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Friday, September 04, 2009 2:37 PM

Announcing the new Genuine Windows Blog on http://windowsteamblog.com/

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
Posted by alexkoc | 0 Comments
Thursday, July 30, 2009 11:45 PM

Windows 7 OEM Product Key Leak

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
Posted by alexkoc | 26 Comments
Friday, June 05, 2009 9:07 PM

Activating Windows 7

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
Posted by alexkoc | 2 Comments
Saturday, May 16, 2009 8:02 PM

Microsoft works with local Chinese govt. of Hangzhou to reduce piracy

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
Posted by alexkoc | 1 Comments
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Saturday, May 16, 2009 7:43 PM

Pirated Windows 7 RC builds a botnet

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
Posted by alexkoc | 2 Comments
Saturday, May 16, 2009 5:05 PM

New BSA Piracy Rates for 2008

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
Posted by alexkoc | 1 Comments
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Thursday, May 07, 2009 10:50 AM

Windows Activation Technologies: Activation and Validation in Windows 7

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
Posted by alexkoc | 5 Comments
Friday, May 01, 2009 11:12 PM

Windows 7 RC torrent files infected with trojan

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
Posted by alexkoc | 5 Comments
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Saturday, April 18, 2009 9:22 PM

Can we get Hugh Jackman as Genuine Windows spokesperson?

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
Posted by alexkoc | 1 Comments
Saturday, April 18, 2009 8:44 PM

The Surprising Risks of Counterfeit Software in Businesses

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
Posted by alexkoc | 1 Comments
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 1:10 PM

Update to WGA Notifications for Windows XP Pro

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
Posted by alexkoc | 4 Comments
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Tuesday, February 24, 2009 12:27 PM

Update to Windows Vista Activation Exploit detection begins today

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)
Posted by alexkoc | 5 Comments
Monday, February 23, 2009 10:37 AM

Windows 7 Beta

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
Posted by alexkoc | 3 Comments
Tuesday, December 09, 2008 5:44 PM

Updated genuine Web site

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
Posted by alexkoc | 3 Comments
Wednesday, December 03, 2008 10:08 AM

New How to Tell Counterfeit Gallery Design and Features

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
Posted by alexkoc | 1 Comments
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