 When
Microsoft Vista Service Pack 1 ships sometime in early 2008, it will
strip away one of Vista’s most annoying features and remove one of
the most persistent objections to Vista’s adoption. Microsoft plans
to remove the infamous “kill switch” from Windows Vista when SP1 is
installed, restoring the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program to
its original role as a series of persistent but nonlethal
notifications.
Senior product manager Alex Kochis laid out
the changes for a handful of reporters and analysts: Based on
customer feedback, we will not reduce user functionality on systems
determined to be non-genuine
This suggets that the WGA team has finally realized that they need
to react forcefully to a year of embarrassing WGA glitches, server
outages, and nonstop customer complaints.
In the current retail copies of Vista, there are dire consequences
for failing to activate a retail copy of Windows Vista after 30 days
or ignoring the three-day “grace period” when a system falls out of
tolerance after too many hardware changes. When the timer runs out,
the desktop turns black and its icons disappear and the Start menu
vanishes. You can copy your personal data files, but you can’t open
them, and you’re granted the right to use Internet Explorer for one
hour before being forcibly logged off.
In its post-SP1 incarnation, the penalty for ignoring these
activation notices is … more activation notices. The most annoying
change is an Activate Now dialog box that forces you to wait 15
seconds before the matching Activate Later option is available to be
clicked.
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