What You Need to Know About Microsoft’s Antipiracy Efforts

It probably isn't news to you that Microsoft is seeking to recoup billions of dollars lost each year to software piracy. The software maker has spent a lot of time and effort over the past several years developing technologies to prevent software piracy, but until now those efforts have curtailed only casual piracy.

With Windows Vista and Longhorn Server, however, that's all going to change. Microsoft is going after enterprise software piracy for the first time, and it's organizing its efforts around a new antipiracy initiative consisting of programs and strategies such as Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), unique new schemes for limiting functionality in pirated software, and providing corporations with volume-license keys. In the future, no matter how you obtain Microsoft software, the company will have ways to keep you honest. Here's what you need to know about Microsoft's antipiracy efforts.

Reason, Rationale, and Method
As Microsoft likes to point out, software piracy is responsible for billions of dollars of lost revenue per year. Although it's impossible to gauge the precise amount of that loss, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) estimates that up to 35 percent of all software installed in 2006 was pirated or at least unlicensed.

It's understandable that even a company of Microsoft's steady financial gains has a fiscal imperative to rein in software piracy and further increase its revenues. But Microsoft has chosen to position its antipiracy efforts as a customer win rather than a self-serving corporate objective. According to Microsoft, counterfeit copies of Windows products often contain additional non-Microsoft code and can result in personal-or business-data loss and identity theft.

Whether this assertion is correct matters little. The reality is that Microsoft is attacking software piracy with a new zeal. Microsoft describes its antipiracy initiative as a three-pronged effort. The first prong is education: The company believes that more customers will purchase licensed products if they understand the legal implications of using pirated software. Microsoft is working with numerous industry associations, including the BSA, to promote its views.

Second, Microsoft is working with law enforcement agencies around the world to pursue large-scale software counterfeiters. Each quarter, it seems, the company is able to point to various legal actions taken against software pirates, and it has been using the information-collected from associated raids to develop forensic-data for use in future cases.

Third, Microsoft is pursuing a series of engineering initiatives to help combat piracy. These initiatives include edge-to-edge holographic media, WGA, and the new Software Protection Platform. Microsoft's biggest advances in antipiracy, naturally, are software-related, so let's take a look at the major changes you can expect in Vista and Longhorn Server.

Windows Genuine Advantage
WGA appeared in the wake of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) and became a mandatory download in July 2005. Users who want to download most XP-based software from Microsoft's corporate Web site and noncritical security updates and other software from Windows Update and Microsoft Update now must agree to install various WGA components on their desktops to ensure that the underlying Windows is genuine. When it is, the user will be able to download software from Microsoft.

If the Windows version is invalid, WGA displays messages indicating that the OS is suspected to be counterfeit and provides Microsoft links to help the user attempt to resolve the problem. Microsoft also limits the system to downloading only critical security updates through any of the company's software updating mechanisms.

Prior to Vista, WGA advertisements were an annoyance only. Aside from the downloading restrictions, users weren't limited in any way: They could run applications; open, save, and change data files; and access network resources normally. (Microsoft also launched Office Genuine Advantage, to help prevent piracy of the Microsoft Office productivity suite.)

In 2006, however, Microsoft began surreptitiously distributing the WGA software as a critical security update through Windows Update, Microsoft Update, and Automatic Updates, thus causing millions of customers around the world to unknowingly install WGA. Because of this tactic and the fact that WGA was silently uploading data from customer PCs to a Microsoft server, many analysts declared WGA to be spyware. As a result, Microsoft modified WGA to be less aggressive about collecting personal information. Given its poor reputation, many had hoped that WGA would be quietly exorcised from subsequent Windows versions. But instead, it's been significantly enhanced and will be included in Vista.