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.)

HaHa

[jo42]

> "However, the sense we get from Phil Liu is that Microsoft is pretty much in the dark right now."

Nothing new here. Move along.

Re:WGA sucks

[pallmall1]

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

Will it validate?

Project Mayhem

[no_pets]

The Data Retention committee of Project Mayhem is working on this - but you didn't hear that from me.

switch to LGA?

[atamyrat]

Damn it, it is broken?! I want to benefit from this Advantage program! They should open source WGA. Bugs would be fixed immediately by volunteers, so we can enjoy it without problems!
I'm switching to Linux Genuine Advantage(TM) [linuxgenui...antage.org], guys. It is better and open-source!

Sysadmins! Go to work!

[erroneus]

Turn on all the machines! Log in! Get those machines invalidated as quickly as possible.

Re:Project Mayhem

[WPIDalamar]

There is no project mayhem.

Re:Project Mayhem

[Anonymous Coward]

His name was Robert Paulsen....his name was..

Re:"Fight club scenario?"

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Err no its not. Thats like wiping out every social security number, watching the social safety net system collapse, and saying "SEE SOCIAL SAFETY DOESNT WORK AND IS WRONG." Or beating up your mailman, not getting mail, and saying "SEE, THE POSTAL SERVICE OUT HERE SUCKS."

What, you couldn't come up with a car analogy worse than those?

Aren't?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Aren't these servers dependent on availability of the Skype protocol? :-)

Switch

[dreyergustav]

This doesn't seem to affect my Ubuntu installation and my iBook is also unaffected.

Re:Skype to Blame.

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to use my guaranteed "+5, insightful" Slashdot form. I'm probably going to lose karma points blah blah Micro$oft blah blah blah lunix is better blah ideas want to be free. In my day blah blah vacuum tube blah 12 bits-per-second blah VAX blah tape drive.

Quick update now

[pizpot]

Quick everybody, update your pirate installs now while they have WGA secretly turned off.

"Gee sir, its been running bug free for weeks. Oh yeah, turn it back on..."

Re:Aren't?

[sumdumass]

It wasn't the Skype systems going down that caused this. The WGA servers failed themselves in their check for legitimacy and no one installed a legal copy so after a certain period of time, the WGA software shut the Internet connections off to get their attention and force Microsoft to buy a legit copy again.

Oh boy

[kc2keo]

Thats a Genuine Disadvantage.