Re: WGA Hacked?! Get a Fair and Balance Perspective!

Mike Brannigan [MSFT] wrote:

"kurttrail" <dontemailme@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:uU8d8beYFHA.4024@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Winux P wrote:

Compulsory WGA??? What! Who are these people? For what purpose would
this be for? Speed up downloads? Wouldn't it take download time + get
an authenicated check? Rather than just download time?

Who and what would WGA stop from downloading\updating anyway? My
windows is already WGA'd, I thought this happened when MS activated
it.

It is for nothing but MS flexing its muscles over its paying customers. WGA is separate from WPA. The former know as Validation, and the latter as Activation. And they ar both separate and distinct from Registration. And MS expects all its paying customers to learn the difference, learn the differing rules of each, and to fetch when MS tell them to. It's getting to the point where the OS is technically easier to use, than knowing and complying with all of MS rules & policies surrounding its copy-protection schemes!

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Kurt the customers don't need to know or understand anything in particular, activation can be one click and once they have the control installed then WGA will be invisible to them too.
Only those not using genuine licensed product will have an issue.


Mike, of course MS has the right to ensure that installations of their software are legitimate before providing support (product updates are support), and that justifies the use of PA and WGA, however there are many documented cases where these mechanisms have failed to identify legitimately licensed installations, leaving legitimately licensed users in a lurch.

What, if anything, is MS doing to correct these flaws? So far all I've seen MS do is make it more difficult, particularly with regard to OEM installations and "unauthorized" product keys. It no longer only applies to major OEMs, either. Every OEM pre-install I have seen lately that is not pre-activated encounters this.

And while we're at it, please print the keys on the COA in a font large enough to read without a magnifying glass and quit using character strings like "8B3B8".

Steve

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