Wasn't product activation supposed to kill casual piracy once and for all? I'd be curious to see how effective it has been.

I'd like to see them lock out access to the pirated OS of these machines. Say, when you connect to MS Update with a pirated OS, you get the little product activation key who pops up and announces you have 30 days to go "genuine". Then you just contact the nice young man in Bangalore, who takes your credit card info and in return gives you a legitmate product key.

The Notifications app is deployed through Automatic Updates, the only channel through which pirates can currently get critical system patches from Microsoft.

WRONG!

1) Open up IE
2) Go to windows update (tools, windows update)
3) Before selecting custom update, paste this into your address bar
javascript:void(window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all')

4) Press enter
5) Proceed with windows update
6) Profit! (Be sure to click the box next to the Genuine Advantage Notifications Application that says, "Do not display this update again")

Kevin... whom?

Kevin... doom?

Shirley, you jest. ;)

Since Microsoft so obviously benefits from the poor pirating their software rather than going for alternatives, once they have the criminals identified and cornered, can they be sued for not taking action?

I sure hope Windows got extremely difficult/unfeasible to pirate safely.

Someone I know went to shanghai with his gf, and at the time saw her relatives. They bought him a laptop for practically no reason.

Turns out it had a dodgy copy of windows on it. I wanted to laugh :-D,
-Mole

Of course, I elected not to install this nagware. I saw it come up in my Autoupdate, and I said "yeah right.." and unchecked it.

but, has anyone come up with a script to uninstall this bitch?

Nothing by M$ is uninstallable......

"the only channel through which pirates can currently get critical system patches from Microsoft."

This is not true, they can download the patches/hotfixes without validation or from legit sources.

Considering how cheap a legitimate copy of the OS is, especially considering its value within a system (ie, your hardware and software require it to function), the idea that people would go to so much trouble to get bogus copies and then get "cracks" for this or that as needed to keep running--well, that strikes me as a whole lot of trouble with no pay off that I can see.

I mean, I paid $199 five years ago for my copy of XP Pro and Microsoft has supported it, improved it, and updated it ever since at no cost to me whatsoever. I can't think of another piece of hardware or software that I've owned as long and still use as regularly.

People are indeed strange, aren't they? They won't bat an eye at buying a $500 3d-card every two years or less, but they'll squawk and bitch and moan about paying $200 for an OS that will last them 2x-3x as long, and is the bedrock software supporting their entire system. Fact is, you can compute without a 3d card--but you can't do anything without an OS.

If you ask me, the real question is when will the pirates learn it doesn't pay to scrimp on *the* most fundamental piece of software you can own? I think they are very possibly cheating themselves more than Microsoft, and it's for sure they're having to do a lot more work than they'd have to do if they had sense enough to buy their OS software...;)

The majority of people buy their computers computers already pre-loaded with Windows. Piracy of Windows isn't what hurts their bottom line the most. It's the piracy of the rest of their software. Most notably MS Office.

I'm all for buying software if you use it regularly but prices need to come down a lot for that to ever become a reality for the masses. Yes, you can buy the student/teacher edition for $150. But even that for a student is expensive. Even then the licensing for it says that it cannot be used for commercial purposes. Then the next step up in price of non-upgrade versions is $400. That is a VERY steep level of entry if you've never previously had a version of Office. I'm talking retail copies here. I know the OEM versions are a bit cheaper but not by a whole lot.

I know it takes money to develop software but the industry as a whole is going to have to eventually come to the realization that they are the ones causing people to pirate software. They raise prices supposedly due to piracy and then more people are pirating their software and they're left wondering why. They just don't get it. They've totally thrown the law of supply and demand out the window (no pun intended). There really is high demand but the level for entry is set so high the majority of people can't reach it.

Unrealistic pricing is sinking them.

Two points:

1. This change was not meant to deter serious pirates. It's meant to deter casual pirates, and unscrupulous whitebox builders who pre-load pirated Windows onto customers' systems so they can either A) lower the overall price of the system so they can better compete with Dell, or B) make a little extra money by charging customers for Windows without actually having to buy it themselves.
*EDIT*: kaikara beat me to it :)

2. I just noticed a very nice change after installing this update -- I have Automatic Updates set to "Notify me when there's an update, but don't download or install without asking me first". Usually it nags me to download the update and then usually nags me to reboot after it's installed. But after installing this latest update, I noticed that it didn't nag me to reboot -- there is now a new option in the shutdown menu which will install the update for you as part of the shutdown process. Very nice... Microsoft actually fixed one of the most irritating things about Automatic Updates :)

This seems stupid. tech savy pirates will not be bothered by this and clueless casual pirates may already have a box so saturated with adware/spyware/viruses that they will not notice another popup.
I'm just waiting for it to start irritating legit users.

MS are truly clueless. When, EVER has a "nag" screen stopped pirates from continuing?

Pirates are happy enough to wriggle their way through sometimes hundreds of dead links, ignoring popus for gambling and porn knowing full well that the risk of a virus being attached to the crack is much higher than any other file.

"Please pay MS money, you are using this software illegally"
Oh, really? So I am....
(one search, download and click later and that message is banished until their next *ingenious* piracy deterrent is devised)

This is not news. This has been arround almost a year on Scandinavia.

to be honest, its kinda funny, about 3 mins after the update was out, a crack was out...
i really dont understand the point in this .