MS UK anti-piracy chief Julia Philpott however tells The Reg that corporate "worldwide fulfillment product" keys will not work with retail code.

It seemed to us that Microsoft is playing an extremely dangerous game here, so we asked about that this morning. The spokesman seemed to think that the universal key routine was a hack (but we hear just the key is needed, no hack). He pointed out, however, that all keys can eventually be cracked (which is the sense of putting in product activation, but if the key itself bypasses product activation...) and that Microsoft's objective was to get the small businesses who run unlicensed copies to pay up, rather than to clean up every last playground.