There Is a Good Reason to Get Vista SP1

Microsoft plans to do away with that nasty 30-day off switch. Maybe some IT organizations should rejoice and take a few darts out of their pictures of Bill Gates.

But there's a catch: The visual indications that Windows is counterfeit will be a whole lot more obvious—and in the end user's face. Also, Microsoft isn't doing away with that pesky re-validation requirement. Many enterprises will still need to maintain activation servers so that volume-licensing keys can be revalidated. Nutshell: Businesses won't get out of having their employees re-validate software on 180-day cycles. Consumers will revalidate whenever downloading Microsoft software.

Microsoft will introduce the anti-piracy mechanism changes with Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

Caveats aside, the off-switch turn off removes a potential IT headache: Unvalidated Vista copies shutting down within 30 days when not reactivated. The new visual cue also will be a stark reminder to employees that they must re-validate their copy of Windows Vista..

The changes men that Microsoft's anti-piracy notices will be much more in end users' faces, so to speak. From the 31st day after failing to activate or validate, "There will be a plain black background and a message in the lower right hand corner over the system tray telling them that their copy of Windows is not genuine," Alex Kochis, Microsoft's group product manager for Windows Genuine Advantage, told my eWEEK colleague Peter Galli. End users will get hourly notices that their software needs to be activated. If they changed the desktop background color, Vista will revert to black.

Microsoft might as well have used a skull and cross bones. Who knows, maybe Microsoft will yet make Vista popular. How about a Gothic Windows fad, where black-and-white backgrounds on unactivated Vistas are the poster-child protest against DRM?

Microsoft claims that the 30-day change is coming because enterprises complained that the feature targets consumers and small businesses. I don't see that. Microsoft's big piracy problem: Leaked volume-licensing keys. It's why Microsoft put the burden of 180-day revalidation on businesses. If a key is leaked, Microsoft can invalidate it. Consumers and small business activate Vista once. The process is ongoing for enterprises.

Way I see it: Microsoft is responding to enterprise complaints about the off-switch, and the company is feeling generous because Vista activation is working. My sources tell me that the early piracy reduction numbers are so significant, even some Microsoft executives can't believe they're true. Fifty-percent reduction is the number I heard from some Microsoft elves (they escaped from Santa's workshop).

Number that high is somewhat unbelievable. Absolutely, Vista's tougher Windows Genuine mechanisms could be working better. Or, maybe, pirates favor Windows XP because it's easier to pirate and more people want the older operating system. The truth lies somewhere between, methinks. XP is more popular, and 180-day volume-license key revalidation is reducing the number of pirated keys.

source: microsoft-watch.com

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