop for OS/2 Warp and for Windows, was released dozens of updates of WindowBlinds and all has been cracked quickly. I discovered that all versions before this final release 1.0 expires in the Year 2000. For few days Stardock was reserved the final release only for registered users of Object Desktop and other WindowBlinds versions. Finally yesterday Stardock decided turn the version 1.0 out for all and the Predator cracked it immediately.

Here is part of the Predator's announcement:

Group greetz: DeMoN, DREAD, TMG, #cracks, TEX, PC, UCF           º
º                                                                            º
º                                                                            º
º           A lot of groups went down lately: that's *NOT* going to          º
º           happen to FAITH2000. we are strong and we will survive.          º
º                                                                            º
º                             ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT                           º
º                                                                            º
º                                                                            º
º                                                                            º
º                                                                            º
ȸ  

           "Faith2000, expect a lot, couse you'll get a lot"            Õ¼
 À¿³        Ruling Tha Cracking Scene in 1999 - wE aRE hERE tO sTAY!      

Well, obviously I condemn piracy. I'm registered user of 212 OS/2 shareware applications and 145 Windows shareware applications. I'm shareware reseller. But I'm also journalist and if an significant crack is out I publish the new.

I downloaded this final version and tested it on my Windows 2000 Professional. It's running just fine here. If you are interested in enhance your desktop, download the final release and see for yourself. Is a really good and not expensive soft. Try it and register it. I recommend!

Comment on the "Crack"
by Brad Wardell

September 28, 1999

The only thing the "crack" (which btw has existed since 0.90 of WB) does is
turn off the registration screen.   That's it.

When we come out with a new version that has new features, we make it only
available to registered users.  Those users are in our electronic database
so all the "cracking" in the world isnt' going to get them to the new
version.

So Predator didn't really "crack" anything, if he were brighter, he would
simply have used a resource editor and made the registration screen go away
instead of spending ours tryng to hack a serial number code.

Why someone would spend a lot of time to "crack" a $20 program is beyond me
though.

Brad


Brad Wardell
Product Manager: Object Desktop & The Corporate Machine
http://www.stardock.com

CONTACT AUTHOR

Kris Kwilas [kwilas@stardock.com]
Stardock Systems, Inc. -- http://www.stardock.com

@Macarlo, Inc.
@Macarlo's Shareware & Web
OS/2
Java Lobby Member
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