Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) has become world renowned as a big pain in the butt. It isn’t really the people who are pirating Windows that are complaining about how bad it is…instead it is the people who legally purchase Windows and Microsoft tells them that their operating system is pirated. In fact, the whole WGA thing turned out so well that Microsoft had to give users the necessary information to remove WGA!
Just when we thought Microsoft had learned from what it had done comes Office Genuine Advantage (OGA). So what does this entail? Here is what PCWorld explains:
The company’s Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) program will require mandatory validation of Office software starting October 27, the software vendor quietly disclosed today. After that date, any Office Online templates downloaded from within the Office 2007 Microsoft Office System applications will require validation of legitimacy.
Similarly, starting in January, users of Office Update will have to validate the legitimacy of their Office software before they can use the service, Microsoft added.
Yep, it is supposed to start today. I downloaded a few templates using my legal pre-release copy of Office 2007 and I wasn’t prompted for any kind of check. I’m not sure if my Office 2007 has already been validated without me knowing but I would think that it would be just like downloading software off of Microsoft’s site where you have to go through a whole process each time that you try to download something.
So while you are celebrating the release of Firefox 2 this weekend maybe you should take an extra drink to celebrate prepare for the Genuine Advantage woes we have ahead of us. 
…and it will be constantly cracked like WGA was.
Useless. Just another annoying thing to bug me >_>
Will Microsoft and the other big companies ever realize that they are fighting a losing battle? Sure they will stop a very small amount of people who pirate, but those are the less savvy people.
Give it up already!
What do these people at Microsoft do, sit around and think of new ways to piss off what few customers they have left.
Well, to come up with ideas this good I think they would have to be standing up.
I would have to imagine that the revenue from the reduction in piracy is far less than the cost for technical support on WGA/OGA. Maybe by the next version of Windows they may have realized that.
Actually, by then we’ll probably have to purchase a copy of Windows using our fingerprint and it will only bootup for us. That way if you want to transfer your license you would only have to cutoff your thumb…I guess that’s about what it takes right now anyways.
The only thing that sucks is that there really is no other OS to use for the mainstream user.
Yes, you could run any one of the flavors of Linux or buy a MAC, or some other OS. However, unless you are using it for a specialized situation or just plain business use, you really have no choice. Windows is the defacto standard and what everyone writes the cool programs for.
If they had just left well enough alone and did not add WGA, it would have been awesome. Now it is just a real decent OS.
I currently don’t own a Mac but I was talking to a Mac user the other day and was intrigued to hear that they don’t even have any kind of activation system for the operating system. That means you could technically, not legally, install it on as many machines as you would like without worrying about not getting the latest updates. I give credit to Apple for keeping it simple.
That is a good thing that Apple is keeping it simple. I do plan one day to own a Mac.