This just appeared on Boing Boing.
DRM bites again: the Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage servers (which every XP and Vista install phones home to) all failed sometime earlier today.
The result? Every single Windows XP and Vista installation — except possibly those with volume license keys — is being marked as counterfeit when it tries to check in.
Looks like this isn’t the weekend to install a copy of Windows or buy a new Windows PC. Now where are they selling Macs.
When you read the forums on this (linked in blockquote below) it’s incredible.
Validation issues – Microsoft is having WGA server problems
Thank you for your response.
I’m sorry to inform you that the Windows Genuine server might be down for few days. I have escalate the issue to our Genuine team, kindly try to validate again on Tuesday 28 Aug 2007.
Thank you for contacting Microsoft Technical Support.
If these programs were properly designed they would all self-validate if the validation server went down. The cheaters would have a free day or two and be caught later. How hard can that be? But no. Now everyone is assumed to be a crook. This is a developing story.
______________________________________
UPDATE: It’s fixed, relatively speaking. Sort of.
Folks:
I understand the frustration you all are going through. I’m investigating the issue right now.
I guarantee that we’re working on this issue right now. For folks wondering, MACHINES ARE NOT SHUTTING DOWN with reduced functionality.
I guarantee that I will personally resolve this issue before I go to sleep – whether or not it is Tuesday I sleep.
Can I just take this opportunity to say…
BWAhahahahahahaha!!! :>
And of course they’re not smart enough to just make every request return as valid until the problem is resolved…
This is truly amazing. As if Microsoft needed more bad publicity.
We have here some solid evidence that WGA is probably the most dangerous “feature” Microsoft has ever come up with. It’s almost hard to imagine all the computers, world-wide, that are now useless until the boys at Microsoft get back from their golf weekends.
Wasn’t WGA and all the “activation” goodness supposed to be a “feature” to “protect” legitimate buyers? Omy!
Better to inconvenience all your paying customers than let one pirate get updates they are not entitled to.
It’s like something out of 1984 to call this Genuine Advantage. Perhaps they will start calling the purchase price Paying You!
Yes. The name “Windows Genuine Advantage” doesn’t specify to whom the ‘advantage’ accrues…
One could be forgiven for thinking the creators of the WGA abortion have significant holdings in Apple stock. 🙂
I hate to keep bringing this up but, BUY A MAC!!!
That’s too funny. What a hole!
You’d think Microsoft would have learned long ago to avoid this sort of scenario.
This is part of MS’s on-going plan to convince you to by Apple. First Vista, now this. Even when you’re unfortunate enough to buy Vista, it won’t let you use it! It’s part of MS’s Genuine Un-usability Disadvantage Program.
>>BWAhahahahahahaha!!! :>
I never thought I’d echo your sentiments, Pike Place Man, but allow me to be the first to admit when I’m wrong:
BWAhahahahahahaha!!!
And :> to boot. Fucking Micro$oft. Why didn’t we break them up when we had the chance? This monopoly thing sucks ass. Bring back WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3.
“You’d think Microsoft would have learned long ago to avoid this sort of scenario.”
Unbridled greed has the power to blind those afflicted with it to how irrational and ultimately counterproductive it is.
Billyboy is how old now? and is still blind.
I seem to remember reading somewhere in some book something about the ‘love of money being the root of all evil’… A sentiment few people these days believe, apparently.
Its amusing to see people recommend Apple as the best alternative to the M$ monopoly. Apple would be worse of a monopoly if they took over, they make the hardware, software and OS
Ubuntu!
http://tinyurl.com/563oe
Really? When I install OS X on a machine it doesn’t phone home to Cupertino.
Apple realistically acknowledges that no matter what they do, some percentage will pirate their stuff. But because they don’t so blatantly mistrust their user base, like M$, they don’t generate the resentment that M$ does, and more people are motivated to go ahead and pay for the software.
Of course, the M$ policy of inspiring hatred instead of cultish loyalty must be better for business, what with Vista floundering in the shallows and ever-increasing record numbers of users buying Macs, both newbies and defectors from Windows… right?
makes me glad I own Mac’s with mac OS X Tiger. and with 10.5 Leopard coming soon looks like more reason for others to make the switch.
’m sorry to inform you that the Windows Genuine server might be down for few days. I have escalate the issue to our Genuine team, kindly try to validate again on Tuesday 28 Aug 2007.
Get real…what do you expect when the individual sending a message, ostensibly to tens of thousands of users, cannot conjugate a verb, incorrectly uses a comma instead of a period, etc.
Probably like everyone else there below vested-exec level, a temp. Anyway, illiterates work cheaper. Which translates into mo’ money for Billy & Ballmer.
LMAO
ROFL
LFAO
LOOL
ROTGLMAO
Head falls off, laughing so hard, I walk over to pick it up, and kick it farther. I think, forget it, wait till it stops Laughing, it wont bounce so much.
I finally had the pleasure of dealing with Vista.
Even though the organization I work for banned Vista purchases one slipped through. I setup Windows computers a lot for work and I thought XP was annoying.
Wow, I had no idea what annoying was until I fired up that Vista laptop. And I thought it couldn’t possibly get any more annoying… lol
If John is on the next episode twit, I predict a major rant on this issue.
Dear Mr Gates, in related article posted on dvorak.org, Astronomers have seen the rings arround Uranus….
Once I bought a Mac classic, (yes fish man, I did.) and it came with Microsoft works. The darn thing had this twisted anti-copy scheme, that if you fumbled up and uninstalled the mac way (ie. throw the program to trash) it could never install again and kept asking for diskette nr. 1.
That became so annoying that, although I had the original, I installed a pirate copy.
That was a valuable lesson.
BTW if you really need windows updates and don’t want the hassle of WGA, check out http://www.autopatcher.com
Ah, yes. The situation reminds me of what Emperor Hirohito said on the anniversary of Amerigo Vespucci’s death:
w00t M$!
Microsoft stock was already a BUY. At this rate, it will be a STEAL!
I have to second the Ubuntu. Why pay anything for an operating system when you can get one for free? I switched 3 months ago when my XP killed it’s self and now I look at any windows machines with disgust. I haven’t used Mac recently (mainly because it takes so long to get used to after switching), but I am still going to make the claim that Ubuntu beats it hands down based on absolutely nothing at all.
IT’S FIXED ALREADY, geez. Tested personally just now.
Just because a customer got an email to try again in a few days, DOESN’T mean it’s down until that date.
Everyone jumping the gun, as if Microsoft couldn’t manage High Availability Servers in professional data centers.
SE LE ACABO LA “fusiladera” AL GORDITO PIRATA…..QUE SE PONGA A DERECHO.
Bill Gates-
Just a taste of what will happen when M$ pulls the plug on XP. God forbid you have an old PC that won’t run Vista.
#28 God forbid a PC that Apple didn’t sell runs OS X! 😉
Cheers
#25 And what software are you running on your free OS?
Cheers