Microsoft has changed its anti-piracy systems on Windows 7 to make its slightly less annoying.

Redmond is still using the policy of  requiring a user to electronically verify their copy of the software and will periodically validate that a copy of Windows is genuine.

However what changes is if the software thinks that there is something wrong with the validation. In Windows Vista, if a user does not activate their software immediately, they get a warning. The dialog box offers two options, to activate immediately or to do so later. If you click the 'later' option you have to wait 15 seconds before you can use the OS.

However in Windows 7, users can click activate later immediately, but then get a dialog box touting the benefits of activation. Under XP users' computers would become nearly unusable if the software was seen as been not genunue, but Microsoft noticed that the Vista approach was more effective.  It noted that Vista pirated at only half the rate of Windows XP. The name Windows Genuine Advantage has also been dropped so that the system becomes Windows Activation Technologies. 

Apparently Windows Genuine name is about as popular as cancer and the Boston Stranger among the XP crowd.