Information About MS Product Activation
WinInfo | at | by Mike
To quell fears about its product-activation technology, Microsoft posted a Microsoft Product Activation bulletin on its Web site. The document explains how Product Activation works and dispels some common myths about the technology.
Office XP, Visio 2002, and the upcoming Windows XP OS all feature Product Activation, which has caused an uproar with customers, mostly because of fears about privacy and Microsoft's poor job of communicating how Product Activation works. The company initiated Product Activation to reduce what it calls "casual copying," the most widespread form of piracy. In casual copying, an individual shares a single piece of software with one or more friends or family or installs the software on a second PC without purchasing a second copy. Microsoft claims that in the United States, casual copying is responsible for 50 percent of its economic losses from piracy.