Microsoft to lock pirates out of Vista PCs

Found on CNet News on Tuesday, 03 October 2006
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If Vista is not activated with a legitimate product registration key in time, the system will run in "reduced functionality mode" until it is activated, said Thomas Lindeman, a senior product manager at Microsoft.

Those who install Vista themselves, for example on existing PCs, will have a 30-day period to activate the operating system and validate with Microsoft that they have a legitimate license. "During those 30 days, you get warning messages, it counts down. During the last three days they get very frequent," Lindeman said.

"Piracy is one of the most significant problems facing the software industry," Hartje said. More than a third of all software installed last year was pirated or unlicensed, she said, citing figures from the Business Software Alliance, a software industry group.

New licensing systems will replace the current volume license keys, which have been widely abused, Hartje said. "Fifty percent of the piracy, we think, uses keys issued to volume licensing customers," she said.

Now that math is a bit too easy. Even if one third is pirated software, this cannot lead to the conclusion that companies would have made one third more money without piracy. If piracy wouldn't be possible, people would carefully think if they need a piece of software; and quite a few would decide to use free open source products which deliver the same functionality. Hartje's line shows how detailed the reports they have are: "we think".