Inside the Windows 95 Registration Wizard

Inside the Windows 95 Registration Wizard
Last updated: October 12, 1995
by Andrew Schulman
Senior Editor, O'Reilly & Associates
andrew@ora.com

The "Online Registration" feature of Microsoft's Windows 95 (Win95),
also known as the "Registration Wizard" (RegWiz), has been the
subject of much rumor and more or less idle speculation.

Of special concern is RegWiz's ability to collect information on
applications (both Microsoft and non-Microsoft) that a user has
installed on their hard disk, and to send this information back to
Microsoft via the Microsoft Network (MSN). As explained below,
the name for this process is "Product Inventory": it is
a feature of the PRODINV.DLL module included with Win95.

That Win95 can apparently tell what applications you have installed
has generated numerous angry reactions online. A posting in the
comp.risks newsgroup claims that Win95 "transmits your entire
directory structure in [the] background" to MSN. Similar claims have
appeared on Microsoft's forums on CompuServe, under headings such as
"WIN95: Bye, Bye Privacy" and "Computer espionage by M$". RegWiz has
prompted the Netsurfer Focus on Cryptography and Privacy to ask the 
worrisome question, "It's eleven o'clock at night. Do you know what your
software is doing?"

Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology has even urged President
Clinton "to prevent federal agencies from buying Windows 95 until the
information gathering features of the 'Registration Wizard' are
disabled or modified" 
( Ralph Nader on Windows 95 Problems).

Microsoft has responded with a white-paper clarification ( Microsoft
on Windows 95 Online Registration Wizard) which acknowledges that the 
Win95 Registration Wizard (RegWiz) collects the names of applications, 
but which also points out that the user must explicitly consent before 
this information is sent via modem to MSN, and that the information can 
be viewed in the file REGINFO.TXT.

But while the Microsoft clarification states that RegWiz "is simply
an electronic version of the paper-based registration card," this
appears not to be true. RegWiz's apparent ability to sniff out 
what applications you have is not matched by the printed registration
card, which merely asks for general information on the sorts of
software you use with your computer ("Reference & Education",
"Games & Entertainment", "Personal Finance/Organizer", etc.).

To see exactly what happens during Windows 95 "Online Registration,"
I used a utility called FILEMON (File Monitor), by Stan Mitchell, 
"Monitoring Windows 95 File Activity in Ring 0," 
Windows/DOS Developer's Journal,
July 1995, pp. 6-24. Mitchell is writing a book on the Windows 95
file system, to be published by O'Reilly & Associates in 1996.

(Click here to download filemon.zip, which includes filemon.exe, 
dynamically-loadable filemon.vxd, all source code, plus a 
regwiz.log file created while running the Registration
Wizard under FILEMON. This is a NEW version of FILEMON,
updated October 12, 1995.)

FILEMON lets you completely monitor all file-system activity under
Windows 95. This makes it perfect for getting to the bottom of the
the rumors that have been circulating about RegWiz.

What FILEMON reveals is that RegWiz, far from conducting an indiscriminate
search of a user's hard disk, instead searches for about 100 specific
applications, both from Microsoft and its competitors.

RegWiz is launched by clicking the "Online Registration" button in
WELCOME.EXE, which is a small program that provides the initial
"Welcome to Windows 95" tips and options.  Clicking "Online Registration"
launches a program named \WINDOWS\SYSTEM\REGWIZ.EXE (the full
command line is "regwiz -i Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion"). 
Neither WELCOME nor REGWIZ are necessary for running Win95.

REGWIZ.EXE in turn loads a dynamic-link library,
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\PRODINV.DLL. This is the "Product Inventory DLL,"
normally used for compliance checking of upgrades to Microsoft Office
programs such as WinWord. (In fact, PRODINV.DLL's internal module
name is "COMPLINC," for "compliance checking.") Of course, when you
buy the upgrade edition of something like WinWord, there needs to be
a mechanism to check that in fact you really are upgrading from some 
previous word processor -- be it a previous version of WinWord, or a
competitor's word processor, such as AmiPro or WordPerfect. So
there's an encrypted database (the reasons for this encryption
are discussed below) inside PRODINV of about 100 products,
indicating that if a given EXE of a given size range is found within
a given subdirectory, then you've got a given product, and are
entitled to the reduced-price upgrade.

Examining the file PRODINV.DLL turns up some intriguing-sounding
strings, such as "Registry Search", "INI File Search", "Big Search",
and "Hard Disk Search". The DLL exports a function called
"RegProductSearch," which is called by REGWIZ.EXE.

Examining the file REGWIZ.EXE turns up the names of the people
who worked on it:

- Software development: Tracy Ferrier
- Program management: David Gonzalez, Peggy Angevine
- Quality assurance: Sharmilli Ghosh
- Special thanks to: Evelyn and Lauren

 
RegWiz will list up to twelve applications that a user owns; these
are stored in the text file REGINFO.TXT and in the registry, and are
uploaded to Microsoft (along with the rest of the registration 
information) via MSN. The product inventory section of one REGINFO.TXT
might look like this:

Product Inventory 1 = Microsoft Word for Windows
Product Inventory 2 = Personal Oracle 7
Product Inventory 3 = Borland C++ for Windows
Product Inventory 4 = Microsoft Visual C++ 
Product Inventory 5 = Putt Putt
Product Inventory 6 = Treehouse
Product Inventory 7 = Lotus Notes
Product Inventory 8 = CompuServe
Product Inventory 9 = 
Product Inventory 10 = 
Product Inventory 11 = 
Product Inventory 12 = 

It's worth noting that the sample "Product Inventory" screen in 
Microsoft's white-paper clarification shows only Microsoft programs.
But the upset generated by RegWiz has been due, of course, to its
collection of information regarding non-Microsoft programs.

The applications in which RegWiz takes an interest are as follows
(the names come directly from the PRODINV product inventory):

Applications Detected by Win95 Registration Wizard
3-D Dinosaur Adventure                  Aldus Pagemaker for Windows
Aldus Persuasion                        America On-line
AmiPro for Windows                      Approach for Windows 
Bookshelf 94 for Windows                Borland C++ for Windows
Borland Dbase                           Borland Delphi
Borland Paradox for DOS                 Borland Paradox for Windows
CA - Visual Objects                     Charisma 
Charisma for Windows                    Clipper
Complete Baseball for Windows           Comptons Multimedia Encyclopedia 
CompuServe                              Corel Draw for Windows
Crayola Art Studio                      Creative Writer
Creative Writer - Ghost Mysteries       DataEase 
DataEase for Windows                    dBase for Windows
Director's Lab DOS                      Encarta
Fine Artist                             Flight Simulator 
FoxPro for DOS                          FoxPro for Windows - Standard
Freddi Fish                             Gupta SQL Windows
Harvard Graphics                        Haunted House
Internet In A Box                       Kid Pix DOS
Kid Pix WIN                             Lion King Print Studio
Lion King Story Book                    Lotus 123 for Windows
Lotus Notes                             Lotus123 for DOS 
Mathblaster Episode 1                   Mathblaster Episode 2
Microsoft Access Developers Toolkit     Microsoft Access for Windows 
Microsoft Access Upsizing Tool          Microsoft Encarta '95
Microsoft Excel for Windows             Microsoft Money
Microsoft Office for Windows            Microsoft Powerpoint for Windows 
Microsoft Project for Windows           Microsoft Publisher
Microsoft Visual Basic Professional     Microsoft Visual C++ 
Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows     Microsoft Word for DOS
Microsoft Word for Windows              Microsoft Works for Windows
Mind Your Money                         Money
MSB - Human Body                        MSB - Solar
My First Encyclopedia                   NCSA Mosaic for Windows
Oregon Trail                            Oregon Trail 2
Personal Oracle 7                       PGA Tour 486 
Playroom                                PowerBuilder Enterprise 4 for NT 
PowerBuilder Enterprise 4 for Windows   PowerPlus
Print Shop Deluxe for Windows           Prodigy
Putt Putt                               Quattro Pro for DOS
Quattro Pro for Windows                 Quick C for Windows
Quicken for Windows                     Rabbit Ears - Leopard
Reader Rabbit 1                         Reader Rabbit 2
Relentless                              Scenes
Spider Man Cartoon Maker                SuperBase
Treehouse                               Turbo Pascal for Windows 
Where in Space is Carmen San Diego      Where in the USA is Carmen
Where in the World is Carmen San Diego  Wine Guide
WordPerfect for DOS                     WordPerfect for DOS
WordPerfect for Windows

While there are many Microsoft applications listed here, note that
there are also many from other vendors. Some major commercial
applications, such as Lotus Freelance Graphics, do not appear on
the list, while many programs for children, such as Treehouse and
Reader Rabbit, are included.

Given that RegWiz ships this information over the Microsoft Network
(MSN), it's interesting to note that RegWiz checks for the major
online services that compete with MSN, such as America On-line,
CompuServe, and Prodigy. Two Internet-related products, NCSA Mosaic
for Windows and Internet in a Box, appear on the list, but Netscape
does not.

It is a somewhat random collection of applications in which RegWiz
takes an interest. It's worth noting, for example, that the list of
applications known to WINBUG.DAT (part of the Win95 bug-reporting
program) is quite different.

Most striking, of course, is the presence of many non-Microsoft
productivity applications, such as AmiPro for Windows, Borland Dbase,
Borland Paradox, Gupta SQL Windows, Lotus Notes, Lotus 123, 
Personal Oracle 7, Quattro Pro, and WordPerfect.

Is all this a cause for concern? After all, as Microsoft points out,
the user must explicitly allow RegWiz to upload this information to
Microsoft. The user can choose not to run Online Registration at all.
They can, without any harm to Win95, delete REGWIZ.EXE and even
WELCOME.EXE.

But what is a Microsoft Office upgrade mechanism doing as part of the
operating system's online registration? Why is the operating system
being used to collect customer lists and/or statistical information
on applications that compete with those from Microsoft? The
Registration Wizard appears to be yet another case in which Microsoft
has blurred the distinction (whatever distinction remains) between its
applications and operating-system divisions. Were I a Microsoft
competitor whose product appeared in the encrypted PRODINV database,
I wouldn't be happy with Microsoft acquiring (for free)
a good chunk of my customer list, via online registration for Windows
95, which is supposed to be a platform supporting my product. 
 
So, it's not really an invasion of privacy issue, but is very
possibly an anti-competitive problem: Microsoft is using its control
over the operating system to gain information about applications that
compete with its own applications.
 
How does PRODINV determine that you have one or more of the products
in its encrypted database? Running the FILEMON utility alongside
RegWiz revealed that a large number of directory names were being
checked. The output from FILEMON looks like this (... indicates 
lines removed for brevity):

Extract from FILEMON Output
 031         Open   C:\WINDOWS\WELCOME.EXE
...
 058         Open   C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\REGWIZ.EXE
...
 080         Open   C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\PRODINV.DLL
...
 136 e  GetAttrib   K:\MSOFFICE\ACCESS
 137 e  GetAttrib   K:\ACCESS
 138 e  GetAttrib   K:\MSOFFICE\ACCESS
 139 e  GetAttrib   K:\WORLDMPC
 140 e  GetAttrib   K:\SPACE
 141 e  GetAttrib   K:\CAVO
 142 e  GetAttrib   K:\DBASEWIN\BIN
 143 e  GetAttrib   K:\DELPHI
 144 e  GetAttrib   K:\DELPHI\BIN
 145 e  GetAttrib   K:\DISNEY\LKASB
 146 e  GetAttrib   K:\LKSTUDIO
 147 e  GetAttrib   K:\MYMWIN2
 148 e  GetAttrib   K:\ORAWIN\BIN
 149 e  GetAttrib   K:\PB4
 150 e  GetAttrib   K:\PB4NT
 151 e  GetAttrib   K:\TLC\RR1
...
 180 e  GetAttrib   C:\AOL20
 181 e  GetAttrib   C:\WAOL
 182 e  GetAttrib   C:\BC4
 183 e  GetAttrib   C:\CSERVE
 184 e  GetAttrib   C:\AMIPRO
 185 e  GetAttrib   C:\PRODIGY
 186 e  GetAttrib   C:\ALDUS
 187 e  GetAttrib   C:\IBOX
 188 e  GetAttrib   C:\DBASE
 189 e  GetAttrib   C:\DBASE
 190 e  GetAttrib   C:\PDOXWIN
...
 032 e  GetAttrib   C:\KA\TREE
 033 e  GetAttrib   C:\TREEHSE
...

Simplifying the FILEMON output, here is a complete list of the
directories for which RegWiz (actually, the ProdInv "product inventory"
module) searches:
Directories Scanned by Win95 "Product Inventory"
\123R4D            \123R4W            \ACCESS            \ALDUS
\AMIPRO            \AOL20             \APPROACH          \BASEBALL
\BC4               \BS                \CAVO              \CHARISMA
\CIE               \CLIPPER5\BIN      \CLIPPER5\LIB      \CRAYOLA
\CSERVE            \DBASE             \DBASEWIN\BIN      \DEASE
\DELPHI            \DELPHI\BIN        \DEWIN             \DINO3D
\DISNEY\LKASB      \ENCARTA           \EXCEL             \FLTSIM5
\FOXPRO2           \FOXPROW           \FPW26             \GUPTA
\HG                \HG3               \HGW               \IBOX
\KA\SPIDERCM       \KA\TREE           \KIDPIX            \LKSTUDIO
\LOSTCITY          \MBWINCD           \MECC\OTII         \MOSAIC
\MSKIDS            \MSKIDS\LEAOPARD   \MSMONEY           \MSOFFICE
\MSOFFICE\ACCESS   \MSOFFICE\SETUP    \MSPUB             \MSTOOLS
\MSTOOLS\C\DLAB    \MSVC20\BIN        \MSWINE            \MSWORKS
\MYMWIN2           \NOTES             \OFFICE\WPWIN      \ORAWIN\BIN
\OTWIN             \PB4               \PB4NT             \PDOX45
\PDOXWIN           \PERSUASI          \PGA486            \PLAYWRLD
\POWERPNT          \PRODIGY           \PROJ              \PSDWIN
\PUTTPUTT          \PWPLUS            \QCWIN             \QPRO
\QPW               \QUICKENW          \RELENT            \SB4W
\SCENES            \SPACE             \TLCWIN\RR2WIN     \TLC\RR1
\TPW               \TREEHSE           \VB                \VFP
\WAOL              \WINDOWS           \WINDOWS\CHARISMA  \WINDOWS\CORELDRW
\WINPROJ           \WINWORD           \WINWORD\C\DLAB    \WORD
\WORKS             \WORLDMPC          \WP                \WP50
\WP51              \WP60              \WPWIN             \WPWIN60

If these directories actually existed, it makes sense that RegWiz
would start looking for specific files within these directories. So
the next step was to write a batch file which created all these
directories, and then rerun RegWiz alongside FILEMON. Now FILEMON
revealed RegWiz searching for specific files within directories. For
example:

Extract from FILEMON Output (2)
085 e    FndOpen   E:\AOL20\WAOL.EXE
086    GetAttrib   E:\WAOL
087 e    FndOpen   E:\WAOL\WAOL.EXE
088    GetAttrib   E:\BC4
089 e    FndOpen   E:\BC4\BCW.EXE
090    GetAttrib   E:\CSERVE
091 e    FndOpen   E:\CSERVE\WINCIM.EXE
092    GetAttrib   E:\AMIPRO
093 e    FndOpen   E:\AMIPRO\AMIPRO.EXE
094    GetAttrib   E:\PRODIGY
095 e    FndOpen   E:\PRODIGY\PRODIGY.EXE
096    GetAttrib   E:\ALDUS
097 e    FndOpen   E:\ALDUS\ALDSETUP.EXE
098    GetAttrib   E:\IBOX
099 e    FndOpen   E:\IBOX\AIRMOS.EXE
100    GetAttrib   E:\DBASE
101 e    FndOpen   E:\DBASE\DBASE.EXE
...

Extracting filenames from the FILEMON output and sorting them,
yielded the following list of filenames in which RegWiz (again,
actually the Win95 PRODINV.DLL "product inventory" module) takes a
direct interest:

Files Scanned by Win95 "Product Inventory"
\123R4D\123.EXE                 \123R4W\123W.EXE
\ACCESS\SCWIZ.DLL               \ACCESS\SETUPWIZ.MDB
\ACCESS\SWU2016.DLL             \ACCESS\WZCS.MDA
\ALDUS\ALDSETUP.EXE             \ALDUS\PR2.EXE
\AMIPRO\AMIPRO.EXE              \AOL20\WAOL.EXE
\APPROACH\APPROACH.EXE          \BASEBALL\BASEBALL.EXE
\BC4\BCW.EXE                    \BS\BS94.EXE
\CAVO\CAVO.EXE                  \CHARISMA\CHARISMA.BIN
\CHARISMA\CHARISMA.EXE          \CIE\CIE.EXE
\CLIPPER5\BIN\CLIPPER.EXE       \CLIPPER5\LIB\CLIPPER.LIB
\CRAYOLA\STUDIO.EXE             \CSERVE\WINCIM.EXE
\DBASEWIN\BIN\DBASEWIN.EXE      \DBASE\DBASE.EXE
\DBASE\DBASEIV.ICO              \DEASE\DE16M.EXE
\DEASE\DEASE.EXE                \DELPHI\BIN\DELPHI.EXE
\DELPHI\DELPHI.EXE              \DEWIN\DEWIN.EXE
\DINO3D\KAWIN.EXE               \DISNEY\LKASB\LIONKING.EXE
\ENCARTA\ENCART95               \EXCEL\EXCEL.EXE
\FLTSIM5\FS5.COM                \FOXPRO2\FOXPRO.EXE
\FOXPRO2\FOXPROX.EXE            \FOXPROW\FOXPROW.EXE
\FPW26\FOXPROW.EXE              \GUPTA\C\DLAB
\GUPTA\SQLWIN50.EXE             \HG3\HG3.EXE
\HGW\HG20.EXE                   \HGW\HGW.EXE
\HGW\HGW1.DLL                   \HGW\HGW2.DLL
\HGW\HGW20.EXE                  \HGW\HGW2EXP.DLL
\HGW\HGW3.DLL                   \HGW\HGW4.DLL
\HGW\HGWPLAY.EXE                \HG\HG.EXE
\IBOX\AIRMOS.EXE                \KA\SPIDERCM\SPIDERCM.EXE
\KA\TREE\TREE.EXE               \KIDPIX\KIDPIX.EXE
\KIDPIX\KPWIN.EXE               \LKSTUDIO\LIONKING.EXE
\LOSTCITY\LOSTCITY.EXE          \MAIN123W.EXE
\MBWINCD\MB4.INI                \MECC\OTII\OTIILB.EXE
\MOSAIC\MOSAIC.EXE              \MSKIDS\ARTIST.EXE
\MSKIDS\GWICON.IC               \MSKIDS\HHOUSE.ICO
\MSKIDS\LEAOPARD\LEOPARD.EXE    \MSKIDS\MSBHUMAN.EXE
\MSKIDS\MSBSOLAR.EXE            \MSKIDS\WRITER.EXE
\MSMONEY\MSMONEY.EXE            \MSOFFICE\ACCESS\SCWIZ.DLL
\MSOFFICE\ACCESS\SETUPWIZ.MDB   \MSOFFICE\ACCESS\SWU2016.DLL
\MSOFFICE\ACCESS\WZCS.MDA       \MSOFFICE\MSOFFICE.EXE
\MSOFFICE\SETUP\OFF40_BB.DL_    \MSOFFICE\SETUP\OFF42_BB.DL_
\MSOFFICE\WINWORD\WINWORD.EXE   \MSPUB\MSPUB.EXE
\MSTOOLS\WORD.COM               \MSVC20\BIN\MSVC.EXE
\MSWINE\WINEGDE.EXE             \MSWORKS\MSWORKS.EXE
\MYMWIN2\MYMWIN.EXE             \OFFICE\WPWIN\WPWIN.EXE
\OFFICE\WPWIN\WPWIN61.EXE       \ORAWIN\BIN\ORAINST.EXE
\OTWIN\OREGON.EXE               \PB4NT\PB040.EXE
\PB4\PB040.EXE                  \PDOX45\PARADOX.AUX
\PDOXWIN\PDOXWIN.EXE            \PERSUASI\(C)ALDUS.'92
\PERSUASI\PR2.EXE               \PGA486\PGA486.COM
\PLAYWRLD\PLAYROOM.EXE          \POWERPNT\POWERPNT.DLL
\POWERPNT\POWERPNT.EXE          \PRODIGY\PRODIGY.EXE
\PSDWIN\PSDWIN.EXE              \PUTTPUTT\PUTTPUTT.INI
\PWPLUS\PWPLUS.EXE              \QCWIN\QCWIN.EXE
\QPRO\Q.EXE                     \RELENT\RELENT.EXE
\SB4W\SB4W.EXE                  \SCENES\SCENES.EXE
\SPACE\CARMEN.EXE               \TLCWIN\RR2WIN\RR2WIN.EXE
\TLC\RR1\RR1.EXE                \TPW\TPW.EXE
\TREEHSE\TREEHSE.EXE            \VB\VB.EXE
\VFP\VFP.EXE                    \WAOL\WAOL.EXE
\WIN95\LOTUS.INI                \WINDOWS\CHARISMA\CHARISMA.EXE
\WINDOWS\CORELDRW\CORELDRW.EXE  \WINDOWS\HEGAMES.INI
\WINWORD\WORD.COM               \WORD.EXE
\WORD\WORD.EXE                  \WORKS\WORKS.EXE
\WORLDMPC\CARMEN.EXE            \WP50\WP.EXE
\WP51\WP.EXE                    \WP60\WP.EXE
\WPWIN60\WPWIN.EXE              \WPWIN\WPWIN.EXE
\WP\WP.EXE

This list should lay to rest the idea that RegWiz scans your entire
hard disk. On the contrary, it has specific things it is looking for.
Indeed, the list is so specific that one might ask what happens when
a user installs product in a directory other than the vendors'
recommended directory: how then would RegWiz find it? We'll get to
that later. For now, the important thing is that RegWiz (via PRODINV)
does not do an indiscriminate search of your hard disk, but has
specific targets in mind.

The next obvious step was to try to create some of these files, and see
if RegWiz decided that I now had a given product. However, creating
dummy (0-byte) files with the correct names, or files with
arbitrarily-chosen contents but with the correct names, did not
induce RegWiz to believe the corresponding product was installed.
Evidently, RegWiz needed something other than directory and file
names:  perhaps a file checksum, size, date, or a particular pattern
of bytes within the file.

To find how RegWiz (ProdInv, actually) was deciding that a user had a
product, I needed to find where it kept information associating
directory/file names with product names. However, a full search of
my hard disk turned up no occurrences of strings such as "TREEHSE"
or "TREEHSE.EXE" or "CARMEN.EXE", aside from the ones that showed up
in the FILEMON logs.

Evidently, then, the actual "product inventory" is kept on disk
in compressed and/or encrypted form, and is de-encrypted in memory
only when PRODINV is loaded.

The next step was to run RegWiz under the Soft-ICE Windows debugger
(Nu-Mega
Technologies), and stop the program when it is calling the
operating-system functions that search for directories and files.
The key such function is FindFirstFileA, provided by KERNEL32.DLL. I
set a debugger "breakpoint" on this function, ran RegWiz, and clicked
"Online Registration."

Sure enough, I could see passing in the names of the directories and
files that showed up in the FILEMON output. I was then able to "walk
back" to the place from where FindFirstFileA was being called: it
turned out, not surprisingly, to be inside PRODINV.DLL. From there,
I had to step back again to see from where these names were coming.
I finally located a buffer in memory that looked like this:

Debugger Hex Dump of PRODINV Product Inventory 
Break Due to BPMB #013F:009AFA0C W DR3 C=01
:d eax
013F:004436C5 77 6F 72 64 2E 63 6F 6D-2C 5C 77 69 6E 77 6F 72 word.com,\winwor
013F:004436D5 64 2C 31 35 30 30 2C 39-30 30 30 30 2C 33 30 3A d,1500,90000,30:
013F:004436E5 4D 69 63 72 6F 73 6F 66-74 20 57 6F 72 64 20 66 Microsoft Word f
013F:004436F5 6F 72 20 44 4F 53 09 0A-77 6F 72 64 2E 63 6F 6D or DOS..word.com
013F:00443705 2C 5C 77 69 6E 77 6F 72-64 2C 31 35 30 30 2C 39 ,\winword,1500,9
013F:00443715 30 30 30 30 2C 33 30 3A-4D 69 63 72 6F 73 6F 66 0000,30:Microsof
013F:00443725 74 20 57 6F 72 64 20 66-6F 72 20 44 4F 53 09 0A t Word for DOS..

At this point, it was trivial to locate the beginning and end of the buffer,
and write it to disk. (Recall that the database is stored on disk in
encrypted form; this is why a search of the entire hard disk did not find
it.) Here are some selected portions of the PRODINV product inventory:

PRODINV Product Inventory: Extracts
winword6.ini,Microsoft Word,programdir,1,winword.exe,3000000,4000000,2:Microsoft 
Word for Windows 
win.ini,embedding,Word.Document.6,3,,3000000,4000000,2:Microsoft Word for Windows
 
win.ini,Microsoft Word 2.0,programdir,1,winword.exe,1000000,2000000,2:Microsoft W
ord for Windows  
win.ini,embedding,WPWin6.0,3,,10000,25000,3:WordPerfect for Windows 
lotus.ini,Lotus Applications,amipro,1,amipro.exe,1000000,1500000,20:AmiPro for 
Windows 
win.ini,AmiPro,dictionary,1,amipro.exe,1000000,1200000,20:AmiPro for Windows 
win.ini,extensions,nsf,1,notes.exe,,,43:Lotus Notes 
...
waol.exe,\aol20,12000,15000,54:America On-line  
waol.exe,\waol,12000,15000,54:America On-line   
bcw.exe,\bc4,850000,920000,45:Borland C++ for Windows   
wincim.exe,\cserve,850000,890000,56:CompuServe  
amipro.exe,\amipro,700000,2000000,20:AmiPro for Windows 
prodigy.exe,\prodigy,550000,560000,57:Prodigy   
aldsetup.exe,\aldus,280000,290000,46:Aldus Pagemaker for Windows    
airmos.exe,\ibox,600000,650000,75:Internet In A Box 
dbase.exe,\dbase,0,500000,21:Borland Dbase  
dbaseiv.ico,\dbase,0,2000,21:Borland Dbase
...

The first set of entries reference .INI (initialization) files, which
in turn reference file and/or directory names. For example, 
"win.ini,embedding,WPWin6.0,3,,10000,25000,3:WordPerfect for 
Windows" means to look
for a WPWin6.0= entry in the [embedding] section of WIN.INI, and to treat the
third comma-delimited field as a full directory/filename. If that file is
between 10,000 and 25,000 bytes, RegWiz decides you have WordPerfect for
Windows. Thus, the following WIN.INI entry:

[embedding] 
WPWin6.0=foo,foo,C:\FOO\FOOBISH.EXE,foo

along with a file named C:\FOO\FOOBISH.EXE, whose size is between 10-25,000
bytes, will trigger RegWiz to display "WordPerfect for Windows" as one of
the products on the user's machine.  The use of .INI files allows RegWiz to
detect some applications installed in non-standard directories.

However, the bulk of the product inventory directly references
directory and file names, without an intermediary .INI file. For
example, the last two entry shown above indicate that, if a user has
\DBASE\DBASE.EXE (size anywhere from 0 to 500,000 bytes) or if
they have \DBASE\DBASEIV.ICO (size anywhere from 0 to 2,000 bytes),
then they have product #21, "Borland Dbase."

So why is the PRODINV "product inventory" encrypted? I suspect
because it was originally written for Microsoft Office. A
nearly-identical module named OFF95INV.DLL comes with Office 95;
WRD95INV.DLL comes with WinWord. (It's worth noting that the actual
encrypted "product inventory" for these modules is quite different
from the one in Win95. For example, OFF95INV.DLL will look for Lotus
Freelance for Windows. A list of the products for which OFF95INV.DLL
will search can be found on the side of the Office 95 box.) The
database is encrypted because otherwise it would be trivial to fool
this "wizard" (hmm...; examination of RegWiz/ProdInv shows it to be
anything but wizardly) simply by creating an appropriately-sized file
with the appropriate name in the appropriate subdirectory.

This makes perfect sense for application upgrades. But does it make
sense for the operating system's online registration?

Microsoft's white-paper clarifications says: "Registration enables
Microsoft to send information about Microsoft programs that are
tailored for users needs and interests." While there is nothing wrong
in Microsoft seeking to interest WordPerfect or AmiPro users in
Microsoft Word, surely they could find a more appropriate venue in
which to do so than the online registration of Windows itself, which
is supposed to support all applications, not just those from
Microsoft.

The O'Reilly Windows Center 

Unauthorized Windows 95 Update 

