Pirates navigate around Windows 7 activation again

A new activation crack method has been discovered and implemented to bypass Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 activation: remove and disable Windows Activation Technologies (WAT, older versions were referred to as Windows Genuine Advantage). The hack in question works by bypassing activation altogether, and thus does not require a product key. By blocking, preventing, removing, and disabling access to, or the loading of, all activation and licensing related Windows system files, slui.exe (the exe required to activate Windows 7) will fail to start, resulting in the permanent circumvention of Windows activation. Still, disabling WAT isn't the end of the story: after the 30-day evaluation period is expired, Windows 7 will still start nagging the user to activate the operating system, the wallpaper will be set to black, and a watermark saying "This copy of Windows is not genuine" will be placed in the bottom right-hand corner. You can continue to use the operating system indefinitely, but the side-effects can be annoying, so pirates have created tools to clean these up. Most of the tools support all editions of Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit) and Windows Server 2008 R2. In addition to removing and disabling WAT from the Windows system, the tools clean up the side-effects by stopping relevant services and patching certain DLL files.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/11/pirates-find-another-way-around-windows-7-activation.ars