Microsoft takes to nagging pirates

Used to be, if you pirated a copy of Windows Vista and Microsoft found out about it through its Windows Genuine Advantage system, the company would shut everything down but your browser until you made things right. When Redmond releases Vista's first service pack, though, WGA will leave Vista's functionality intact and merely nag the user if piracy is detected. It also cuts off a few known pirate tricks.

Rather than disabling Vista's features, Microsoft will set the OS on nag mode when WGA determines that a user's software is not the genuine article.

"With SP1, we're adjusting the customer experience that differentiates genuine from non-genuine systems in Windows Vista and later in Windows Server," said Michael Sievert, corporate vice president of Windows product marketing.

"Users whose systems are identified as counterfeit will be presented with clear and recurring notices about the status of their system and how to get genuine. They won't lose access to functionality or features, but it will be very clear to them that their copy of Windows Vista is not genuine and they need to take action," he explained.

The new nagging method to be used in Windows Vista is the same way Microsoft chose to deal with counterfeit version of Windows XP when they were detected by WGA.

Read the full article here.