James Delahunty
27 Aug 2007 17:06
Microsoft has blamed a server error for a glitch in its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program that incorrectly reported many legitimate installations of Windows XP and Windows Vista as pirated. WGA is a tool used to fight against piracy of the Windows operating system and is delivered through Automatic Updates. An XP installation found to be pirated is blocked from software updates and for Vista, some features are disabled.
The Business Software Alliance (BSA) estimates that piracy accounts for $29 billion in lost revenue for the software industry every year. Needless to say, unhappy users felt compelled to leave comments about their experience. "You really ought to work on making WGA actually an advantage. Right now, users of pirate copies of Windows had an extra couple days of use," a user calling himself "Mhornyak" commented on the WGA blog.
He also added: "I also want to say, because I know how painful all-nighters are: Congrats to the WGA team for getting things working again. It's not your fault that the company policy is bad."
Source:
Yahoo (NF)