Windows 7 activation update aims at high-volume pirates

Today, Microsoft announced the imminent release of a new Windows Activation Technologies Update for Windows. This update, which targets Windows 7, is the latest evolutionary step in the technologies that started with Windows Genuine Advantage in 2006. For most Windows users in the developed world its impact will be nonexistent; on a system with a properly activated copy of Windows, it will make an initial validation check, update itself every 90 days, and never make a peep. What’s noteworthy to me is the degree to which Microsoft is going out of its way to disclose the details of this update and to allow anyone who is skeptical of it to opt out with no negative consequences.

The biggest change in this update is the addition of new code designed to detect common hacks that allow pirated software to circumvent Windows activation. According to Joe Williams, General Manager of Microsoft’s Genuine Windows division, the update “will detect more than 70 known and potentially dangerous activation exploits.”