Starting this week, Microsoft has begun deployment of the latest version of WGA Notifications for Windows XP Professional, which is an anti-piracy software for verifying genuine Windows copy.

With this update, the installation and updation have been made easier by going back to the Windows Update install prompt used previously. This has been done because of customer demand.

With this update to WGA Notifications in Windows XP, MS has implemented a couple of related features that draw on the notifications experience designed for Windows Vista SP1. After installing this version of WGA Notifications on a copy of Windows XP that fails the validation, most users will discover on their next logon that their desktop has changed to a plain black background from whatever was there previously.

The desktop background can be reset to anything else in the usual ways, but every 60 minutes it will change back to the plain black background. This will continue to happen until that copy of Windows is genuine. Read more.

Meanwhile, those using illegal copies will come across nagging more often. As with previous releases, if a copy of Windows fails validation, notifications will appear above the system tray regularly along with the pre-logon message, the logon interrupt message and the system tray messages.

Though the new version of Notifications has begun showing up on users' PCs this week, the process will take several months to roll out to everyone.