This copy of Office is not genuine! Oh no!

Now, it’s not like I’m moaning because my copy of Microsoft Word is telling me something I already know, even though it itself too about 6 months to realise it, but seeing this message coming up recently made me wonder something.

Now, if you know of or use Office 2007, then you’ll know that it’s all very pretty and it has these fancy little tabs at the top which contain all the shit you will never ever need to use, because you are an average person who only uses Office when you have a brilliant idea for a novel which will inevitably be forgotten about in the next few minutes.

The thing is, when your copy of Microsoft Office is not genuine, you get a new tab at the top, in the toolbar of tabs of things you never use. This new ‘Get Genuine Office’ button comes with a cute logo and a link to their website, where you can get ‘Genuine Office’. *yay* The thing that made me think was this; y’see, I don’t know a lot about programming, but I’m going to assume that it takes some effort these tabs, and the program can’t just create them itself whenever it gets suspicious of you and your illegal ways.

(I will happily rant at another time about the disgusting prices of software packages nowadays at a later time. Not now.)

So, bringing this to a hasted conclusion, my point is, that Microsoft seem to have so little faith in their own security systems that they go out of their way to make a shiny little button just to remind evil demon hackers that they will be forced to pay for their awful sin with mild irritation as they have to click once more to get to their delicious plain writing space.

Yes, you’re right Microsoft, giving us a ‘Remind me later’ function along with the choice to buy a real copy of your program will make people very likely to consider the purchase of your expensive software.