Full Disclosure mailing list archives

Re: Vista Reduced Function mode triggered


From: "Jason Miller" <jammer128 () gmail com>
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 01:44:42 -0600

lol i want to see this happen in a .edu unit where you can only access the
internet by going through a limited HTTP proxy that does not allow the
connect function, think it would give humourous results. unless it 'phones
home' by visiting a page and printing said info, which in that case it would
probably be simple enough to modify the server it goes to and make it think
its going to microsoft, in that event you could easily get cd keys if thats
how it verifies its a real vista copy.

On 1/1/07, Geo. <geoincidents () nls net> wrote:


> It just can't be that simple. There has to be more to what happened to
> the guy. Lots of computers are offline for several days at a time, it's
> inconceivable that they didn't test that.

Ok, as complete as I can be in the few minutes I have to post this.

During those three days I did a lot of poking around, stopping and
starting
services, switching from wired to wireless and back, trying to view high
def
video (which I still am not able to do in any video player except WMP for
some reason) installing codecs and software, running into the event ID
4226
tcp security connect limit, etc.

However I never got any notification of deactivation or any problem of
that
sort. Then on the third day suddenly solitaire would not start up and I
couldn't get into network properties. I did a bunch of rebooting and
trouble
shooting trying to figure that out but got nowhere.

So I went back to trying to get high def video to work in Media player
classic and figured perhaps it was trying to download a codec so I removed
the routes. It didn't help the video but I quickly found network
properties
started working. So then I tried solitaire and it worked. This was all
directly after removing the routes, there wasn't but a few minutes between
letting it talk to the net and these apps starting to work again.

I decided this was probably reduced functionality in action but since I
had
never seen it before I needed some way to trigger it so I could compare
since it would take 3 days to reproduce with route blocking. I disabled
the
software licensing service since it claims disabling that service will
kick
off reduced functionality mode. Nothing happened immediately but 24 hours
later solitaire and network properties (and now control panel) would not
start up. It was exactly the same apps and behavior. I enabled and started
the software licensing service and in seconds things returned to fully
functional just like removing the routes did.

So it's possible the routes didn't trigger it, but removing them sure
cured
it quickly so that is my guess at this point. Further testing is needed. I
won't be testing it for a couple days as I need the laptop connected to
other networks to try some other software I need to test. (that tcp limit
may prove a problem for network monitoring)

Geo.

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_______________________________________________
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