Uh-Oh: Major Windows Genuine Advantage Outage

Ars Technica is reporting that Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage "feature" is having server problems that are resulting in PCs around the world flunking the validation test that's often required to download stuff from Microsoft. And yup, the official WGA forum is bursting at the seams with posts from unhappy people who have been told that their legit copies of Windows are questionable or fake. Something significant is going badly wrong.

Ars Technica reasonably advises that folks not do anything that might force a WGA validation check (such as trying to download software from Microsoft) until this has been resolved. Me, I'm a sucker for punishment, so I immediately tried to validate my copy of Vista just to see what might happen--and it passed. So the problem doesn't seem to be universal, at least.

Microsoft's Phil Liu says in a forum post that the company's working on fixing the problem as quickly as possible, and then figuring out what happened. One can only hope.

Curiously enough, Microsoft.com's pages about Windows Genuine Advantage don't mention what's going on. Actually, they're still plastered with photos of smiling people and testimonials from users explaining how much they love WGA.

As I've blogged before, I think Microsoft has the right to protect its intellectual property, and I'm not an apologist for people who steal software. But Windows copy protection, which has existed in increasingly invasive forms for several years now, has always had major problems. Even before this current ~~outrage~~ outage, it's made honest Microsoft customers jump through too many hoops. It's used spyware-like practices. It's accidentally told too many of them--including me, on two occasions--that they're using stolen software when they aren't. It patronizes us with claims that it exists to make us happy, when it's really there to protect Microsoft's profits.

We've known that WGA was embarrassingly fragile for a long time. Whatever's happening at the moment would seem to indicate that the technology has a fundamental flaw that even Microsoft didn't know about. And even if only a tiny fraction of Windows users are affected, it's apparently creating hassles for lots of honest people who have given Microsoft large amounts of money. At one point do enough of those paying customers become irritated enough that they're less inclined to buy products from Microsoft? (Note: There's no such thing as Apple Genuine Advantage or Linux Genuine Advantage.)

I'd like to think that this weekend will be prove to be a come-to-Jesus moment for Microsoft--one that causes the company to step back and ask itself whether the headaches WGA causes for its paying customers are worth whatever preventive effect it has against piracy.

But I'm not holding my breath...

Comments

That's what happens when you run a critical app on a Windows server.

v1per

August 25, 2007

1:08 PM PT