IsGenuine and IsGenuineEx fails with TA_E_FAIL and delete the activation

Hello,IsGenuine and IsGenuineEx fails with TA_E_FAIL and deletes the activation on a VMWare PLAYER virtual machine. The machine has been activated yesterday, and today the isgenuine fails. On a physical machine it seems to not happen and we didn't test other form of hypervisors.

The problems began three-four days ago. The MOST BAD THING is that the license file in icsxml is being deleted and thus we are not able to read any license information.

Using IsGenuineEx(0,0,false,true) instead still return TA_E_FAIL but at least doesn't delete the file, the problem is that outside in the world all our customers (that are not few) are using the standard IsGenuine and we relay on being able to keep reading the license information.

My idea is that something has been changed server side because just when I let communicate IsGenuine with the servers it deletes the file and this wasn't happening until three days ago, maybe a week.

From the few tests that we did this happens just when we restart the VM. The problem is that we were doing it too before the problem began to appear. So it is sure server side.

To the email that I will send to Wyatt I will attach the license files that are saved under icsxml after the call of an isgenuine the one activated yesterday before restarting the machine and today after the restart and activation of the product.

THE OTHER STRANGE THING that I noticed is that when I perform an IsGenuine the files grows from 1KB to 2KB (I didn't check the right size, but what windows write on the explorer window, I didn't think to check it).

Please investigate quickly. The majority of our customers uses VM and CAN'T update for company policies. Maybe better to restore the old server code that answer to IsGenuine.

Thank you,Tommaso Ercole

IsGenuine and IsGenuineEx fails with TA_E_FAIL and deletes the activation on a VMWare PLAYER virtual machine. The machine has been activated yesterday, and today the isgenuine fails. On a physical machine it seems to not happen and we didn't test other form of hypervisors.

We can't reproduce this on our tests. It sounds like the customer might be moving the VM instance to other physical machines.

The problems began three-four days ago. The MOST BAD THING is that the license file in icsxml is being deleted and thus we are not able to read any license information.

We recently improved our detection algorithm for separate computers. This reduces false-positives (seeing different computers as being the same computer). So, like I said, it's probably a case of the customer moving the VM instance to separate underlying machines.

Using IsGenuineEx(0,0,false,true) instead still return TA_E_FAIL but at least doesn't delete the file, the problem is that outside in the world all our customers (that are not few) are using the standard IsGenuine and we relay on being able to keep reading the license information.

If the computer is not genuine (i.e. different than what was activated) then the activation file is deleted.

THE OTHER STRANGE THING that I noticed is that when I perform an IsGenuine the files grows from 1KB to 2KB (I didn't check the right size, but what windows write on the explorer window, I didn't think to check it).

This is by-design. There are technical reasons why this is happening. Nothing to worry about. This isn't related to your problem at all.

Please investigate quickly. The majority of our customers uses VM and CAN'T update for company policies.

Tell them to run the VM instances on the same machine. Or use TurboFloat. TurboFloat was designed to handle (among other things) moving of the VM instances between separate physical computers.

Read more about TurboFloat library and the TurboFloat Server.

Wyatt, we can't use TurboFloat because the server can't be installed on a virtual machine. As I just explained in emails we have banks, security companies, brokers, between our customers that are not able to update as they need and they don't have in some cases ANY physical machine because they outsurced all on Amazon or similar virtual machine hosting services. So TurboFloat is not usable.

The machine was our development machine. It has not been moved anywhere. It has just been restarted. So I think the new detection algorithm is detecting something wrong with VMware Player Machines. The operating system was the last Windows 7 updated to the most current updates. It is run on user session, from same user.

I can get that if I would move it should deactivate, but in this case we didn't move it we didn't ever restarted the physical machine. We just restarted the virtual one. And I mean... restarted.

If you want, we can make a remote session with you, that you will be able to perform test on that virtual machine looking what's changing between restarts.

In the meantime, please, restore the previous code that serverside checks Virtual Machines.

Thank you,Tommaso Ercole

On the VM that's giving you trouble can you run "ipconfig /all" between subsequent restarts of the VM? You can email me the results.

Also, email me the product key you're using (make sure you activate between 2 subsequent runs on the VM so we can look at the 2 distinct fingerprints and see what's wrong).

Wyatt I sent the file as zip file with two restart and activation.

We noticed in the ipconfig /all that there is a SOFTWARE VPN Network Card that changes its mac address and when we deactivated it and tryed again with the activation and various restart it stopped to deactivate.

The problem is that network card is a SOFTWARE one. It doesn't rapresent a physical devices and if we look at the hardware id in the details it is "dsncadpt" while the other physical one start correctly with PCI\ etc etc. It should not be counted in the fingerprinting.

Thank you,Tommaso Ercole

You're right. Under certain configuration TurboActivate might incorrect use a software network card (instead of the primary physical network card). This will be fixed ASAP.

I've emailed you the fixed version. It will be out for everyone soon.

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