Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Screenshot Gallery 3: Changes to WGA

In a previous showcase, New WGA Behavior in Windows Vista Service Pack 1, I described changes to the way that Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) anti-piracy technologies would be implemented in Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1). There was just one problem: When I wrote that article, back in December 2007, Microsoft also revealed that it would not be providing these changes in any pre-release versions of SP1, so we'd have to wait for the final version to see what it really looked like. Well, I've been using the final version of SP1 all week, and it occurred to me that it should be possible to test this functionality in a virtual machine version of Windows Vista with SP1 by setting the system clock ahead a few months and turning off the automatic time and date adjustment. And sure enough, it worked. Here's how WGA looks in Windows Vista with Service Pack 1.

--Paul Thurrott
February 8, 2008