No Aero Glass for dirty pirates
When you make the operating system that runs on the overwhelming majority of the world's PCs, there are a few things that go along with the massive market share. One of them is people who want to run your OS without paying for it. Microsoft has taken all sorts of steps in the past to deal with piracy, the most recent being making Windows Genuine Advantage mandatory for downloading updates to Windows XP.
With the release of Vista, Microsoft is pulling out a new tool from its antipiracy toolbox. Aero, the new whiz-bang UI for Vista, will only be available to registered users of Windows. That's right--no matter how fast your CPU and graphics card are, if Microsoft determines you are running a pirated version of Vista then it's the toned-down interface for you. Users of illegitimate copies of Vista will be stuck with the same stripped-down UI that owners of Windows Vista Home Basic edition will see. The Windows Vista Basic GUI will look and act similar to the familiar Windows XP interface, but updated with the Vista look and feel. It will also be missing the 3D and translucency effects found in Aero Glass.
