Anti-piracy technology is important—even if it can be annoying. For Microsoft, it has always been known as Windows Genuine Advantage—WGA. Its bad rap in the past is not due to the fact that it foils piracy. We would all agree piracy-busting is a good thing.

The bad thing is that it has often foiled honest users, too. In fact, 500,000 Windows users in early 2007 were understandably enraged when the oh-so-protective WGA software mistakenly identified their copies as pirated. Later in 2007, the over-eager WGA coughed again, once more enraging legitimate users who were consigned to use a humbler version of their Windows software for the duration of the glitch.

Microsoft is trying to dismiss all of that as a bad dream.

Windows 7 offers a new kind of protection—under a new moniker. WGA got a makeover. Now, it will be called Windows Activation Technologies. (Also known as WAT.) The new Windows Activation Technologies was released in its infantile form in the Vista Service Pack 1. Those who are familiar with Vista SP1 will recognize some of these features, which have received finesse in Windows 7.

First of all, Windows 7 will not force you to wait during your login with a message that encourages you to really think about activating your software. Vista users know that you must endure a 15 second delay, waiting for the grayed-out “activate later” button to come alive in order gain access to the desktop. Windows 7 has no such delay, although it does have a dialogue box, telling you how important it is to activate.

It will still be important for WAT to continually monitor the legitimacy of the software, as WGA does under the current scheme. Windows 7 will take the liberty to update your software with security updates as frequently or infrequently as it deems necessary.

Finally, Microsoft renews their promise that they won’t make any more mistakes like the ones in 2007 that barred non-pirated products from full Windows functionality. The whole point of the upgrade is to protect a pricey product from piracy, while at the same to keeping it a pleasant experience for the legitimate users.

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