SINGAPORE – Microsoft has issued an advisory on anti-piracy checks for Windows XP Professional users this September.

Under its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) notifications program this September, Windows will automatically activate these notifications urging users to check for validity of their installed operating system.

Local users can validate their software through this link - http://www.microsoft.com/philippines/genuine. Those who fail to validate their copies will receive frequent notifications hat they may be victims of software counterfeiting, Microsoft said.

There have been cases wherein consumers and businesses were caught by surprise, unaware that they were using or had unwittingly purchased pirated software until they received notifications, said Richard Francis, Microsoft Asia Pacific general manager for Windows, in a statement.

"There were even those who had paid the price of genuine copies only to find out that counterfeit versions were installed in their computers," Francis said.

The updated version of the WGA program will include a persistent desktop notice where the users' desktop backgrounds will change to black every 60 minutes.

This will not reduce the computer's functionality or shut it down. Users who experience this can revert to their original settings by right-clicking on the desktop and choosing "properties" or changing the display in the Control Panel.

However, the desktop notification will recur every 60 minutes until the users have entered a genuine product key.

In 2006, after WGA Notifications program was launched, Microsoft reported nearly 400 million validations worldwide. Since the inception of the validation tools, Microsoft there have been more than 100,000 counterfeit reports worldwide submitted through the program.