Vista Sales Slow? It's Those Darn Pirates!

Last week we mentioned that Microsoft was backing away from sales forecasts that it's now calling "aggressive" for Windows Vista through 2008.  A lot of people marked slow sales up to a combination of hardware and software support lagging, and the lack of compelling reasons to move away from Windows XP considering how stable of an OS it has become in the last 5 years.

However, it seems Microsoft sees the issue a bit differently.

In the same call last week with analysts saying that estimates on sales were overly aggressive, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says one way to improve sales is to tighten the screws on pirates through strengthening of the Windows Genuine Advantage protection system.  Claiming "Piracy reduction can be a source of Windows revenue growth..."

Specifically mentioned, was targeting emerging markets in Asia, currently hotbeds for software piracy.

The question is, will making it harder to pirate encourage more sales?  Or will these protections just prove a minor annoyance that will just take a little while longer for hackers to overcome?  And what will be the cost to legal users who find themselves having to prove their "legal" copies to Microsoft in the future?