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A former Microsoft engineer has shared new details about the origins of the infamous 'FCKGW' Windows XP product key, one of the most widely pirated activation codes in software history. The engineer speculated that the key most plausibly leaked from an OEM or hardware partner that received final Windows XP media early in order to ship PCs on launch day. The leaked key became legendary in piracy circles, with copies distributed on forums, embedded in disc images, or simply scrawled onto burned CDs with a marker. The retrospective offers rare insight into a formative moment in software piracy history from someone close to Microsoft at the time.