A bug in Windows Vista's built-in antipiracy technology is telling some users that they need to reactivate the operating system after they install new device drivers or run newly installed software.
Microsoft Corp. quietly issued a patch designed to fix the flaw in its Software Protection Platform (SPP) technology late last month. Criticized by some when it was announced last fall, SPP is an updated and more aggressive version of the Windows Genuine Advantage antipiracy tools that Microsoft included with Windows XP. But because of the bug, SPP may suddenly demand that a copy of Vista be "activated" even though the user and/or the computer maker did so earlier.
"You may be prompted to activate Windows Vista on a computer on which Windows Vista activation was not previously required," Microsoft said in a support document last updated Feb. 15. "Although this problem rarely occurs, it may occur during typical use of a Windows Vista-based computer. For example, this problem may occur under one or more of the following conditions: You install a device driver, you install a program, you run a new program, you remove a program."
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