Everyone knows what the Microsoft “Blue Screen of Death” means, but how about the Vista “Black Screen of Darkness?” In an email titled: “Pirated Vista — A darkness descends!”, Microsoft makes it quite clear to resellers what can be expected when people install pirated versions of their Vista operating system. After one hour of browsing, the screen will go black, no start menu, and no toolbar. Along with the email came a new ad campaign for Microsoft resellers advocating “Don’t let this happen to your customers,” informing them that non genuine copies of Windows Vista will lose access to key features, have limited access to updates, and thus risk attack from viruses, malware and spyware. For those of you who may be using a “pirated” version of Vista, beware, this is a feature that has only recently been activated. Although, tomorrow, I’m sure we will be hearing of ways to get around this.
Black screen of Darkness for Vista Pirates
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