According to Microsoft, pirated Windows 7 causes malware outbreak

[holaschaus]

Yesterday Microsoft's Jeff Williams, the principal group program manager for the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, said that there is a direct correlation between the current malware infection rate and software piracy. To be more specific, he said that countries with high piracy rates are more likely to be infected by malicious code because they're reluctant to apply updates.

His theory is based on Windows and the security updates that consumers are neglecting to install through Windows Update. Microsoft's latest biannual security intelligence report, found here, claims that China's piracy rate is more than four times than that of the United States. France and Brazil also have extremely high piracy rates, and each country--including China--use Windows Update significantly less than consumers in the U.S.

Has Microsoft kicked itself in the rear with Windows Genuine Advantage? Although the company's pirate sniffing software has been successful in tagging non-legit copies of Windows, WGA is also turning consumers away from the updating process, especially those who bought a copy of Windows and feel justified in installing the OS on multiple computers. While there are cracks available to bypass WGA, there are many users who aren't quite so PC-savvy, leaving them wide open for attack.

As reported by [Only registered and activated users can see links. ], there are also legit users who won't bow down to Microsoft's anti-piracy efforts: users in China, the United States, and other countries have protested against the software since its was originally embedded into the OS. With that said, perhaps Microsoft made the malware infection rate worse by locking out the non-legitimate copies of Windows. After all, if 41-percent of the world is running pirated Windows, maybe Microsoft should reconsider WGA?


Source: Tom'sHardware.com

[bingo]

Ha ha ha Microsoft would say anything wouldn´t they? The reason I don´t use their stupid updates is because it can sometimes corrupt windows altogether. It happened to me about 7 years ago, and since then, no thank you. Are we cutting into Microcrap´s profit? I hope so.

[JJJ]

Honest to god, this topic reminded me to go to windows update

Decided to install all the present updates, automatically restarts the computer, BAM, no internet connection, an update is incompatible with my ethernet card driver.

Had to restart in safe mode and do a system restore.

THAT is why i dont update!

[jamboogy]

	Quote:			Originally Posted by JJJ
	Honest to god, this topic reminded me to go to windows update Decided to install all the present updates, automatically restarts the computer, BAM, no internet connection, an update is incompatible with my ethernet card driver. Had to restart in safe mode and do a system restore. THAT is why i dont update!

...and thats why microsoft sucks. no questions asked

[holaschaus]

Sorry to hear that JJJ, it's MS' fault, as always. The logical thing for MS to do would have been to verify each update they allow their customers to download, to make sure they have no errors like the one that occured to you.
But we're talking here about the same company that tried to install WGA into every PC running Windows, so why should they do the logical thing?

[obidon]

Don't worry people. Microsoft may be bad now, but I am going to work for their security department in a couple of years and I am going to make amazing changes. So please just be patient until then.

[mrio07]

Oh, really. From now until then, what do u suggest me to do with current Microsoft OS,update or not?

[trevor146]

So far i am loving Win7, best os since vista.. no problems so far with updates but ive only been beta testing for a few months...... i never had any problems with the updates from winXp, i just made sure it didnt do it automatic.. i take a look thru and make sure not to install any new drivers... i just go to the company that makes whatever drivers site and look at compatabilty there.... WinXp and updates can be kind of retarded sometimes, my Tv-box still runs xp and to this day it doesnt recognize the processor. Should show as a intel dual core 2.2, actually shows as processor model unknown, lol, everytime i win update it tries to get a new driver which for whatever reason always catchs an error when i try to install it.