It takes a lot to drag me out on a wild Wellington winter's night but I just had to check this one ouf for myself. Does Microsoft use pirated software?

It turns out the tale's been around for a couple of years - I traced it back to German sites tecchanel and PC-Welt - and revolves around the use of an apparently cracked signature in a bunch of .WAV files in Windows XP. Since I don't run the excrescence myself, I was forced out into the cold to check it on a friend's new machine.

But don't listen to me. Start MyComputer and take a look in the Windows\Help\Tours\ WindowsMediaPlayer\Audio\Wav directory. There you'll find nine .WAV files named wmpaud#.wav. Right-click one, choose Open With, select Notepad and scroll to the bottom of the file. There you'll find a little embedded product and license info.

You'll see the files were created with Sound Forge version 4.5 licensed to one "Deepz0ne" - just the sort of l33t-sounding name favoured by hackers and crackers. And indeed it turns out that Deepz0ne was co-founder of a warez group called Radium that specialised in cracking music software. Deepz0ne himself was responsible for the Sound Forge patch and, naturally, he signed it.


So how did it get to be used to make Windows Media Player tour tunes? Have Microsoft dobbed themselves in to the BSA, performed a global software audit and paid a hefty fine? Or perhaps they argued that they can't be responsible for every little app installed by renegade employees. And fair enough. But just don't you try using the same excuse when the software Nazis come knocking.