Windows 7 Anti-Piracy Plans

Slatterz writes "Microsoft has announced that the forthcoming Windows 7 operating system will contain a number of piracy 'tweaks' it says are designed to protect the interests of customers. Under the new regime users will be expected to validate their software in a much more precise way than before. Other Microsoft operating systems and anti-piracy measures, including Windows Genuine Advantage, allowed users to delay 'activation,' but Windows 7 will make it harder to ignore repeated messages. According to Joe Williams, general manager for Worldwide Genuine Windows at Microsoft, counterfeit software 'delivers a poor experience and impacts customer satisfaction with our products, particularly if users do not know that their software is non-genuine.' Williams gave the example of one piracy exploit that caused more than a million reported system crashes on machines running non-genuine Windows Vista before Microsoft was able to resolve it."

Comments

So what did they do?

[harris s newman]

"Williams gave the example of one piracy exploit that caused more than a million reported system crashes on machines running non-genuine Windows Vista before Microsoft was able to resolve it" I assume they formatted the disk and installed Ubuntu on the system.

Re:Really?

[0racle]

The only answer is that they think the customers won't care, because the customers will not be disadvantaged by using non-genuine Windows.

And they're right. Without any consequences, everyone would just continue using their pirated Windows without paying MS a dime. Until MS gives Windows away, they are entitled to whatever they will charge for it if you want to use it. Until you pay, you are not entitled to use it at all.

Re:Hasn't MS learned *anything* over the years?

[requiemnoise]

I hope it was the same time you tried to make love to a girl.

Re:I Hope They Get Anti-Piracy to Work This Time

[rant64]

You must have used a retail disc on an OEM product key, or a generic OEM install disc on a DELL/HP/whatever branded OEM product key. Yeah, those are different. The activation challenge is not "25 sets of 5 random characters", it's 30 characters. Learn how to spell, it's a useful skill, and not just to activate XP. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet

So, instead of trolling, you could also consider phone activation to be a service for [expletive] who lose the recovery media that came with their computer, or didn't bother do make any.