hacker uninstalls unregistered app?

[CyberSpaceCowboy]

I appologize in advance for the sillines of this question. An aquaintence claims that after accessing the Internet, his "unregistered " copy of Office XP disappeared from hi hard drive without a trace (no icons, Program Files folder, etc., just like a clean uninstall). I think he nuked it himself by accident.

I know Digital Millenium in theory gave record companies the right to hack into your hard drive and erase .MP3s. Has anbody heard anything about Bill putting a bot on the Internet to uninstall unlicensed software? I told you it was a silly question.

[MJCfromCT]

Haven't heard of that, but I have heard of companies releasing updates to their software which could render a pirated copy useless...

Maybe your acquaintance went on the net, opened up word, and it told he/she that there was an update available. The new update didn't work with the pirated version and possibly did what you described.

[CyberSpaceCowboy]

He did install SP2, but swears Office was still there after that. Hmmm

[MJCfromCT]

ok, but still, what do you mean by "unregistered copy of office"?

[CyberSpaceCowboy]

I think we all know what I mean by unregistered copy. I explained to him the possible ramifications of installing software that had already been product ID'ed on another machine (I would think it would just quit working with a notice to call MS, not uninstall itself). I recommended Office SBE or just use the WordPerfect that came with the machine (IMHO a superior product, but I'm an MS hater). Perhaps the inevitable consequence of trying to beat the system caught up with him.

[MJCfromCT]

I wouldn't be suprised at all if that is what happened. I bet that copy of office phoned home to check for updates, downloaded and installed them, at which point it realized it was using an already registered ID...

[CyberSpaceCowboy]

How would MS account for a situation where you bought a new PC (or fried the old one) and had to re-install all your apps. Through hardware upgrades, I had to re-run product activation within a year of installing XP on a new system.

Wouldn't the uninstall process involve a lot of noticable drive activity (not that my friend would have noticed). I'd think the app would just lock up. Every time I've uninstalled Office, it asked for the CD.

[MJCfromCT]

Usually with MS apps, if when you go to activate the software and its already been activated too many times, it will ask you to call their tech support...usually you just explain the situation to them and they give you a new code...i've done it bunches of times with XP already..