111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]

#251

Post by rasz » Tue, Feb 28, 2023, 2:18 AM UTC

ptsneves wrote: post #215

ilyt wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friend from school basically got his entire PC upgrades for good 5-6 years paid because he "invested" in CD burner (then-expensive devices requiring SCSI card to even work) and profited off copying business. Think it was around age of 10.

Keep in mind that here in Poland it is said cdprojekt of Witcher and cyberpunk fame started by selling bootlegged western games. I do not have a source for this.

CD Projekt CEO Marcin Iwiński aka 'S.S. Captain' (SS came from Star Ship)

https://spidersweb.pl/plus/2021/04/cdprojekt-niekoloryzowane...

translated, but broken images: https://spidersweb-pl.translate.goog/plus/2021/04/cdprojekt-...

Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]

#252

Post by dopidopHN » Tue, Feb 28, 2023, 2:38 AM UTC

giobox wrote: post #237

hulahoof wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a kid my main source of new games was to hire it from the video store overnight, install it and then download a no-cd crack. I dont recall ever running into issues finding one.

Your local video store rented PC games? Where I grew up, console games for sure were available in video rental places but there was never a business in renting PC games. I wish there had been!

the public library in my 20k rural town was lending game for 1 euros / week. The console itself for 3/week.

That was ...amazing.

Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]

#253

Post by nunez » Tue, Feb 28, 2023, 3:59 AM UTC

twawaaay wrote: post #8

It may sound strange to people who were born later. But in 90s these mechanisms were in infancy. It was normal for computers to auto-login and have no password at all, processes could each read entire memory on the machine. Software was cracked the moment it came out and it was assumed people bought any software because they feared legal action rather than because they had no other way to get their hands on it -- lat…

> But in 90s these mechanisms were in infancy. It was normal for computers to auto-login and have no password at all.

Indeed, Windows 98 and earlier did not require a username/password pair by default. However, it was stupid easy to log into computers and steal stuff.

Processes could read from each other's pages, but it was also stupid easy to download warez and viruses that took advantage of that. Remember, this was the age of HTTP and plain text all day every day (because computers were too slow to do client-side encryption).

Antivirus reviews and comparisons were really valid, as virus databases were also in their infancy, and some companies had better data that others.

> There really wasn't much possibility to protect your piece of software. If it was put on a CD somebody will either extract the key or modify your software to accept any key.

Yup. Which is why Photoshop cost $600 and a non-gimped version of Office cost $400. They baked piracy into the price and had the big companies that thought nothing of these prices pay.

Also, downloading cracks was a super easy way of getting viruses, doubly so if you didn't have AV running (many didn't). Doubly also, finding them was hard(er) before the days of WinMX, BitTorrent, etc. You had to know IRC and newsgroups. Not super friendly places.

Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]

#254

Post by nunez » Tue, Feb 28, 2023, 4:00 AM UTC

SpaceL10n wrote: post #30

twawaaay wrote: post #8

It may sound strange to people who were born later. But in 90s these mechanisms were in infancy. It was normal for computers to auto-login and have no password at all, processes could each read entire memory on the machine. Software was cracked the moment it came out and it was assumed people bought any software because they feared legal action rather than because they had no other way to get their hands on it -- lat…

It's weird reading about my life as if it's history. Everyone was doing it. I remember my teachers, friends, and family all giving me pirated software at some point. I remember my friends and I getting excited when someone got a ripped copy of some game and we couldn't wait to burn new CD-ROMs to share. If one of us got our hands on the copy of some game, we all got copies. It was kind of like a free-for-all in the w…

pirated software is everywhere in the third world still (hell, even in the first world)

Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]

#255

Post by nunez » Tue, Feb 28, 2023, 4:01 AM UTC

glandium wrote: post #114

SpaceL10n wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird reading about my life as if it's history. Everyone was doing it. I remember my teachers, friends, and family all giving me pirated software at some point. I remember my friends and I getting excited when someone got a ripped copy of some game and we couldn't wait to burn new CD-ROMs to share. If one of us got our hands on the copy of some game, we all got copies. It was kind of like a free-for-all in the w…

It was so common that "something cd key" was a common search term. And people would put that in the wrong input box/window such that they would end up typing that in chat rooms. In some of those, people would reply with the same "something cd key" followed with "to you too", as if it were some form of greetings. Later on, people would show up saying "something random cd key" as an actual form of greeting, not a mista…

"______ serial" was my go-to on Google.

Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]

#256

Post by nunez » Tue, Feb 28, 2023, 4:01 AM UTC

Zircom wrote: post #120

glandium wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was so common that "something cd key" was a common search term. And people would put that in the wrong input box/window such that they would end up typing that in chat rooms. In some of those, people would reply with the same "something cd key" followed with "to you too", as if it were some form of greetings. Later on, people would show up saying "something random cd key" as an actual form of greeting, not a mista…

Reminds how typing an album name into Google used to autocomplete to add MediaFire right after it.

or site:blogspot.com. (So many legit downloads on blogspot, even today, though most of those links are dead now :( )

Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]

#257

Post by nunez » Tue, Feb 28, 2023, 4:04 AM UTC

consp wrote: post #220

Dalewyn wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It was normal for computers to auto-login and have no password at all, processes could each read entire memory on the machine. To be fair, this is specifically to do with personal computers of the time; MS-DOS, Windows 3x, and Windows 9x were all single user operating systems: They simply had no concept of multiple users at all. The concept was bolted on later as an afterthought, but it was really janky and paled in…

I distinctly remember having lots BSODs with IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL errors due to shoddy drivers all the time on XP (which is the first consumer NT kernel windows version), especially in the early days. Maybe not related to shared memory but overall not great either.

Same thing happened after Windows Vista came out. Vista came with a new audio stack that many sound card drivers were not compatible with out the gate.

Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]

#258

Post by nunez » Tue, Feb 28, 2023, 4:06 AM UTC

metadat wrote: post #39

YPPH wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>was normal for computers to auto-login and have no password This persisted for longer than it should have on Windows! I remember on Windows XP Home Edition, you could just press Ctrl Alt Delete to drop to the classic winlogon.exe screen and then log in as "Administrator" with no password! By that time, though, Microsoft had implemented product activation. To my knowledge, no one ever cracked the telephone activation…

Devils0wn Windows XP Final serial key, yeah baby! Seared into my mind forever after entering it so much: FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXKRT-8TG6W-2B7Q8 I used to reinstall windows anytime anything got weird, which was often because I was always messing with disabling combinations of system services in attempts to reduce OS memory consumption. Wtf is svchost.exe doing? I don't want it! Wireless Zero Config? I don't have Wi-Fi, too fla…

RHQQ2. Wow. I was not ready for this throwback.

> Wtf is svchost.exe doing? I don't want it! Wireless Zero Config? I don't have Wi-Fi, too flaky and slow (remember, it's 2003). Distributed Link Tracker? Sounds cool, but what distributed links am I tracking? I don't think this is part of Napster or KaZaa.. DCOM Sockets.. , and so on, until the eventual: Oops, the network is messed up. What was this originally set to? Haha. Oh well, time to refresh and start anew..

ARE YOU ME?! I did all of that stuff! Friggin' svchost.exe man...

Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]

#259

Post by ornornor » Tue, Feb 28, 2023, 6:39 AM UTC

ornornor wrote: post #240

xtracto wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember serials.ws with its frame based we site... had all the keys you'd need. Also there was a windows program that was basically a database of keys and serials.

Those were the days. There was also that site with all the trainers and cracks for every game ever, with a little landing page that would dynamically show online and offline mirrors before it was cool. I forget its name but as a 10–14 years old I loved it.

gamecopyworld.com it was called. I just remembered.

Re: 111-1111111 is a valid Windows 95 key (2021) [video]

#260

Post by ornornor » Tue, Feb 28, 2023, 6:49 AM UTC

J-Kuhn wrote: post #222

consp wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I distinctly remember having lots BSODs with IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL errors due to shoddy drivers all the time on XP (which is the first consumer NT kernel windows version), especially in the early days. Maybe not related to shared memory but overall not great either.

Things got better with newer windows versions. * Userland printer drivers (that don't bring down the machine if they have a bug) * Mandatory driver signing... Nowadays I can run my machine 24/7 without any crashes. Which would be unthinkable back in the day.

Back in the day, your uptime was a source of pride. So much so that I remember using samurize to display my PC’s uptime right in the desktop… my Linux workstation of today isn’t impressed at all.