New Windows OS to include antipiracy features
Key features on unlicensed copies will be disabled
Microsoft Corp., the world's biggest software company, is adding technology to its Windows operating system software that prevents pirated copies from working properly, starting with the Vista version due out in November.
Failing to activate the software with a genuine product key within 30 days will cause the software to operate with ``reduced functionality," the Redmond, Wash., company said on its Web site.
Microsoft, whose Windows is one of the most widely pirated programs in the world, is trying to alert unsuspecting users of illegal software and punish those doing it intentionally. Software piracy cost the industry $46.4 billion in 2005, according to a study by the Washington, D.C.-based Business Software Alliance.
Microsoft will begin using a new set of technologies called the Software Protection Platform that deny users of pirated software access to features such as security protections and the new Vista design. The pirated software will display a message that ``this copy of Windows is not genuine" in the lower right-hand corner of the computer screen.
Vista is Microsoft's first new version of Windows since 2001.
