From Elizabeth Montalbano of IDG News Service:
Microsoft has updated software that verifies whether a copy of
Windows is genuine in its Windows XP Professional edition, making it
similar to the notification in Windows Vista and thus more persistently
visible to users.
In a blog posting attributed to Alex Kochis, a Microsoft director of
product marketing and management, the company said it made the changes
to the Windows Genuine Notification (WGA) alerts for XP Pro because it
is “the product edition that is most often stolen.”
Now when a version of Windows XP Pro is found to be pirated or
counterfeit, the next time a user logs on to the system, the desktop
screen background will be black, replacing whatever custom desktop may
have been set by the user. This will reappear every 60 minutes, even if
a user resets the screen’s background. Previously, this was not a part
of the WGA notification for Windows XP Pro.
Another new feature of the alert system is to put the PC into
“persistent desktop notification” mode, with a banner at the bottom of
the screen informing the user that the copy of Windows is not genuine.
The notification is translucent and users can interact with any objects
underneath it; however, it will continue to appear on the screen until
a user installs a genuine copy of Windows.
Microsoft said the update to WGA also simplifies the installation of
the alert system on Windows XP Pro. In addition, the company has
improved its ability to detect non-genuine copies of Windows.
Users have had mixed reactions to the WGA program, which Microsoft
launched two years ago as part of an aggressive program to eliminate
counterfeit and pirated versions of Windows. While some think it’s a
good way for Microsoft to prevent use of non-genuine Windows software,
others found the program irksome and an intrusion, particularly when it
would peg systems they knew to be genuine as pirated or counterfeit.
The program even at one point was thought to be acting like spyware
by sending information from people’s computers back to Microsoft.
However, Microsoft said it only provides information about whether the
copy of Windows is genuine, not any other information about the user or
the PC.
Microsoft first distributed WGA only to users of Microsoft’s
download services who wanted to install add-on software, excluding
security releases, for Windows XP. Eventually, it became an automatic
part of Microsoft’s update services and then was built directly into
Windows Vista as the company developed that OS.