I think you can haxor the registry if you don't have the software key anyway. I never tried this but I heard it works.

-- A fictional representation of a dream Wizbone once had --

by Wizbone '99

Once upon a time in a far away land... Well, okay, Canada... lived a
young rabbit with a new computer. Now, this young rabbit should have
known better, but he was running a gui-based operating system designed
by a gigantic monopoly of a software company. Let's call it "Nanosoft"
for the time being, this OS we'll call "kwindows951."

Now, this young man, should have been running linux, but unfortunately,
he wasn't. So, he klinked along his happy way with kwindows951. He
developed bad webpages, looked at m4d pr0n, and ate cheeeetohhs over
his keyboard. Then one day, a friend of his dropped by his rabbit hole
with a flat, round, gold disc.

"What's that?" Inquired the rabbit, not realizing rabbits are unable to
speak.

"It's a copy of the new version of kwindows... it's the OEM version of
kwindows981!" The other rabbit replied gleefully.

"Wow! I'll give it a try..." And the young rabbit did.

In went the new shiny CD, and the mammal proceeded to follow the
mindnumbingly simple installation wizard.

Well, to make a long meaningless story just a smidge shorter, he
finally got it as far as rebooting after all the files were copied to
his harddrive. The OEM version of kwindows981 proceeded to ask him
what his name was, and his company, and then when the little bunny
clicked the NEXT button, his heart sunk. On the screen was a request
by kwindows981 OEM for a 25 digit registration key.

Well, with nothing but rabbitly instinct on his side, he slapped his
reset button with one quick flick of his fuzzy paw. Waiting until the
appropriate mode, he pressed shift-F5, putting kwindows981 OEM into
"not-so-dangerous" mode (We'll call it "safe mode"). This allowed him
to actually boot into kwindows, he opened up the registry editor, and
proceeded to change the following values found in:

(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Nanosoft\Kwindows\Cur rentVersion\)

BootCount, he changed to "1"
LicensingInfo, became "done"
RegDone, was modified to "Yes"
ProgramId, had any ol' 25 digit number added
RegisteredOrganization, to "a"
RegisteredOwner, to "b"

Now, this may only work on the OEM version of kwindows, the bunny
thought. He also wasn't sure if all of those values needed to be
changed, or if they would even work at all for anyone else. But, they
worked for him and he was pleased.

Kwindow981 OEM skipped the part where it asked him for his Product ID,
and continued on as though it were his bought and paid-for copy.

THE END

All product resemblences to any presently existing, real or ficticious,
are completely coincidental. Wizbone, the bunnies, and HackCanada do
not accept liability for any misconception or assumption made about
software piracy by reading this file.

10/09/1999