Software giant Microsoft is to be sued in China following its attempts to stop people from stealing its products.

The firm made a change to its Windows Genuine Advantage program which causes the on-screen background to turn black every hour if the software has not been validated.

A lawyer in Beijing has responded to the move by complaining to China's public security minister, asserting the company has behaved as a hacker by intruding on PCs without users' permission.

Dong Zhengwei told the China Daily: "I respect the right of Microsoft to protect its intellectual property but it is taking on the wrong target with wrong measures. They should target producers and sellers of fake software, not users."

Previously, Microsoft has been sued over its marketing of Windows Vista.

A class action in the US asserted that the corporation let PC providers describe their machines as capable of running Vista when some were unable to run the signature programs.

In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were guaranteed response times and allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues.