A couple of good articles on MS's increasingly draconian anti-piracy efforts, from Ed Foster's Gripelog:

A Vista of Licensed Censorship
A New Day for Corporate DRM

The new copy protection is more aggressive than before, actually disabling your ability to use your computer if it thinks you are in violation. Also, keep in mind that if you get your copy of Vista on a pre-built system (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.) there is a chance you can get stuck in "vendor hell" where MS will tell you to contact your system vendor to resolve licensing issues, and the vendor will say you have to contact Microsoft. Yes, this does happen, and will continue to happen, and probably get worse. Early indications are that MS is still unprepared to handle these licensing issues.

Don't be so sure about early and plentiful cracks. Vista has much tighter control over the innards of the system. Even tool vendors like Symantec & McAfee were complaining that Vista's security locked them out.

• Jimdoria  ~@>@