In news:u60b8a$AGHA.740@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl,
Bruce Chambers <bchambers@cable0ne.n3t> had this to say:

My reply is at the tossed in and among and after your sent message:

> Galen wrote:
>
>>
>> My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:
>>
>>
>
> Just curious, but why do you always preface each post with the above?
>

I always do because too many people can't seem to make up their mind if
top-posting or bottom-posting is the accepted method. I follow older habits
and bottom post (sometimes - oh my - I even snip!) and to avoid complaints
or confusion I have the line automatically inserted. There's times, like
this one, where I'll intersperse the reply and I'll edit it. Other times -
if it's plainly visible, I may even cut it out but it's automatically placed
there using OEQuoteFix. Ironically enough - it's actually cut down the troll
attacks. I've been using similar or the same line for quite some time now. I
think, maybe, '03 or so is when I first picked up on it after being told a
number of times (regardless of where I put the reply) that it was in the
wrong spot. Now, once in a while someone will tell me it's in the wrong spot
but at least they can't say they didn't know where to find it.

>>
>> Off Topic...
>>
>
> Not really, you're just asking for clarification and information.

Yeah, good point. I figured I'd mark it OT as, well, someone's bound to be
sure that it is. Adding the OT to it makes it less important and lets the OP
know (hopefully) that there's nothing important to see there. <g>


>> Where did you manage to find that this was a pirated key? I'm curious
>> because I'd like to be able to keep something like that in mind. I
>> took a look at the link you gave but your site didn't contain any
>> information on how you knew it to be pirated. I'm just too curious I
>> suppose...
>
>
> You receive a "The product key used to install Windows is invalid"
> error message
> http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q326904

I was hoping that there was some sort of master list somewhere. I hadn't
taken too many trips to the dark side of the 'net in a long time and I was
actually amazed at the sheer number of available pirated versions of
software there are now. They used to actually have to work a little bit to
get ahold of this stuff but now they have link rings, top sites, ad
sponsoring, and a myriad of choices available. A list of blacklisted serials
might be an interesting thing to see.

I do note that they've listed, on the site given, blacklisted PIDs but not
the actual serials. I do not know the algorithm used so I'm guessing that a
number of keys would result in PIDs in those ranges. In my travels I did see
a site that was actually delving into the PID generation and that was a bit
above my level of comprehension and devotion to the subject. Ah well...

I wonder how many people pirate software and then complain about it?

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/

"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of
existence." - Sherlock Holmes