Windows Genuine Advantage Servers Out

krewemaynard writes to let us know that Microsoft has been having major problems with its WGA servers since at least Friday evening. Quoting Ars: "Users of both Windows XP and Windows Vista were writing to say that they could not validate their installations using WGA, and one user even said that his installation was invalidated by the service... The Microsoft WGA Forums are full of problem reports, and Microsoft WGA Program Manager Phil Liu has acknowledged that there is a problem, and that MS is investigating." Update: 07/25 22:10 GMT by KD :Microsoft has identified and fixed the problem and posted instructions for anyone whose system mistakenly failed a WGA check. (The link posted earlier was to a 2006 article.)

Comments

"Fight club scenario?"

[ivoras]

A friend of mine was immediately reminded of the Fight Club movie - how they tried to blow up all the banks at the end so nobody would owe anybody anything. Imagine if some digital vigilante wiped out Microsoft's database of keys, maybe like an inside job... all installs everywhere would simply be invalidated in an instant :) Now *that* would be a strong and immediate demonstration of both how the whole "activation" thing and DRM are wrong.

Man can dream...

Re:"Fight club scenario?"

[Bearhouse]

Do you mean 'wrong' as in 'immoral', or 'wrong' as in 'does not work'?

Personally, I think it's both.

Like many people here, (I imagine), I change hardware frequently, and am also cursed with being my neighbours', friends', childrens' software and hardware support. So I get this 'activation' bs regularly. Have you ever tried fixing a system that was delivered with a 'recovery' CD, that tries to access some (corrupt) partition etc...of course, no 'original' installation CDs

How long before you cut your losses and install from one of your 'corp.' CDs, or - if it's not in the family - download some streamlined thing from isohunt? Believe me, its 10x quicker than going the ms way. Shit, it's not even as if they or I did not BUY the software in the first place... Anybody want a load of VALID ms serials - you can have 'em...

The real problem is that 'activation' punishes the honest user, whilst doing little or nothing to stop the pirates... /end rant.

The bigger problem for Microsoft...

[Anonymous Coward]

is that they're calling the people that sell their software thieves. They are biting the hands that feed them. One of our customers bought a copy at Fry's, and when they called Microsoft about the problem, Microsoft accused Fry's of selling pirated software. Accusing the people that make money for you is a good way to kill a business.

Repay the compliment

[jeevesbond]

Microsoft frequently shill online forums, they're even attacking the venerable ISO! From this Groklaw article:

And if it were me, I'd want to know if there is any Microsoft shadow in the background. Someone placed a threatening comment on Groklaw the other day, saying someday the "darkness" behind PJ would be revealed, and to "sleep well", and because of the threatening tone, I checked the logs and the comment appears to have come from an ad agency that does a lot of work for Microsoft. So I am wondering about things I didn't think about before. I remember what happened to an innocent man's reputation in the Massachusetts ODF affair.

So, this would seem like the ideal time to feed them some of their own medicine. Get over to the WGA forums and do some pro GNU+Linux astroturfing. Here was my message:

I came here not because I have a problem but because the mainstream media is starting to pick up on this issue, I suspect that pressure on MS to fix the problem will tremendously increase once this hits a few news/social networking sites.

The reason I'm not having any issues? I use Ubuntu and have the pleasure of knowing my OS and computer are owned by me. Maybe a few people here should give it a try: you never know, it might work! If it doesn't, all you've wasted are a couple of hours when you couldn't use Vista anyway.

Either way, I hope these problems get fixed for you guys soon.

As long as you're polite and make a point it can only help the adoption of Free software. Show these people that we're not zealots and offer them a way out of the WGA doldrums! :)

Re:WGA sucks

[jeevesbond]

It will work out of the box and you won't have to spend hours recompiling the kernel etc. to get it to work

Are you just horribly mis-informed, joking, trolling or shilling? The missus and I have been using GNU+Linux on our laptops, desktops and servers (2 laptops, 2 desktops, 1 home server and one dedicated web server) and have never compiled the Linux kernel. The only times I've ever bothered compiling anything is if I want cutting-edge, not-even-released-yet software, and what's wrong with that?

Funny, I was starting to think that there would be a single day on Slashdot without an anti-Microsoft story.

Here's a deal for you: when there is a single day where Microsoft don't cock things up, shill standards organsations or act as an abusive monopoly then there will be a single day on Slashdot without an anti-Microsoft story.

Re:WGA sucks

[aichpvee]

They'd just be creating a market for knockoff dongles. A real solution (for microsoft) would be to just accept the shitloads of cash they're making and stop thinking that they need to act like assholes when they're not rolling around in huge piles of it.

For the rest of us there's always the real solution of just not using it. It's been working out pretty well for me.

Proof the piracy has the 'genuine advantage'

[Anonymous Coward]

I never install copy protected software, since I feel that it validates my right to use the software that I have paid for.
If i was buying the software on a lease/maintenance agreement, things might be different, but Windows is VERY expensive, and rather poor quality. I know of no other server OS that needs frequent reboots to correct weird slowdowns, and strange resource leaks.
I am just glad that I switched to Linux when Microsoft went down the product activation route with Windows XP. They cleary think that their customers are criminals, and i'm sure most of their customers have a similar opinion of Microsoft for delivering substandard products and exercising criminally monopolistic practices.
Good ridance Microsoft. I don't miss you.

Re:WGA sucks

[Computershack]

The only times I've ever bothered compiling anything is if I want cutting-edge, not-even-released-yet software, and what's wrong with that?

It's 2007. I use cutting edge software on Windows, to the point of daily builds. Never needed to compile one yet.

Thank god for The Pirate Bay.

[flyingfsck]

Hmm, it also wasted at least two hours of my time when I tried to install a new system and activation would not work. I traced through countless routers before I finally figured that it must Microsoft that is a fault and not our firewalls - so I installed a hack. Thank god for The Pirate Bay...

We are only a few years away from

[gelfling]

A court agreeing with Microsoft that you do not own your own computer you merely license it.

National Security Risk

[SeaFox]

Isn't it interesting that the government doesn't consider systems like WGA a threat to national security?

The dangers of software monoculture are well known, now combine that with an authentication system the government has no control over. Once the entire Windows desktop marketshare (+90% of all desktops) is using a Windows OS featuring WGA, what's to stop criminals and terrorists from capturing the datacenters that house these servers and holding a major factor in world finance hostage?

WGA can disable your running system?

[tji]

I didn't realize WGA did periodic (constant?) checks on the system validity. I thought it was just a one-time check at installation (like entering the product ID on Win2K). That's hilarious that you can pay MS hundreds of dollar for the software, only to have it crippled when they screw up and accuse you of being a thief.

Why do people use that crap?