Neo-Desktop/WindowsXPKg: Keygen for Windows XP

89 points by prvt 2 years ago | 31 comments
  • jeroenhd 2 years ago
    This can't possibly work, there's not a single line of code in there that plays those sweet mod tunes that every good keygen plays when you start it.

    All kidding aside, this looks like a fork or reimplementation for the tool that got popular recently, based on a blog post from a few years back.

  • userbinator 2 years ago
    The private key was small but I suppose it was considered adequate at the time of release; it was cracked a long time ago (late 2009 was when I first learned of it) and an earlier keygen exists. Stuff like this tends to remain private/hard-to-discover, but I'm not surprised to see it publicised now.

    Here's some more details:

    https://sabah.forumotion.com/t333-all-you-need-to-know-about...

    The key phrase is at the end: "Therefore, the complexity of computing the private key k is O(2^31)"

    • miles 2 years ago
      That forum post is an uncredited reprint of the years-earlier MSKey Readme[1], a brief history of which I've outlined in the first footnote on this blog post[2].

      [1] https://bbs.kanxue.com/thread-10032.htm

      [2] https://tinyapps.org/blog/202304230700_xp_wpa.html

      • technion 2 years ago
        It's so odd to me that people are trying to RE an executable here. Like if I cracked a crypto system just for community credit I'd rather blog the algorithm than release a closed source executable. Seems to happen a lot in these cracking communities though.
        • userbinator 2 years ago
          If I remember correctly, MSKey4in1 (or one of the other keygens with similar functionality) was released with source code, but in general, you said it yourself: after all, "cracking communities" are effectively people who don't need source code to understand or modify software.
          • ranger_danger 2 years ago
            The one person (Empress) that knows how to crack Denuvo refuses to share any details, and I think they recently had some kind of mental breakdown and will no longer be making any new game patches.
      • esalman 2 years ago
        I reinstalled XP so many times back in the day that I still have an installation key memorized.
        • baobrien 2 years ago
          FJG2V-CDW3P-K7BKD-89FCT-GM6MY
          • doix 2 years ago
            DQTHH-4PG4W-TMYYF-W77VV-PR8HD
            • ahmedbodi 2 years ago
              that's the one I used too
            • 2Gkashmiri 2 years ago
              H7c97-c67jb-g6rqr-p6hwy-tmq6w
              • Dwedit 2 years ago
                FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8
              • AmVess 2 years ago
                LOL, that's the one.
                • esalman 2 years ago
                  cgj2m-cftxy-w4rbj-bwtgb-vh2cb
              • cat_plus_plus 2 years ago
                POSReady 2009 is lighter, has more updates and is volume activated, so a cleaner option all around.
                • gnabgib 2 years ago
                  Seems to be a fork of the original https://github.com/TheMCHK/WindowsXPKg
                • irusensei 2 years ago
                  Does it comes with a catchy tracker soundtrack?
                  • RobotToaster 2 years ago
                    Wasn't the XP source code leaked some time ago?

                    Couldn't someone just modify it to remove the key check?

                    • junon 2 years ago
                      This implies you can build it. I've not seen the leak but I doubt it's complete enough to perform a full, working build.
                    • userbinator 2 years ago
                      Yes and yes (even without the source code) --- after all, cracks did exist for XP (and every version of Windows before and after it.)

                      The creation of a keygen, which doesn't require any modifications to the original software, is mainly for the challenge of doing so, and now that XP is out of support, historical/archival purposes.