The dreaded BSOD (blue screen of death) which has become the bane of windows users ever since Windows 3.1; OS/2 and MS-DOS. Now it has become Microsoft’s most potent weapon against piracy. BSOD’s?now dubbed as black screen of darkness?are what users of pirated copies of Vista worldwide can expect from now on.

In an e-mail entitled “Pirated Vista — A darkness descends!” Microsoft representative made it quite clear what Vista pirates can anticipate to happen to their unlicensed installations.

Here is a copy of the said email:

“Good afternoon, as of this week, Microsoft has activated a function in Vista called ‘Reduced Functionality.’ This is a specific function in Vista that effectively disables nongenuine copies of Windows. Therefore anyone who has a pirated copy of Vista will experience:

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

Please communicate this antipiracy initiative from Microsoft to your resellers — note this function has only just been activated in Vista worldwide and therefore any issues with nongenuine versions will start to arise from now onward.”

This new antipiracy campaign marks the first global use of heavy-handed tactics for pirated copies of Windows.