Over 2000 machines that have passed through my shop. I have seen exactly 1 key that would not activate. When pressed that customer admitted his brother had used the same key on several other installs.
Sure, he was holding the legit one, but by having his brother loading other machines with it, he made his licence status suspect.
ns, I’m glad you were able to get rid of the troublemaking patch, but really – anxiety to NOT go through MS’s own channels because of “what if I can’t prove they’re wrong”? I really prefer “bastards, they did this to me, why should I ask them for help”; much more stylish 
In any case, for all of us, the deal is you buy from MS, you get MS on your case for the rest of your product’s life. And the terms we agree on? They probably include somewhere at the bottom of page 387 something to the effect that the terms can be changed and accepting an update means accepting any changed terms that may come along with it. It’s the way of the world…
Well, since it allows you to pirate Windows with no worries I guess. But as drachillix says, it’s in violation of the software agreement, that’s what I was looking for. Illegal was the wrong word to use.
drachillix, BorgHunter
Apparently there’s an error rate atleast. Assuming you take M$'s word for the accuracy of WGA.
Now that we’ve established that there is an error rate, further I’d like to point out WGA is an asinine annoyance to legitimate users. It’s trivially easily defeated by real pirates, it’s only left hurting legitimate users.
Now if excuse me I have to be off finding hacks. Seems my s-video port isn’t good enough for dvd video because I can’t “turn on copy protection for analog sources”. I just checked, the legally purchased video I’m attempting to watch is available on the pirate bay for free, with none of these hassles, illegally of course.
How is this retarded shit from the brainless cluster fucks at M$ helping again? I’d be better off pirating the movie than buying it legal. Just as a pirate version of windows has less hassels than a legal one.
I imagine so, but what is that error rate? “20% of WGA failures were caused by something other than key piracy” != “20% error rate”. I’m inclined to believe drachillix when he says he has seen exactly one problem caused by WGA, which is an error rate—anecdotal, of course—of 0.05%. And the fault for that error lies with the user, rather than with Microsoft.
So if it’s not a problem with the key, then why exactly does it fail?
If it has a legal key why isn’t it legal?
From Wiki
I was one of those false positives.
This was the last straw - I am going to begin migrating to Linux… I may keep MS on this machine (for work), but my other machines will be Linux from now on.
drachillix has provided an example of when a valid, unpirated key might fail. The OEM, too, could screw something up—it has happened before, and it will likely happen again. Businesses may provide MSDN subscriptions for employees, and the employees then misunderstand the terms and conditions for OS downloads through that channel, and run afoul of Microsoft’s licenses in those cases. A user may try to install the same copy of Windows onto a new computer that was a replacement for the original installation, which died somewhere along the way.
This is not intended to be an exhaustive list, either.
So, people who get infected with WGA pay you to call Microsoft to get it resolved? That must be some easy money for you. Maybe this is why you’re so pro-WGA, because it’s a money-maker for you? (Serious question; not being snarky) How much did I save myself by resolving it on my own? I also suppose did my part to keep MS product prices lower by not wasting 10 minutes of their call center staff time to fix this “problem.” :rolleyes:
So how did this case resolve? Did he have to buy a new copy of Windows?
Don’t rely on wikipedia for your information. The article source from Ars Technica actually says this:
To be honest, if you make a living selling or repairing computers, then you should know that not everyone is good at dealing with computer problems. For some people the problem and the solution are evident, for others they aren’t. (My parents for example have no idea what to do if anything unusual happens on a computer.) Which is one of the reasons why I don’t think the OP is a pirate. Don’t be so hard on him.
Everything that comes in gets turned on and looked at breifly before checking in. If it was jusa a WGA thing I would try to run the activation wizard. If that did it, no charge, have a nice day. We have “first 5 min is free” policy with regard to small little stuff in the shop.
WGA mainly helps protect my price point on systems. Guys on craigslist spawning dozens if not hundreds of machines for sale off of pirated corp keys can sell machines for $100-$150 less than me, or worse, the same as me. Customers have no clue they are being sold pirated software.
He did, but we had no idea he had a key problem (his hard drive was dead) until we tried reloading it on a new drive and it failed activation.
I don’t make any real money on an OS sale. $5-$10.
Well, I’m freaking out a little now.
I do automatic updates and don’t know much about computers. Ever since that Windows Genuine Advantage install wizard window started showing up, I’ve been intending to run it past my extremely computer literate father and just letting it hang out in the background without doing the install or clicking cancel in the meantime. Being forgetful and a procrastinator, I’ve never gotten around to dealing with it. When I turn off the computer, the install window is still up, and it’s still there when I turn the computer on again.
I’ve never done a system restore. I only ever back up my files.
Am I in danger of Something Bad happening that requires a system restore? Can I just let the install wizard hang around indefinitely or do I need to deal with it? What do I do before dealing with it that would allow me to do a system restore/go back in time if things get fubared? (It goes without saying that I would back up my files again before doing anything, even just turning off the computer tonight.)
I hope it’s okay that I ask these questions in this thread. I’ll start a new one if that would be more appropriate.
Thanks.
WGA is part of windows, its a patch like many others you have applied. No need to panic over backups. WGA failures do not crash your PC or lock you out of your computers, they just nag.
You can install it, it will not hurt anything. All of the teeth gnashing from nyctea scandiaca was over a percieved slight to his/her honor. The computer still worked fine.
And if the reason was the extremely common flagged OEM image key, the fault lies not with MS, but with the OEM.
Maybe you should be disgusted Dell/Gateway/HP/Compaq/Guydownthestreet.
I understand this stuff intimately, MS has its failings (grumble… no USB support in VM’s… grumble), but this isn’t one that deserves the histronics it is recieving.
Oh, okay. Thanks!
Of course it’s harmless! If you have absolutely no standards whatsoever.
As people have repeatedly pointed out in this thread: MS has had repeated outages on its servers which have caused many people to have their OSes declared invalid. And it doesn’t just end with a nag. People have been unable to use their PCs until the servers were restored. Phone calls don’t fix these problems in ten minutes. Read the links folks. Just because it hasn’t happened to you don’t mean diddly.
And 2) WGA is not the same thing as initial online key validation. (Which is what XP originally only had.) It is an completely separate later add-on. Please try to keep these two straight. Too many people are defending the first but not addressing the issues of the second. If you want to defend the first, maybe start a different thread.
Now you are conflating the two. Failing activation or to activate will eventually leave you with an unusable PC, WGA does not.
If the call takes more than 10 min you do not have a basic WGA/Activation issue and probablly have another issue to resolve.
Manually rerunning the activation as I posted way above with the key on the case will correct the WGA issue too.
Or you could take a lesson from me and just Google “Remove WGA” (freeware), install and run, and you’re cured! No “10 minute” calls to the Company who forcibly infected your computer to begin with. I hope my experience can be of help to someone who wants to get rid of this annoyance instead of f*cking around with M$ support (or paying someone like drachillix to do it for you).
I really don’t understand your hostility toward people trying to help you to get the right support.
You’re really not going to like Linux if this episode is anything to go by.
Edited to add:
(not because of any kind of scary authoritarian stuff, but because Linux inevitably requires a good deal of titting about with settings and configuration, which in turn requires asking people for help and occasionally heeding their earnest suggestions.