Ex-MS engineer reveals the story behind the infamous 'FCKGW' Windows …

Ex-Microsoft engineer David Plummer has revealed that he was the "primary author" of Windows XP's Product Activation system on the OS side, and so he's got some inside details on the workings behind the infamous "FCKGW" product key. You know, the one that seemed to be written on every pirated, home-burnt CD copy of the OS back in the day.

No clue? Me neither. I'm completely unaware of such illicit activity, and I reject any accusation otherwise. Anyway, the famous (and now defunct) key was, in its entirety, FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8—and Plummer thinks it may well have been leaked by an OEM or similar with early access to Microsoft's then-new, all-blue XP operating system. liveiplscore.homes

"As you likely recall, Product Activation required that you have a key, and you’d have to activate it online or over the phone," Plummer begins. "But Microsoft had large corporate customers... and those customers did not want to have to activate every offline PC."

Said customers would be given a Volume Media disc image, which could then be unlocked with a Volume Key. To confirm the legitimacy of such an install, the product activation system would inspect the disc image to find a secret 10 MB "binary blob" which was only present on the Volume Media. As a fun aside, this data blob just happened to be an encrypted version of Microsoft Bob.

"I took their disc data and compressed and encrypted it several times," says Plummer. "Rest assured it’s encrypted and even in the AI age no one has extracted it yet. I really just needed random data, so I started with a precompressed binary image because, secretly, I was young and didn’t know if I could trust CryptGenRand."

"And so, if you ever tried the FCKGW key on a regular XP CD, it wouldn’t work," Plummer continues, "because you didn't have Bob in your bits. But if you had the means in 1995 to download large ISO binaries or copy CDs, all it took was the key and a copy of the disc."

Unfortunately for Microsoft, a piracy group called Devils0wn posted a complete Windows XP Pro Corporate ISO five weeks before the official launch, alongside the valid FCKGW key. As Windows Product Activation skipped the rest of the validation process once a mathematically valid key was combined with the Volume Media data check, ta-da, a seemingly-legitimate install of Windows XP was yours.

"Pirates then started baking the key into images or just writing it on the CD with a Sharpie," says Plummer. As for where the key itself came from, he speculates that "the most plausible source is an OEM or hardware partner that received final media early so they could ship PCs on launch day.

"Dell is the name that comes up most often; Intel has also been mentioned because of later source dumps. There were very few organizations that actually possessed a VLK [Volume License Key] that early, which is why the timing points at a partner rather than a random corporate customer."

"But I do not know," Plummer confirms. "Presumably someone does."

In the aftermath, Microsoft started blacklisting product IDs belonging to the leaked keys in Service Pack 1, while Service Pack 2 "made the check more aggressive" and started blocking updates for installs using the key. However, Plummer says that valid, un-leaked VLKs continued to work with Volume Media versions of XP for years.

"The operational failure was that the media and one of those keys left the building before the product even reached stores," Plummer concludes. "Once both pieces were public, WPA’s hardware-binding never got a chance to run."

Interestingly, Plummer says in the comments that he never came across a keygen that actually worked for Windows XP, while others in the thread have speculated that those available at the time were simply faking the generation part and randomly selecting leaked Volume Media keys from a list.

Ah, the internet really was the wild west back in those days, that's for sure. Still, now you know why that mysterious sequence of numbers and letters worked for so long, and later became ingrained in the memory of many PC users. Not me, though. First time I've ever seen it in my life, guv. Honest.

It's been a good while since we last heard about Balatro's big 1.1 update—a year, almost to the day, since developer LocalThunk delayed it into 2026. There's still no sign of it, but the community did catch sight of LocalThunk yesterday when he popped into the Balatro Discord to let everyone know that everything is going fine.

"I'm happy the leaks are going over so well," LocalThunk wrote, referring to teases about the 1.1 update that he's been posting himself. For instance:

"I know you guys want to know as much as possible about 1.1 but I can't give away too much. I know it's taken a very long time and I've completely blown past the 2025 time frame but I promise I'm cooking in the way that is both best for me and ultimately for the game."

That tracks back to LocalThunk's 2025 message about the 1.1 delay, in which he said he became "well and truly burned out" after going too hard for too long on Balatro's development. After taking an extended break, he "very slowly" eased back into the work and was approaching more like a hobby developer, avoiding deadlines and not "trying to force things creatively." He also expressed regret for announcing the then-2025 release target for the 1.1 update, a point he reiterated in his new message.

"I understand how frustrating that must be and I wish I could go back in time and slap some sense into myself," Localtnunk continued. "At the time it was still go-go-go and I never even considered that I could allow myself to stop, then after mobile came out I was just so burnt out I couldn't touch the game for a bit. Luckily things have changed."

Consequently, LocalThunk said he'll continue to turn up in the Balatro Discord now and then to reassure people that the 1.1 update is still in development, and maybe post some more "leaks," but there won't be any commitment to a release target until it's ready to go. He also made clear that despite knowing people may be frustrated by the long wait, he's not going to speed things up: "I don't want this to be half baked and wreck Balatro, I love the game too and I want to play a fun game not a rushed botch job."

"I truly am having the best time making the game now. This past year of dev has been probably the most fulfilling work I've ever done, including pre launch times when it was a little hobby project," LocalThunk concluded. "I'm trying to keep offline as much as possible because that's a recipe that works well for me but I'll ease back in when 1.1 is ready to go."

People on the Balatro Discord, for the record, showed no sign of the frustration or impatience LocalThunk is concerned about: Most of the responses expressed happiness that he's doing well and encouraged him to take his time with it. One apparent newcomer to the Discord was particularly excited by the mere appearance of the dev:

For Balatro heads eager for information on what the update will contain, LocalThunk shared more than just the 'four Jokers' tidbit above. The major points are collected in this Reddit thread: A tier 2 voucher named Lunker, algorithmic changes for picking the next voucher, a blue stakes rework, and that sort of thing. What really leapt out to me, though, is that LocalThunk expects the 1.1 update to be the end of the road: After the 1.1 update comes, a 1.1.1 update will follow "for balance tweaks and changes after player feedback."

"That's likely it," he wrote. "Don't expect any more than that." He also confirmed that Balatro will not be getting a multiplayer mode.

It should go without saying at this point, but I'll say it anyway: The Balatro 1.1 update sounds like it will be big, but there's absolutely no indication as to when it will arrive.