In an interview published on the 4th of December on Microsoft's corporate website, Mike Sievert, Corporate Vice President, Windows Product Marketing, disclosed some information about Vista SP1 anti piracy features.
Microsoft will make life for counterfeiters more difficult by closing two known exploits which were used by pirates.
Sievert added that the first exploit is known as the OEM Bios exploit, which involves modifying system files and the BIOS of the motherboard to mimic a type of product activation performed on copies of Windows that are pre-installed by OEMs in the factory.
The other one is called the Grace Timer exploit and attempts to reset the “grace time” limit between installation and activation to something like the year 2099 in some cases.
PCs with pirated copies will get regular messages telling them that their operating system is illegal. Unlike previous versions of Windows (including the original version of Vista), there will be no reduced functionality mode.
However Sievert was quick to point out that all installations of Windows Vista need to be activated and that the system will continue to validate on a regular basis to make sure that the products are properly activated.
Microsoft has already applied the same process to the Windows XP Platform whereby a Genuine Validation application is downloaded and runs to check whether the operating system is genuine or not.
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