Microsoft steps up anti-piracy checks in Vista

Microsoft is making changes on its automatic anti-piracy checks in Windows Vista. The company is also making it more difficult for hackers to bypass the system in the first service pack for the operating system (OS) due to be released in early 2008.

According to Microsoft Corporation, once Windows Vista Service Pack 1 – or, SP1 – is installed on a personal computer (PC), that computer will no longer go into limited functionality mode if a user or administrator fails to activate Vista on that system in 30 days, or if the system fails Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation.

The WGA checks to see if a version of Vista is pirated or counterfeit. And, in Windows Vista, WGA is called the Software Protection Program feature.

When the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is installed, instead of going into limited functionality mode, a version of Vista which has not been activated in 30 days will start up with a black screen and a dialogue box that gives users the choice of activating Vista now or later, said Alex Kochis, group product manager at Microsoft Corporation.

If users choose to activate vista, they will be led through the proper activation system. In case users choose to activate later, all the usual functions of Windows will be available, but with a black screen in the background instead of the customized background screen a user had set for the system.

After 60 minutes of use, a dialogue box will appear on the screen, reminding the user to activate Vista. In case the user has changed the black screen into a customized background, the background will be reset to black.

The experience, Alex Kochis added, would be similar for machines that fail the WGA validation, except that users would be reminded that their copy of Windows Vista is not valid and that they need to buy a valid copy of the operating system.

According to Kochis, it was feedback from business and enterprise customers that motivated Microsoft Corporation “to make the changes to the user experience.” “Many of these customers have been waiting until SP1 to upgrade to Vista, which means Microsoft has gotten their feedback on the Software Protection Program only recently,” said Kochis.

Business and enterprise customers were concerned about the idea that desktop computers in their organizations would cease to function in the usual way if a machine were not activated or validated properly, Kochis said.

Besides these “user-experience changes,” the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 will include code to take on OEM Bios and Grace Timer exploits, two of the most common hacker workarounds to the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) system.

The company admitted that many customers were unhappy with the way Vista’s Software Protection System and the compulsory WGA checks for XP worked since there were initially bugs in the systems that would make valid versions of the operating system appear invalid.

Hackers had devised ways to bypass the system “not only for nefarious purposes but also for users who were frustrated by system errors,” the company said.

Microsoft Corporation is also building a feature into SP1 that can find new hacks in counterfeit systems, and send out updates to Windows to stop new exploits before they can be used, said Kochis.

According to industry analysts, the pirating of the Windows operating system has been a perennial problem for Microsoft, particularly in developing countries where Windows is not affordable for most people. Microsoft Corporation and agencies that track piracy – like the Business Software Alliance – say that piracy is costing software vendors billions of dollars a year in revenue.