About half of the downloads claiming to be free versions of Microsoft's Vista operating system are actually malicious Trojan horse software, warned security vendor DriveSentry.
With Vista's consumer launch just days away, hackers have been bombarding discussion boards with offers of "cracked" versions of Windows Vista, which are being distributed on peer-to-peer networks, said John Lynch, vice president of sales and marketing for DriveSentry.
These posts offer downloads of the operating system that skip Vista's activation process, created by Microsoft to prevent users from running illegal copies.
Users who fall for the scam can end up with some pretty nasty problems, according to Lynch. DriveSentry researchers have found malicious key-logging software and spyware on about half of the downloads it has examined recently, he said.
I wouldn't download it, if I could. I don't think it's worth the time that it takes to download.
a friend has asked me to download it for him........yay.......
when has mickeysoft allowed you to download entire operating systems anyhow?
Or am I really missing something?
When XP was first coming out. You could dl the an ISO of XP Pro (Corp.), it came with cracks and all that good stuff.
lol, this brings me back with Windows 98SE. I remember back when I used Kazaa and I was a fool and now I've learned my lesson and yes... still today by UTorrent and P2P still offer Windows Xp Professional Sp2 by ISO or .EXE for download. Thankful my friend gave me a bought copy. Though it's rarely to find Windows Xp Home Edition by P2P or even Torrents