You won't find this in the history books. And the official statistics from Microsoft will most likely keep this aspect hush-hush. XP's black history has been written by the illegal uploads and downloads of the operating system. I will not present the complete black history of XP. This is a task that I am unable to embark on. But what I will do is give you an insight into a fragment of this black history.


I have entered "Windows XP" in the search field of a website that taunts itself as being a superindex for an array of Peer-to-Peer networks. My query returned no less than 10 pages, containing a staggering 50 results each. According to the website's words statistics, "XP" was found a total of 3,145 times, while Windows was identified a number of 7,060 times. These are 10 pages worth of pirated materials related in some way to Windows XP.


I managed to superficially count the number of downloads on the first page. I will not provide you with a specific figure. Instead, I will deliver an approximation: 400,000 downloads of the first 50 items on the first page out of ten similar pages with XP pirated software.


If anything, such examples illustrate Microsoft's dark ages of piracy. The Redmond Company has stepped up the anti-piracy efforts, but the Windows Genuine Advantage will not erase the black history of XP.


At the time of this article, there were exactly 25 days, 06 hours, 08 minutes and 10 seconds until the general availability of Windows Vista. And while Microsoft's latest operating system is yet to see the light of the store shelves, Vista is already a highly pirated material. When entering "Windows Vista" in the search field of the same superindex website mentioned above, the word Vista was featured 1,178 times on a list that is also 10 pages long.