Update: Microsoft requires Windows piracy checks

IDG News Service - Microsoft Corp. this afternoon went live with a program requiring customers to validate that they are running legitimate copies of the Windows operating system before they can use Microsoft's download services.
The Windows Genuine Advantage 1.0 program ensures that customers using Windows Update, Microsoft Update for Windows and the Microsoft Download Center run a program that checks that their Windows operating system is genuine before they can download updates or new content from those services, said David Lazar, director of Genuine Windows for Microsoft.
The company has been testing the program since September and has validated more than 48 million systems so far, Lazar said. Until today, the program has been voluntary.
Customers who discover they have a counterfeit copy of Windows through the program either will be given a free version of the operating system or can purchase it for a discounted price, he said.
To get a free version of Windows, a customer must fill out a counterfeit report identifying the source of the software, provide a proof of purchase and send in a counterfeit CD of the software. If customers don't have all of that information, they can still fill out a counterfeit report and receive a copy of Windows XP Home Edition for $99 or a copy of Windows XP Professional Edition for $149, Lazar said.
Windows XP Home normally sells for $199 and Windows XP Professional Edition usually costs $299.
The move to lock out pirated copies of Windows from the download sites is part of Microsoft's effort to fight software piracy, which is a major issue for the software vendor.
Bonnie MacNaughton, senior attorney in the legal and corporate affairs department of Microsoft, said the company estimates that more than one-third of all copies of its software are counterfeit, based on a recent joint report released by the Business Software Alliance and research firm IDC. The study found that 35% of software worldwide is pirated. In North America alone, the piracy rate for software is 22%.

"We consider that to be a staggering number," MacNaughton said.
One issue the software maker faces in fighting piracy is that many users don't know that their copy of Windows is illegal. Windows Genuine Advantage allows customers to solve this problem in a few minutes through the automatic validation, Lazar said.
The Windows Genuine Advantage checking mechanism is anonymous, and includes an ActiveX control on the client side and the Windows Product Activation service on the Microsoft side. During the testing process, a user had to install the