Pirate Vista pretty useless, says Vole

PIRATED COPIES of Vole's much hyped new operating system Vista will be of "limited value" to those who decide to use them, said Microsoft.

The claim was in response to reports that copies of Vista and Office 2007 had been making the rounds on the piracy circuit. Dodgy Vista comes with a product key which can activate the programs without pirates losing any of their dosh, apparently. Also included is an activation crack which gets around Vista's activation process which checks to make sure the OS is legit.

Vole's not particularly worried though - in a Microsoft statement, it's mentioned that the pirated copies are not final code, and users should avoid using them since they could be incomplete or have been tampered with. Besides this, the activation keys provided are "pre-release-to-manufacture" codes, said Vole, which will be blocked using Microsoft's Software Protection Platform.

Thee Great Vole is not swayed at all by the news of piracy it would seem, saying in a statement that the company "is happy that customers are eager to begin using Windows Vista." µ

L'INQ
InfoWorld