WGA Meltdown Blamed On Human Error

Erris writes "As commentators like Ars Technica slam WGA as deeply flawed, Microsoft is blaming human error and swears it won't happen again. 'Alex Kochis, Microsofts senior WGA product manager, wrote in a blog posting that the troubles began after preproduction code was installed on live servers. ... rollback fixed the problem on the product-activation servers within 30 minutes ... but it didnt reset the validation servers. ... "we didnt have the right monitoring in place to be sure the fixes had the intended effect"' Critics were not impressed. 'A system thats not totally reliable really should not be so punitive, said Gartner Inc. analyst Michael Silver. Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft in Kirkland, Wash., said he was surprised that it was even possible to accidentally load the wrong code onto live servers ... [and asks], "what other things have they not done?' This is not the first time this has happened, either."

Comments

What happens in Safety Critical Windows installs?

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you were stupid enough to use Windows in a safety critical application you risk WGA putting people's lives at risk?

Imagine if you used Windows in a doctors surgery to hold patient records, or store drug allergy data on it. WGA flags the PC as counterfeit, after that only Window Explorer works, and you can't get their records or allergy info.

As long as Microsoft can deliberately or accidentally remove your right to use your PC, then you can't use it in any cases where you may find yourself in future dispute with MS, or where you need to rely on the PC. Having backups is no fix for the Windows Genuine Advantage bugs, because all Windows PCs go down in one go. It represents the ultimate single point of failure.

Re:Have we gone backwards?

[Swampash]

Each version of OS X has run faster on the same hardware than the version that preceded it.

Re:tagged as "blamebill"

[Danse]

you mean Ballmer, now that Bills not chairman... Bill is still chairman. Ballmer is CEO.

Re:Have we gone backwards?

[Anonymous Coward]

When you see how slow OS X 10.0 - 10.2 runs, "faster" doesn't seem so impressive. Early versions of OS X were slow as molasses. Also, how fast does Tiger run on a beige Powermac G3?

Re:Have we gone backwards?

[Ckwop]

Quite simply, you *cannot* have too much processing power when doing OCR -- I'm running multiple instances of ABBYY FineReader Corporate on a 2x Quad Core Xeon that has been pegged for two weeks now.

This is an application task and I'm inclined to agree with you. You can never have enough resources, whether you're encoding HD-DVDs all day or just using Notepad.

However, I was talking about the operating system. The role of an operating system should be to provide a framework for performing tasks and running application as cheaply as possible; that is, using the least amount of resources as possible.

It's a fair bet your program would work on Windows 2000 and Windows Vista. Yet Windows Vista will "tax" your system more to achieve exactly the same result. This is my point - the operating system is gobbling more and more resources that should be used by your applications without giving the user anything in return. In this sense, we are moving backwards.

Simon

Re:What happens in Safety Critical Windows install

[Technician]

So if you were stupid enough to use Windows in a safety critical application you risk WGA putting people's lives at risk?

Imagine if you used Windows in a doctors surgery to hold patient records, or store drug allergy data on it. WGA flags the PC as counterfeit, after that only Window Explorer works, and you can't get their records or allergy info.


Read the EULA. Pay attention to the section regarding life critical application. It clearly states it is not to be used in life support applications. It simply isn't reliable for that. MS is avoiding lawsuits from people depending on Windows for life support by explicitly stating it is not designed, manufactured, or intended for that.

"Note on Java Support. The SOFTWARE may contain support for programs written in Java. Java technology is not fault tolerant and is not designed, manufactured, or intended for use or resale as online control equipment in hazardous environments requiring fail-safe performance, such as in the operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation or communication systems, air traffic control, direct life support machines, or weapon systems, in which the failure of Java technology could lead directly to death, personal injury, or severe physical or environmental damage. Sun Microsystems, Inc. has contractually obligated MS to make this disclaimer."

snipped from here;
http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/ieplatform/ie/ license.txt

Re:A simple fix would have restored service quickl

[Roadstar]

if ( Wga_is_Available ) DoWgaValidationTests
else
default = TrustTheCustomer
I wonder if they considered that?

They did, and that's the way it works. However, in this case it was the DoWgaValidationTests part that blew up due to a bug in the server software. WGA servers were available, so the first check did return true.

I just wonder how much bad press WGA needs to generate before MS reconsiders this stupid anti-consumer attitude they have. How about trying sane pricing and sane EULAs for a change?

Re:Have we gone backwards?

[Archimonde]

Stuff like indexing your drive so you can find things easier? Things you can also easily disable. You can turn the fancy UI stuff off. You can turn the indexing off. Sidebar? Yup, you can turn it off too.

Even if you disable all that stuff in vista, it doesn't make much of a difference unfortunately. It just feels slower compared to XP. You can even add windows desktop search (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/desktopsearch/de fault.mspx) to XP, and many other things that Vista has by default, XP will be faster in any case. The most notable difference is in the size of the RAM. Compare Vista to XP on a system with 1GB RAM and the difference is very apparent. With 2GB there isn't that much of a difference but you can certainly notice it anyway. Well, on a fast system you can have vista and say that vista is fine there, but one can install xp on the same system and one will certainly feel the difference.