August 30, 2007 5:56 PM - liar liar Microsoft Vista News Discuss August 30, 2007 5:56 PM - liar liar Microsoft in the Windows Vista forums; Microsoft is getting high on its anti-piracy drug, and some customers are paying for it. Microsoft's explanation for the weekend's Vista "validation" failure is a ...

[Snuffy]

Microsoft is getting high on its anti-piracy drug, and some customers are paying for it.


Microsoft's explanation for the weekend's Vista "validation" failure is a troublesome but revealing indication of this trend and shows a corporate unwillingness to admit weaknesses in the Windows Genuine Advantage program.

The signs? Semantics and Microsoft's general attitude of denial and justification with respect to WGA. The denial and justification make sense, because it's questionable how much the program is in the best interests of Microsoft customers and partners. So, Microsoft executives have to justify WGA to themselves, and they do that in part by denying its negative impact or its shortcomings.

Something else: They're hooked on WGA. It's some Windows executives' new drug—"Crack"—of choice, because of the potential financial boon they see coming from the anti-piracy mechanism and program.

I sympathize with Microsoft's desire to get properly paid for Windows and to protect customers from counterfeit software backloaded with malware or RATs (remote access Trojans). But those objectives don't mean that WGA is the best mechanism, nor should its validation shortcomings be ignored.

Denial, Denial, Denial

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/conte...ine_crack.html

Also the page has some very interesting links on WGA related

[ProCookie]

WGA Scares me! take the other week the WGA server went down for 4 days and anyone who went to validate during that period (even if they are genuine) got branded as a pirate and the copy of windows was put into a low usage state.

[Vistanoob]

That would blow my mind!! Scarey stuff indeed! "Windows Genuine Annoyance" And I know for sure its in my computer as I have all updates current, and updates don't work without it.