Text 12494, 89 rader
Skriven 2006-08-09 19:05:10 av /m (1:379/45)
Ärende: Another WGA failure
===========================
From: /m <mike@barkto.com>


http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=110&tag=nl.e539

===
I just experienced a Windows Genuine Advantage failure. Only it’s not a false
positive, like the horror stories I’ve been hearing for nearly two months now.
No, this one was a false negative. The whole story says a lot about how
Microsoft is approaching the WGA issue.

A few weeks ago, I spoke to some of the folks on the WGA team and asked them to
send me a pirated version of Windows XP.  According to Microsoft, 80 percent of
the 60 million people who have been nabbed by the WGA validation tool are
running versions of Windows with stolen or pirated volume license keys. These
versions of Windows are supposed to be available only to corporate customers
and only as upgrades. Unlike retail versions, they don’t require activation,
which makes them an ideal target of pirates and bootleggers.

According to Microsoft, many of the people who end up with these “non-genuineö
copies of Windows are themselves victims. The unauthorized OS might have been
installed by a repair shop, or they might have purchased what they thought was
a legitimate copy of Windows from an unscrupulous reseller. I wanted to install
a pirated copy so I could experience exactly what these customers go through
and report the results to you. I still can’t quite believe how difficult it’s
been. Here’s the story so far.

On July 18, Microsoft's WGA team promised to send me a disk with a product key
from their blocked list. It was supposed to arrive via overnight service, but
it was never sent. After several follow-up messages, I was assured on July 26 I
would have something by the end of that week. The package finally arrived the
next week, on August 1. It contained a CD-R with a handwritten label that read
“Windows XP SP2 – VLK,ö and a 25-character product key on a small slip of
paper.

Over the weekend, I hoisted the Jolly Roger, cleared a partition on a test
machine, slid the CD into the drive, and prepared to join the ranks of Windows
pirates. Unfortunately, the product key that Microsoft had sent me didn’t work.
Instead of a smooth installation, I got an error message: "The Product ID which
you entered is invalid. Please try again." I fired off a request for assistance
to my contacts at Microsoft. Nearly 72 hours later, I still haven’t received a
response other than a note that confirms my message was forwarded to the
correct person.

No problem, I thought. I’ll just do what any red-blooded pirate would do and
Google for a working product key. It took me about 15 minutes to find a web
page containing five volume license keys that had reportedly been posted on
September 9 2004. Surely if I can find a leaked VL key on a search engine,
Microsoft can too, right? If these keys have been floating around the Internet
for two years, surely they’ve been tagged as stolen by Microsoft, and I’ll get
a WGA failure that I can show the world.

I restarted the installation using the VL media Microsoft had supplied me and
entered one of the bootleg keys I found. It worked. After installation
completed, I set up an Internet connection and downloaded a slew of updates,
including the WGA Validation tool and the WGA Notifications utility. I then
restarted, fully expecting to see a series of stern messages telling me I’d
been busted.

Only that’s not how it worked out.

My bootleg key worked perfectly. I went back to Windows Update and downloaded a
series of Optional Updates and drivers that are only available to Genuine
Windows users. I went over to the Internet Explorer homepage and downloaded the
latest beta of IE7, passing a validation test twice – once on the download and
again on the installation. And five minutes ago I went over to the Windows
Defender page – this is another free utility that’s only available to Genuine
Windows users – and the validation check waved me right through.

That’s where I stand right now. The folks who are running the WGA program are
having troubles getting the little stuff right, like putting a CD in the mail
and proofreading the product key they sent with it. They haven’t managed to
identify a stolen product key that’s been floating around the Internet for
nearly two years. I'm reluctantly running a pirated version of Windows and
can't get caught no matter how hard I try.

But these same people want us to believe that the WGA software they’ve
developed is nearly foolproof. They claim that all but “a fraction of a
percentö of those 60 million people who’ve been denied access to Microsoft
updates and downloads are guilty, guilty, guilty.
===


Microsoft is starting to look like the gang that couldn't shoot straight.

 /m

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