[Steve]

I thought that was something to do with a chip on the motherboards and vista being able to communicate with it. If it is that which you are thinking about then at this time there are only a few manufacturers that have taken up the technology and so its not being utilised at all by them or MS.

Also MS cannot currently change anything to alter the above process easily as besides it affecting the pirates it would affect 1000's of genuine users who bought oem made pc from some major players in the industry. Sure they can alter the codes and keys but from my understanding, it will effectively switch off the genuine users as well and I can't see the major OEM's being happy with the backlash that would cause.