Microsoft recently revealed that a number of new safety features, aimed at reducing piracy, have been incorporated into the design of the Windows 7 operating system. The software giant was quick to point out that the anti-piracy measures were added to protect the interests of users as much as its own interests.

Bruce Mills, Joint CEO of 3W IT Consulting & Contracting, welcomed the improved safety features — pointing out that the losses suffered by users (as a result of software piracy) can be enormous and devastating.

“In addition to potential monetary losses,” said Mills, “users risk identity theft, system failures and irrecoverable data loss.”

Market Research Company, IDC, estimate the cost of compromised data in business environments to amount to tens of thousands of dollars per incident.

The new operating system will include security features, which protect users from software piracy and malware infections, while ensuring Microsoft’s intellectual property rights remain respected.

Getting what you paid for

“Software companies (such as Microsoft) owe it to their customers to take the lead in fighting piracy,” said Mills. “Consumers want to know that they are getting what they paid for — a GENUINE, high-quality Microsoft product. And they want to be sure that their systems are more secure and that their software doesn’t contain any malicious code.”

Bad for the brand and bad for business

The effects of counterfeit software have repercussions on several levels — the customer’s ability to perform the necessary business (or other) tasks for which the software was intended is affected.

A poor experience with the product impacts on consumer satisfaction (particularly if the user is not aware that they have purchased a counterfeit), which in turn affects the brand’s image and position in the marketplace.

Joe Williams, general manager for Worldwide Genuine Windows at Microsoft gave the example of a piracy exploit that caused more than one million reported system crashes on machines running non-genuine versions of Windows Vista before Microsoft was able to resolve the problem.

Williams said that with the new operating system, Microsoft intends to reduce the number of customers who unwittingly become the victims of software piracy.

According to Williams, it is common for customers, who set out to buy genuine software, and believe that they have, only to discover later that their software is counterfeit.

How it works

Windows 7 will require users to validate their software in a much more precise way. Other Microsoft operating systems and anti-piracy measures (such as Windows Genuine Advantage) allowed users to delay “activation,” but the new system makes it harder to ignore repeated requests.

The new operating system will also include tools (pitched at enterprises), which have been designed to improve and accelerate company-wide systems authentication.

Additional tools will be provided to support Windows Vista and Windows 7 deployments.

The final release candidate of Windows 7 was made available, for the general public to test, on 6 May 2009.