Genuine Windows Blog

It's been over three years since I first launched the Genuine Windows Blog, and a lot has changed in that relatively short time. Not only did we continue to release updates to our technology for Windows XP, we also introduced a new experience and technology...

Yesterday we were alerted to reports of a leak of a special product key issued to an OEM partner of ours. The key is for use with Windows 7 Ultimate RTM product that is meant to be pre-installed by the OEM on new PCs to be shipped later this year. As...

Now that the Windows 7 Beta and RC are out, and the official general availability date has been announced , it's a great time to talk about Windows activation and how it's going to work. For customers who are already familiar with activating Windows Vista...

As I write this post I'm about to depart China after a week of travelling through three cities and visiting with dozens of customers and partners and also locally based colleagues. While I was here our Beijing office announced a plan to work with the...

Just a quick follow up on my recent post about the Windows 7 RC being available over bittorrent sites but with malware embedded. There are now reports, such as this one from cnet , that the malware infected downloads were actually building a botnet. It...

In the last few days the Business Software Alliance has released the BSA Global Software Piracy Study for 2008 . The study establishes piracy rates for all packaged software products in over 100 countries. This year's results were mixed with over half...

Earlier today we posted on Microsoft's Press Pass site an interview with our group's General Manager, Joe Williams. In the interview he discusses our approach to anti-piracy in Windows 7. The full details can be found here ; but basically the interview...

Wow that was fast, though I don't suppose I should be surprised. Earlier this evening I visited the blog of a colleague of mine and saw in a post of his (thanks M3!) that leaked Windows 7 RC files that were obtained through bittorrent have been found...

Working on counterfeit and piracy issues at Microsoft for so many years now has given me a finely tuned ear for interesting piracy stories outside of software. On this note, there’s recently been quite a bit of chatter and news about Fox News columnist...

I pretty regularly see people in forums and blogs comment that DRM or anti-piracy technology doesn't work and does nothing but hurt the good paying customer. After years of developing and managing anti-piracy technology that protects Microsoft products...

Starting this week, we will begin deployment of the latest version of WGA Notifications for Windows XP. In addition to the usual updates to validation that improve WGA's ability to detect the latest stolen or fake product keys and other attempts to circumvent...

Last year around this time, I blogged about some changes for Windows Vista that were released with SP1 . These changes included an update for Windows Vista users which helps detect the presence of activation exploits, then alerts the customer (if affected...

In the last week or so I've received a few questions related to the product activation experinece in the Windows 7 Beta and what, if anything, changes now that Microsoft is no longer offering broadly new downloads of the beta. First, I would like to point...

Earlier today we rolled out an updated look and feel to the Genuine Microsoft Software Web site . I wanted to take a minute here to update you on what changed and what we have planned for future updates to the site. What changed? The new look and feel...

Recently, we launched a new design for the How to Tell Counterfeit Gallery . The design includes new navigation, is based on Microsoft Silverlight, and makes it easier to view the different categories of available counterfeit samples. The more that people...

Today Microsoft is posting a commissioned study conducted by The Harrison Group to determine whether there is a high correlation between the presence of unlicensed software in mid-market companies and IT related problems those companies might face. Not...

Starting this week, we will begin deployment of the latest version of WGA Notifications for Windows XP. In addition to the usual updates to validation that improve WGA's ability to detect the latest stolen or fake product keys and other attempts to circumvent...

I saw a recent DOJ case the other day that highlights the risks of buying counterfeit software. The DOJ press release (PDF link) says that the individual who sold the counterfeit software through online auctions also utilized a keylogger to capture account...

Back in December, I mentioned some changes were coming with WGA in Windows Vista. I want to say first that I'm excited about the step forward we're taking with SP1 and proud of the work that has gone into it. I'm excited both about the changes we've made...

I wanted to call out some work done by some colleagues of mine. A study was released yesterday about teenagers' opinions on illegal downloading. The study indicates only 11% of teens surveyed completely understood the rules about downloading from the...

Tonight we're announcing some new developments with WGA. The full story is here on our PressPass site where an interview with Mike Sievert, our VP of Windows Marketing, was posted earlier this evening. Building on the success we've had over the last...

While some time has passed since the WGA temporary service outage we had back in August, I wanted to share some more about what we've learned since then and the steps we've been taking to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. First off,...

Now that we have had time to dive into the details more on what happened that caused the temporary problems last weekend, I want to share what we found so far. We still have more work to do, but we now understand what occurred and why. We've also implemented...

We're continuing to investigate what happened but here's a quick update to yesterday's post. The issue with processing validations began Friday afternoon at about 3:30 PM Pacific time and through a combination of posts to our forum and customer support...

We've been receiving reports on our forum and through customer service starting last night that Windows Vista validations have been failing on genuine systems. It looks now as though the issue has been resolved and validations are being processed successfully...