New License Tool from Microsoft
by Andy Goodman

Microsoft recently released a tool to allow you to check your machine or your network for software license deficiencies. It is a free download located where it is sure to get the paranoia community buzzing. You can find the download at http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/msia/ . I was not surprised that it only scans for Microsoft Software, I was surprised that it did not pick up all the Microsoft software on the test machine. Here is a screenshot of the results of the scan.

It did figure out that this is a multi-boot machine and picked up W2K and 98 but entirely missed Windows XP
It also got Office 2000 but missed Office 97 and Office XP which are all loaded on this machine.

So although it is better than nothing I would not count on it to insure License Compliance which is what it was created for. A much better tool is included in another product I am currently working up a review on called SiteKeeper which is offered by the folks at Executive Software who created the Disk Defragmenter included in W2K & XP as well as it's big brother Diskeeper.

Until next time,