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.)

WGA sucks

[The Bungi]

I like and use Microsoft software, especially the development tools and servers, and I've (almost) always considered they are worth the money. But WGA is the most stupid thing Microsoft has ever done. I could understand product activation to a certain extent - it's really no different than most commercial software protection schemes in most respects. But WGA needs to be killed off. WGA is a hell of a lot closer to treating customers like criminals than WPA ever was.

Personally I've never had problems with WPA or WGA, but this incident pisses me off just thinking about how pissed off I would be if that would ever happen to me. Microsoft needs to understand that there are limits to how much bullshit people can take, even among people who appreciate some of their software.

On the other hand it's not like I'd switch to Linux anyway. Ubuntu completely screwed up my X configuration after an apt-get upgrade that took two hours (6.x to 7.4) and I just shut the thing down. I need to move my FreeNAS to a better box anyway so that's what I'll probably do after wiping it. If I had a dime for every time I've typed su vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf I'd get me an iPhone or something.

Lack of choices suck too.

Liability

[nurb432]

Too bad they are not liable for any costs/lost revenue by their customers that are caused by this.

Too bad it doesn't happen more often, and piss off more people.

Personally it doesnt effect me either way :)

good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

The masses need to get hurt before they come to the conclusion that giving full control over your PC to a commercial entity is not a good idea.

lets hope it lasts a few more weeks or so.

Inevitable - look it up in the dictionary

[Torodung]

To all those people who say "Nothing can go wrong with the system" and "I've never had a problem with activation."

This [microsoft.com] (redundant link) is what can go wrong, and it was only a matter of time. There is no such thing as an unsinkable ship. I believe in Murphy's Law, so long as you add the word "eventually" to the end of it.

--
Toro

The whole concept if flawed

[puck01]

This whole concept of authentication and WGA is flawed. It adds too many points of failure that in the end hurts legitimate users. Why should we be punished for MS's piracy problems.

For me it started with XP. Since I can no longer interchange parts in and out of my computer without worrying about setting off the authentication, I've worked hard to get my myself and my family off Windows. I'm the computer dork in the family and if I can't trouble shoot stuff without worrying about this kind of stuff it sort of kills the fun in building your own machines.

I'm not surprised this is happening and I won't be surprised when this stuff continues to happen in the future. Please get rid of these awful 'features' Microsoft

Between this and their slow-ass update servers

[Master of Transhuman]

it's a wonder any company can get anything done with Windows.

Corporations need to realize that making Bill the richest guy in the world is not the most effective use of their IT capital. Just imagine if all those license fees, the cost of downtime for malware attacks, the cost of license following, the cost of unnecessary servers due to lack of scalability, etc., ad nauseum, had been diverted to open source development. Microsoft would be out of business now.

Re:"Fight club scenario?"

[marcello_dl]

But I guess they already know WGA and DRM are wrong... for the consumer. Remember this outage cost much more to the consumer than they cost to them, at least until people begin considering the painless alternatives.

Re:WGA sucks

[arth1]

On the other hand it's not like I'd switch to Linux anyway. Ubuntu completely screwed up my X configuration after an apt-get upgrade that took two hours (6.x to 7.4) and I just shut the thing down. I need to move my FreeNAS to a better box anyway so that's what I'll probably do after wiping it.

This prompts the question of why on earth you're running NAS on a box with a head anyhow? If you're going to use a box for a NAS server, hooking up a graphics card to it is counter-productive, and using a typical GUI-based distro likewise. It's something that people brought up in the Microsoft way of thinking might do, but if relegating an old PC to become a NAS, the first thing I would do is get rid of anything I don't need, including graphics cards, whose main purpose in a server is to collect dust and increase heat.

Regards,
--
*Art

eggs in one basket

[SolusSD]

monoculture == dangerous!!

Re:WGA sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

This post had it all!

Windows pragmatism and loyalty, Linux cred and frustration, and Apple longing and desire. Well done!

"Safety critical"

[tepples]

Google and Youtube are hardly what I would call mission critical, unless we're talking strictly economics. I'm talking about hospitals, banks, air traffic control, etc. Things that can have a real effect on one's life.

It appears that the term you're looking for is "safety critical", not "mission critical". Not all missions involve situations that present a clear and present danger to human safety.

Re:Between this and their slow-ass update servers

[SplatMan_DK]

Just imagine if all those license fees, the cost of downtime for malware attacks, the cost of license following, the cost of unnecessary servers due to lack of scalability, etc., ad nauseum, had been diverted to open source development. Microsoft would be out of business now.

You have a very good point indeed - put it probably proves something other than what you expected.

Commercial software companies like Microsoft have spent a lot more resources on shaping their products into finished stand-alone packages that actually WORK... without the requiring the user to read five or six 800-pages O'Reiley books about advanced protocols or client/server APIs. So precisely because these companies HAVE spent their license fees on development that appeals to their customers, they are dominating the marketplace. And precisely because F/OSS development is (was) not driven by the needs of end-customers and consumers, the products were too advanced to use, understand, install, upgrade, etc.

Don't get me wrong here - I am a big F/OSS fan. But please observe that all the truly successfully F/OSS products nowadays are backed by big companies with commercial interests in them. Most (if not all) Linux distros that are appealing to normal end-users are from big companies with a lot of cash. And many (many, like in MANY!) non-OS products in the F/OSS category are being used commercially and is backed by companies with commercial interests in them (MySQL is its own company - HP, IBM, Novell, Sun contributes to a lot of end-user stuff both with development and cash).

Commercial software and license fees are not evil. Only their terms of use *CAN* be "evil" or at least "non-free" (as in "non-freedom).

And we would certainly not mind making Bill the richest guy in the world if he had just delivered his software with free (as in "freedom", NOT as in "beer") licenses - right?

:-)

- Jesper

Re:WGA sucks

[GPL Apostate]

Apple ran their 'cloners' out of business not that long ago.

Earlier, they sued anybody with a similar GUI out of business (except Microsoft. They essentially 'created' Microsoft's market for them by running all GUI-on-x86 competitors out of the market for Microsoft)

Earlier yet, they sued anybody with a machine similar to the Apple II.

Apple has a long history of 'Innovation by Litigation.'

WGA doesn't have a problem...

[Spy der Mann]

WGA *IS* the problem.

Re:WGA Newspeak

[X0563511]

The sad thing is swapping two words around would still sound the same, but actually make sense!

"Genuine Windows Advantage" makes a hell of a lot more sense. But then that hurts your ego-complex.

Windows this. Windows that. Microsoft this. DAMN! Arrogant sons-a-bitches they are! They even go so far as to massacre proper structure of "Genuine Windows" advantage.

Re:WGA sucks

[BlueParrot]

Ubuntu completely screwed up my X configuration after an apt-get upgrade that took two hours (6.x to 7.4) and I just shut the thing down.

So let me see here.

a) You didn't read the upgrade instructions but simply assumed Ubuntu = Debian and tried to manually switch versions using apt-get.
b) Even on Debian upgrading between versions is done using dist-upgrade rather than upgrade.
c) You got lazy and interrupted the process halfway through
d) The only problem you had was that you had to reconfigure X

Now, let us hypothetically assume that Windows had a package manager that let you upgrade from XP to Vista over the net. Let us further assume that instead of following the instructions for how to use it, you run a low-level tool with incorrect command line parameters to do it the way you would have done it on a completely different system. Let us finally assume you interrupted the thing halfway through. How much do you want to bet that fixing your display settings would be the only problem you would experience as a consequence?

In a word: PEBKAC

Re:WGA can disable your running system?

[garcia]

Why do people use that crap?

Because everyone else does and no one wants to deal with a bunch of interoperability issues. Even long-time Linux users like myself.