There's little doubt Vista is the most secure version of Windows, even as new vulnerabilities surface. When we talk about security in Windows we usually mean what Microsoft is doing—or not doing—to keep us safe. But it's also true that Microsoft intends to vigorously safeguard its own interests. That means Vista will also be the hardest Windows to counterfeit.

Microsoft is serious about piracy. It likes to refer to the Business Software Alliance—"the voice of the world's commercial software industry"—which maintains that "35% of the software installed on personal computers world-wide in 2006 was illegal." Windows Genuine Advantage, part of Microsoft's antipiracy program, has been in a kind of beta since 2004, but now appears to be ready for prime time:

"Technology built into Vista allows Microsoft to periodically evaluate the OS to make sure it is legitimate, rather than just having one opportunity, when the product key is first entered at activation."

Certainly Microsoft has a right and, its shareholders would say, a duty to protect its intellectual property. The key is going to be how well activation schemes work. How often is "periodically?" Will routine maintenance performed by corporate IT technicians trigger it and perhaps cause a failure? Glitches are sure to occur. Minimizing glitches will be the key to success. Microsoft says it validated 300 million copies of Windows since July, 2005, with a failure rate of "approximately one in five."

"Most failed validations, approximately 80%, are caused by a misused or stolen volume license key. The remaining 20% of the failures have a variety of causes, including tampering, hacking, and working around product activation. Across the more than 300 million validations, only a small percentage of validation failures were found to be in error."

When you start at 300 million and go up, even a small error rate means a lot of customers. The average Joe can tough it out and, perhaps, forget about it. But if the MCPs in the trenches can't figure out which activation key will work this time and CIOs start seeing the total cost of ownership start to creep up, you can expect Microsoft reps to get an earful over activation.