Chinese angry at Microsoft for anti-piracy measures
Computer users in China are upset at Microsoft for recent measures taken to curb piracy in the country.
The furor stemmed from an update to Windows XP Professional that Microsoft began offering users in China last week. The new version of WGA’s Notifications, the software that provides the messages and other on-screen prompts when another component detects an illegal copy, displays a black desktop on counterfeit versions of the operating system and a permanent nag notice in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Users can change the background, but it reverts to black after an hour.
The new black-screen nag took effect Monday in China.
Microsoft announced the change to Notifications in August, explaining then that it was bringing Windows XP Professional’s anti-piracy software in line with that of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1). Previously, WGA’s nagging in Windows XP was limited to a message at log-on and periodic secondary notices that popped up in a small balloon; the desktop was not altered, and the software didn’t put a persistent message on the screen. Windows XP Professional users in other countries, including the U.S., have already seen the update.
Chinese users railed at the change. “First of all, Microsoft antipiracy [has the] wrong focus,” said Liu Peng in a post to the Sina.com portal, according to a machine translation of the entry. “The fight against piracy should focus on the pirates.”
