Black screen of darkness to haunt Vista pirates

[neil053]

Black screen of darkness to haunt Vista pirates
Buy the software or suffer the consequences

September 11, 2007 (Computerworld Australia) -- Microsoft Windows' infamous "blue screen of death" has become synonymous with an operating system crash or freeze, but that's nothing compared with what users of pirated copies of Vista worldwide can expect from now -- a black screen of darkness.

In an e-mail to a large Windows Vista distributor titled "Pirated Vista -- A darkness descends!" -- a local Microsoft representative made it quite clear what Vista pirates can expect to happen to their unlicensed installations.

A copy of this e-mail was obtained by Computerworld.

"Good afternoon, as of this week, Microsoft has activated a function in Vista called 'Reduced Functionality.' This is a specific function in Vista that effectively disables nongenuine copies of Windows. Therefore anyone who has a pirated copy of Vista will experience:

A black screen after one hour of browsing
No start menu or task bar
No desktop

Please communicate this antipiracy initiative from Microsoft to your resellers -- note this function has only just been activated in Vista worldwide and therefore any issues with nongenuine versions will start to arise from now onward."

Microsoft's new tough antipiracy move also proves the company still controls its software releases with an iron fist, but it marks the first global use of heavy-handed tactics for pirated copies of Windows.

The e-mail message also included what resembled an advertisement of the new antipiracy initiative.

Titled "Don't let this happen to your customers," the advertisement indicates nongenuine copies of Windows Vista will lose access to key features, have limited access to updates, and thus risk attack from viruses, malware and spyware.

"If Windows Vista is not activated with a genuine product key, your customers will experience reduced functionality," according to the ad. "The blocking of nongenuine product keys is an ongoing process, not a one-time event. To help protect honest partners and fight piracy, Microsoft will continue to block product keys that are determined to be pirated, stolen or otherwise deemed nongenuine."

[Astral]

Another good post Neil, It doesn't matter what they do someone will find away around it. They are just wasting there time trying to stop it.
I must agree you should always buy your operating system, that way you will know its original and not modified in ways you don't want.

Plus I'm really NOT a fan of vista (operating system blister) , (yeah I know bad pun).

Vista does not run efficiently compared to other OS.

[Oceansoul]

I have no desire to update to Vista my nephew has Vista on his new laptop and he is very disapointed with it the lack of compatible games, software and all the glitches that come with running a new OS so its Vista for the bin and XP for me I wont be one of the many to have the experience the "black screen of death".
On that note I have heard a rumor that there will no longer be updates available for XP as of July does anyone know if there is any truth to that?

[neil053]

I am runnig Vista now and have been for a few months. it's a brilliant looking OS, lotsof nice things to look at and lots of new gadgets. I am going back to XP though as vista is so slow when compared to XP. You do need a powerful machine to get the best from it.

I think you are right ocean. I have seen on net that MS will stop updates for XP this year.

[neil053]

I used the vista upgrade advisor and it told me that i could run any version on my machine. I have a 3.2 cpu and 2gb RAM. I installed home premium and when running programmes found it to be sluggish. when compared to my other desktop when running the same processes i found the other one running xp was faster. For example convertnig video to dvd.

I agree vista is nice looking and lots of nice gadgets but you do need a big computer to run it.