Buy Windows or the puppy gets it - TechRadar UK

Windows Genuine Advantage. Were there ever three more disingenuous words? Advantage to whom? Its latest brilliant idea is to blank your desktop wallpaper every 60 minutes if you have a pirate copy of XP. So presumably then, the "advantage" of running a genuine copy of XP is that your wallpaper doesn't blank every hour. Hmm. That's a bit like charging me to not have my children kidnapped.

And it's not even very good extortion. Blanking my desktop? How long till someone releases some freeware that resets my wallpaper every 61 minutes? Microsoft could completely cripple pirate copies of Windows if they wanted to but they don't because the WGA scheme is notoriously bad at actually distinguishing the difference between the pirates and the Royal Navy.

So they aren't quite brave enough to peremptorily disconnect you from the internet or email the police or anything. But I guess they must figure that anyone with a genuine copy that gets accidentally swept up in the WGA dragnet isn't going to be too annoyed to have their desktop reset at intervals. Here's what Alex Kochis, Microsoft's Director-of-making-WGA-sound-like-a-good-thing, says on his blog:

"I'm excited about how this release balances our goals of providing a great experience to those who have genuine Windows and at the same time creating a compelling experience for those who have non-genuine copies to get genuine Windows."

Or in other words. "Fingers crossed we annoy people enough to buy a legit licence but not so much that they switch to Ubuntu."