PCTips Box

With Windows XP, antipiracy measures were a bit of an afterthought. But with Windows Vista, Microsoft had pirates in its sights from the get-go. Even the unique Vista retail packaging–a plastic box with one round corner–was designed, in part, to thwart counterfeiters.

And the packaging is just the start; most of Microsoft’s antipiracy work is built-into the software itself, meaning that just copying the code and getting a product key isn’t enough. “It’s a different game for the counterfeiters,” Cori Hartje, director of Microsoft’s Genuine Software Initiative, said in an interview. “They’re having to resort to this full attack on the product.” (more…)