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One In Five Windows Installs Is Non-Genuine
snib writes "Microsoft disclosed Monday that, according to reports collected by the notorious Windows Genuine Advantage tool on millions of users' PCs, 22% of all Windows installs do not pass its validation tests and have therefore been deemed non-genuine. Quoting: 'Since WGA launched in July 2005, over 512 million users have attempted to validate their copy of Windows, Microsoft said. Of those, the non-genuine rate was 22.3 percent... [T]he Business Software Alliance... reports that 35 percent of the world's software is pirated (22 percent in North America)...'"
Or does WGA fail 22% of the time? Hmmm?
I can count 5 that fail it's validation and every one of them is a legal copy on a legal system.
I would look at there program first, then accuse everyone of steeling second.
It really does not surprise me that there are a lot of pirated copies out there.
There's no way it's that low
One in five... of people who actually attempted to run the WGA. I'd imagine there's a sizable group of people who already know they won't pass it, so they never even try.
I anticipate that some folks will say 'lolz if WGA doesn't false positive!!11!!eleventy!' (translated: Assuming that WGA doesn't falsely label a machine as pirated). The number of these seems to be reeeeeally low, I'm guessing it's not a big part of the final numbers.
I know for a fact that my install is 100% genuine...Although WGA has flagged it as non-genuine.
I obtained my copy of XP from a university site license that was given to all the students at the university of Pittsburgh. They just recently invalidated that site license...so you are looking at tens of thousands (if not a couple hundred thousand) students, faculty and staff that were all using that key that is now non-genuine.
Actual piracy numbers are likely to be even larger.
Why? Two main reasons.
One: Pirates are probably far less likely to attempt to run a WGA certification compared to a legitimate licence holder. For obvious reasons.
Two: "Borrowed" corporate editions, etc. will validate despite being, well, "borrowed".
Microsoft disclosed Monday that, according to reports collected by the notorious Windows Genuine Advantage tool on millions of users' PCs, 22% of all Windows installs do not pass its validation tests and have therefore been deemed non-genuine.
/dnyun/ -adjective
genuine
1. possessing the claimed or attributed character 2. descended from the original stock; pure in breed:
Even pirated software is genuine.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I bet that 22% is probably very wrong.
They say that that's 22% of those who attempted to be authenticated- anyone who knows they are using a pirated copy sure as hell isn't going to try to authenticate it. Those who failed either didn't know they had a pirated copy (installed by teenage son or shady computer store) or are really dumb pirates.
Or the third option, that WGA fails a fifth of the time. I can think of at least one instance where I have tried to authenticate a legitamite copy (which I had just unpacked from HP, and was doing updates on) and WGA said it didn't pass.
I'm not sure whether mod you troll or funny, but that's OK since I don't have mod points.
Syllable 0.62 is here at last!!!
My experience in reinstalling several completely fried windows boxes (virus or trojans) is that the biggest issue is that the OEM CD has been lost and then the key that they have, for a perfectly valid version of Windows, doesn't work for the "full" Windows CD that I (legally) have. So what is the solution? Phone MS Support? Hell they say its an OEM problem. Phone the OEM and they want to charge to ship a new replacement CD, or just don't care.
So I'd say that a decent proportion of those "invalid" windows installs are actually perfectly valid but just suffering because a reinstall had to be done due to the MS security issues and couldn't be done from a CD that matched the key. You can actually get MS support (nice high cost phone number) to sort this out but it really isn't worth the pain, no doubt these days they'll be pushing a "Vista upgrade" as the solution.
So WGA failure doesn't mean it isn't legal, just that the key you have doesn't match the CD that had to do the re-install.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Oh, I think that's a little excessive. Confiscation of your computer and a public whipping would satisfy me.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Those who insist on using proprietary operating systems get to pay for them. Yes, even when that means they pay with their time.
If your copy of Windows won't validate, that's between you and Microsoft, my friend:
Oh, and there's a Linux installfest this Thursday. If things between you and Bill don't work out, why don't you stop by and install a real 64 bit OS on your machine?
But I do hate it for the gamers, man. What are they going to do?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I kid. Really, I kid.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
I wouldn't be surprised if every user whose "validation" fails tries at least a couple more times after that, inflating the failure rate.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I wonder if they plan to apologize to the 80% of their customers who got this system foisted on them without recourse (you have to enable WGA to get security fixes).
Not to mention, the 20% must be either really stupid (I wonder if my Haxxored Windows copy will validate? Gee, let's try!) or, more likely, have misconfigured Windows systems or bugs in WGA that report them as invalid when they probably own a legitimate license.
Great marketing strategy though: punish your legit user-base as the pirates work around your system. Can't wait to see how Vista improves things. I'm excited to see what "advantage" I'm "genuinely" going to get.
Disclosure: I only allow WGA on my work machine, where I have little choice and didn't pay the license fee personally.
Already (and, at the time I'm posting this, there are only around 25 comments), there are people talking about how copies of XP that they know they obtained legally fail to authenticate (so the reported piracy rate might be inflated), people pointing out, correctly, that even a modestly bright pirate will be smart enough not to try to authenticate when he knows it will fail (and so the estimated piracy rate might be too low), and people coming up with a smattering of other ways in which WGA could give false positives or negatives.
It seems safe to say that Microsoft has no frelling clue how many pirated copies of XP are out there, and that WGA is approximately useless as a tool for trying to count them. Not that it will matter at all in the media -- "One In Five Windows Installs Is Non-Genuine" is too good a headline to pass up.
[AOL] Me too! [/AOL]
If that's the only basis for Microsoft's estimate, they are *way* off, and I bet actually piracy isn't even half that.
I have 5 different machines running XP. 3 of them insist they are pirated...even though I have receipts and valid license certificates bought from OfficeMax for two copies, and the third copy came installed with the machine when I bought it new out of the box. When I contacted Microsoft about this, their tech's response was words to the effect of "You'll have to buy valid copies again." My response was, and I quote, "Fuck you, I'll just crack WGA on my validly purchased copies that I already own, and I dare you assholes to try and prosecute."
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
One has to wonder how they count non-authorized systems. For instance, I added a gig of RAM and a different video card to my parent's computer a little over a year ago. The system told me that the Windows XP installation was no longer valid when I re-booted the system and put me through the re-certification rigamarole. That failed: it kept refusing the key that the system itself had generated. I eventually found a registry hack out on the 'Net that let me get around all of this and kept my folks PC usable. However, I'm sure that MS would consider this to be a pirated installation, even though the original Certificate of Authority is still glued on the machine. This all happened over a year ago so some of the technical details may be wrong, but the jist of the tale is correct. It all makes me glad that I don't use any MS slaveare at home.
Just my $.02,
Ron
Impeach Barack Obama for violating the Constitutional requirement to be a "natural born" citizen to hold the office of P
Looks like SCO have managed to wangle some mod points on slashdot... anyone with a sense of humour and mod points like to mod that the way it should be?
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
I've bought/built about 20 PCs for personal use over the years. I bought retail or retail upgrades for each machine (I have 3 concurrent licenses in total). Recently I got a SMART warning and swapped a data drive. I had to talk to a Microsoft support person to get a new license key as the one that came with my install CD didn't work. I since then had to swap the system drive and submitted a support request b/c it won't run windows update and they assigned me a case # a month ago and haven't called back. Fortunately for the community I know Microsoft's machines - even when patched - are a risk so I don't allow them on the public network without a firewall (openbsd in my case). However they should know better than to prevent a paying customer from applying their patches.
Feh. I don't bother with WGA. Check out http://www.windizupdate.com
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
Yes, I should know better. Wish SoE would provide a decent Vanguard SOH port to Linux...
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Your story is telling...mostly telling lies. Added RAM? that alone wont cause it to need a new key.
Presuming you mean that seriously, rather than just to troll the guy...
He said, and I quote, "I added a gig of RAM and a different video card" (bolding mine). Two changes, depending on which ones, can trigger reactivation.
Really quite annoying, actually. I find it much easier to just pirate VLK versions. That way, no messy activation (or cracks thereof) to bother with.
To which I will reply: Fine, Why didn't you just call Microsoft?
Have you ever called a company to tell them they've made a mistake? Hmm?
Trust me, it takes far less time to just download a "third-party patch" to correct the problem, than trying to do things the "right" way.
False positive rate?
Not sure, but we do work for schools. I walked in to a computer lab one day, and saw perhaps 5 out of 30 machines with a stupid WGA error message. Mind you, all of these machines were the identical model PC, purchased at the same time, imaged at the same time, with the exact same WinXP disk image and the exact same internet access.
Based on that, I'd say their 22% rate is just about accurate, though not for the reasons they think.
Excellent point. That was the first thing I thought of...of all the people who pirate Windows, how many ever subject themselves to WGA? I suspect it is a relative small fraction of them. And then there is the reciprocal question, of the 22% that report as non-genuine, how many are really valid installs that raise a false positive? If it's even 10%, that puts the false positive rate at around 2%, which would be unacceptably high in my opinion.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
I also believe Microsoft should 'suck it up' because if they have an 80% non-piracy rate for a monopolised operating system that is still very good returns, and the "20%" of pirated software merely helps to maintain that monopoly.
I'm certain Microsoft would prefer to keep those 20% on windows rather than have them on linux for example.
Trust me, it takes far less time to just download a "third-party patch" to correct the problem, than trying to do things the "right" way.
Used to work at a computer store & a big part of my job was reinstalling Windows from viruses & such. Over 90% of the time...I had to call Microsoft to reactivate their copy of XP. Used to sit on hold at least 5 minutes & outside of US business hours...didn't even try. With that time I lost sitting on the phone waiting on Microsoft to get their stuff together meant that time I could've spent generating quite a bit of revenue waiting on their BS.
I totally agree with you about the patch...especially when Microsoft decides to end their XP activation service in 5 years or less.
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. - Charles M. Schulz
I never bothered with XP at all, precisely because of this product activation crap. But I too did the right thing, and legally bought a Mac. Curiously, I then started paying for all my (commercial) software - perhaps because I am older and richer than I was, but I think not having an adversarial relationship with my computer and not feeling like I was being fucked over by an abusive monopolist helped too.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
"All you had to do was call Microsoft and they would have validated you over the phone"
That's such a creepy statement. You are not valid without microsoft's consent... fortunately, for your convenience, you may be validated by telephone.
For an additional $199, Bill Gates will baptize you over the phone.
ôó
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
even the name, Windows, is a word stolen from the dictionary, made purely with letters stolen from the alphabet!
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
1. How many installs are erroneously flagged as genuine?
> We don't have specific numbers on that but the system has been designed to give the benefit of the doubt in many cases. We are also in the process of designing a 'yellow light' scenario where instead of simply giving the benefit of the doubt we will be able to offer specific information to the user about whatever didn't seem right with the system. We can then offer tools to help them to figure out whether their copy is properly licensed and genuine and fix the cases where the system appears non-genuine when it really is genuine.
2. How many installs are erroneously flagged as not genuine?
> Not very many, there's an article now on Information Week that indicates the number is in the millions. This number was calculated by taking a previously disclosed 'half of one percent' estimate of false positives against into the total number of validations (512 million). Calculating the false positive isn't quite that easy, the rate of false positives climbs and falls when issues are discovered then fixed. Given that the false positive scenarios are time bound in this way it's not right to just use that number as a lifetime average.
3. How many installs are not seen by WGA?
> As has been pointed out in numerous places probably many of those that are aware that their copy isn't licensed or genuine won't visit one of our sites that require validation or attempt to install an application (IE7, WMP11 etc.) that have validation built into their setup. How many systems don't we see? Hard to say but it's a point worth making.
4. How many of those are genuine/not genuine?
> Again, I don't know but it's still a good question.
For more on this issue and others related to WGA visit my blog. http://blogs.msdn.com/wga/
Oh you've got to be kidding. This is the hight of Slashdot delusional thinking. You know as well as I do that the primary source of cracked XP is geeks. Same with cracked Photoshop and all the rest. Next thing, you'll be telling me that no one here has any pirated music.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Just use Auto Patcher
I clicked on the link in your sig and I have some constructive criticism to offer your company.
> Photoshop has 20+ layer modes. We offer 70+ at 10% the cost. [blackbeltsystems.com]
Wow is that web-page UGLY. You'd think that a company offering image manipulation software would know enough about imaging to not have such an ugly webpage. Especially annoying shit like
* blue text on two slightly different blue backgrounds for the navigation links
* metalled embossed hard to read fonts as headers
* "link-heavy" text with more links than text (put it into a list of feature links)
* multi-column text that goes off-page requiring "back-scrolling" to read
* juvenile snipes at vague competitors rather than professional and objective feature comparisons
* overuse of exclamation points! Especially in testimonials! No Really!
* prominent google ads for a site trying to sell commercial software
For punishment, I suggest you make your web-page designer navigate this site for an hour or two: http://corson.tv/main/buttugly.htm