Nothing is standing in the way of the Vista piracy. Certainly not Microsoft. In fact, the Redmond Company has adopted a passive position while pirated copies of Vista flood peer-to-peer networks worldwide. Microsoft is relying entirely on the Windows Genuine Advantage initiative to deal with the piracy phenomenon.

The Redmond Company has made Windows Vista Enterprise edition available to Software Assurance customers via volume licensing on Novermber 30, 2006, in a launching ceremony at the NASDAQ headquarters in New York City. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer rang the bell marking Vista's release and the start of piracy.

Just three days later, there already is an illegal Windows Vista Key Management Service (KMS) server up and running. WindowsConnected is reporting that the rogue Key Management Service server delivers information on how to activate Windows Vista with a volume license against the server. An activated copy of Vista will be completely functional for a total of 180 days before having to contact the server again.

"KMS, which stands for Key Management Service, is part of the Volume Activation 2.0 scheme to protect Windows Vista and Longhorn Server from piracy. As part of your license agreement with Microsoft you agree to not bring up a KMS server on the public internet. This server is a clear violation of that agreement, which I doubt they had. To complicate matters this server appears to be setup somewhere in China. Which I assume would make things a little difficult for Microsoft from both a political and technical standpoint. The domain name which is registered to Shenzhen COMEXE Communication Technology Co. Ltd," added WindowsConnected.