Vista: No “Black Screen Of Death”, But…

By Jeffrey | September 12, 2007

Borg Bill
An e-mail supposedly sent by someone in Microsoft to an OEM Distributor claiming to turn dark the screen of an unactivated version of Vista is making the rounds, and being reported by mainstream tech-news.

Here’s the text:

Good Afternoon, As of this week, Microsoft have activated a function in Vista called ‘Reduced Functionality’. This is a specific function in Vista which effectively disables non genuine copies of Windows. Therefore, anyone who has a pirated copy of Vista will experience:

A black screen after 1 hour of browsing
No start menu or task bar
No desktop

Please communicate this anti-piracy initiative from Microsoft to your resellers - note this function has only just been activated in Vista worldwide and therefore any issues with non genuine versions will start to arise from now onwards.

Unfortunately, it’s not accurate, and no such “Black Screen of Death” actually exists on Vista, at least according to Wired.

But is the reality of how Vista protects against unactivated copies much better?

Vista’s Software Protection Platform (SPP) is the follow-up to Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) that debuted on XP, and will turn on Vista’s Reduced Functionality Mode when a copy of the operating system is not validated.

You can watch what happens on Microsoft’s site here.

Basically, the system will act similarly to XP, where an unactivated copy will have have these limitations:

  • Users have 30 days to activate
  • Constant desktop reminder/countdown of remaining time
  • A permanent notification that Windows is not genuine
  • Windows Aero and Readyboost are disabled
  • “Starred” Microsoft Downloads are disabled

But whereas XP would simply not load after 30 days if activation had not occurred, Vista takes a different - and possibly more aggravating - approach after 30 days:

Reduced Functionality Mode

  • Black desktop background
  • No start menu or taskbar
  • Internet use limited to default browser for 1-hour blocks

So it’s not a “Black Screen of Death”, but it’s still a nuisance to say the least. And there is always the likely scenario of this “protection” ending up affecting more legitimate users than it will pirates, who have proven themselves quite adept at avoiding any detection.

I’m not necessarily opposed to Microsoft attempting to limit piracy through the use of limited functionality, but the approach that they take seems a little on the extreme side.

Because in many cases - eg., non-tech-savvy users not being aware what activation is, or possibly uninformed customers of a shady OEM - the end user may not even know the copy of Vista that they bought is illegal.

As long as Microsoft is going to crack the whip, they should at least take measures to assist those in such situations without forcing them to re-buy the OS.

Regardless, XP is still appearing to be the most appealing offering of Windows at the moment. I’m happy with just “Blue Screens of Death”.

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Topics: Guides |

3 Responses to “Vista: No “Black Screen Of Death”, But…”

  1. “…they should at least take measures to assist those in such situations without forcing them to re-buy the OS.”

    Why the hell would they do that, that would COST money, forcing the lemmings to pay again MAKES money! I don’t think you grasp the power of a monopoly. I am surprised MS does not implement per reboot billing! Give your CC number (when you puchase/register the software), and everytime you boot, MS bills your CC (thru WGA, wibloz update, or whatever monitoring mechanism they are foisting off on the sheep these days!) The only thing they would have to worry about is, their software is so bad, they would probably loose revenue to unreported reboots!

    Posted by: Stuart on October 6th, 2007 at 4:32 am

  2. One hour of browsing with the default web browser?

    That might be better than the full desktop version for some instances. Imagine a server running Xen with multiple copies of unauthorized Vista running on it.

    A user pays, gets access to the remote desktop and uses it for an hour. Vista stops after an hour so you start over again.

    Posted by: John on October 6th, 2007 at 8:33 am

  3. You would wonder, if when accessing the default browser, if directories are blocked etc… cause if it is simply a case of restarting explorer.exe then that would render the function pointless.

    Posted by: Jeff on October 18th, 2007 at 11:17 am


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