Earlier this year, Microsoft and Lenovo teamed up to tackle the first Windows 7 activation workaround. It was based upon a leaked OEM volume activation key, and was neutralized fairly quickly.


Things have been fairly quiet for a while. Microsoft's anti-piracy team had cooked up WAT - Windows Activation Technology - in hopes that it would prove more successful at thwarting unlicensed Windows use than its predecessor WGA. And so began the latest round of cat-and-mouse with pirates. 'You've got a better activation system? We'll build a better crack,' is how the game usually plays out.


It should come as no surprise, then, that there are two new activation bypass tools spreading like wildfire on the Internet. Called RemoveWAT and ChewWGA, the apps provide one-click patching of Windows 7 RTM installations.


Microsoft, of course, has promised a speedy response. Still, once a system is patched and a user shuts off Windows Update, there's really not much Microsoft can do - or is there? Maybe they know something we don't.


[via CNet]