What is Digg?70 Comments
- Phocion55, on 10/10/2007, -9/+53I think this was a blessing in disguise.
It finally proved to the world that shady DRM-like practices such as WGA have no merit whatsoever and are completely ineffective.
Think about it: why buy an operating system that comes loaded with "features" that have NO value to YOU the consumer?
I'm just lucky I don't have to call AAA for permission to drive my car everytime I start it up. - magus_melchior, on 10/10/2007, -4/+40"Everything is fine. Nothing is ruined."
Oh, that's good to hear. Let's just— Wait a minute! Wha... Flagrant Error!? - Jambi, on 10/10/2007, -2/+30The average person (if they were unlucky enough to be using WGA when this happened) thinks it's just "one of those things PCs do from time to time". They're trained to expect low quality. As for DRM, I doubt most of them could tell you what it is, let alone its relation to their OS crashing.
- lkmbrd, on 10/10/2007, -1/+28Silly humans.
- nusuni, on 10/10/2007, -2/+20Why can't they just tell the truth and say they let monkey man in the server room?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bylDojTWfyU - gr0ss, on 10/10/2007, -1/+13I didn't find any sort of WGA Removal tool there, maybe I missed it? Direct link please.
/you'reatool - Shorties, on 10/10/2007, -4/+14Yes its an outrage when you have a system that can even mistakly call 12,000 people pirates human error or not WGA sucks.
- diggsIt, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11That would cost money. Money goes to marketing. Screw the customer, just get their money.
- carpespasm, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9ubuntu? get a pirate ISO that doesn't need to authenticate?
- alphacoder, on 10/10/2007, -3/+10If MS really is a large company with significant managerial experience, talent and resources, then I would say it is less likely that business processes would be so designed where human error could affect it.
Whether human error or technical vulnerability, in many ways it should make investors think about the organizational, managerial and technical infrastructure that allows something like this to occur. - Jambi, on 10/10/2007, -3/+10Who's making anything up? A lot of people using WGA over the weekend were screwed over by this problem. And frankly, I really don't see the point of WGA. Anyone who wants to get a pirated copy of Vista or XP that bypasses all this crap can easily do so. Who's this really bothering? Legitimate customers, that's who. It's not FUD to say that this inconvenienced a fair number of people, and that WGA has no viability whatsoever as a piracy prevention tool.
- edster, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9I don't mean this to be a Microsoft basher but what happens 10 years from now when they go out of business? That may sound extreme but companies change, priorities change, events happen. Maybe the games business becomes so successful they decide to quit wasting time on OS development. As people just learned from Google, DRM is a bad idea, calling home is a bad idea and volunteering to restrict your rights as a consumer by purchasing things that are secured like this is also a bad idea.
Just yesterday I decided to boot up an old computer running Windows 2000 server because I wanted to look at something. If it had tried to dial home and they had decided to turn off the server since they don't support 2000 anymore I would have been screwed.
I still have a couple of Apple laptops from the early and mid 1990s. They still work fine but I doubt I will be able to kick up a machine running Vista in 2020 because WGA has been replaced with WGB, which is totally incompatible. (Think Plays for Sure) - sirhomer, on 10/10/2007, -7/+14Trojan.WGA.W32.W64
Effects: information phishing, performance and reliability loss, remote control
Systems effected: Windows XP, Windows Vista (all versions)
Risk Level: Extremely High
Damage Level: Extremely High
Distribution Level: Extremely High
For more information please visit the joint anti-virus task force website. - Phocion55, on 10/10/2007, -4/+10Read my post again and tell me where I say specifically that "Vista sucks".
I said WGA is worthless, ineffective, and implemented by Microsoft at the expense of the customer. And Microsoft proved this to be fact over the weekend. - justineatworld, on 10/10/2007, -4/+10here, here!
If only microsoft really gave a ***** what people think. It's unfortunate, but they have 90% of the market share and many people rely on proprietary programs.
Hopefully, virtualization will allow us to fix this within a few years. - h00ligan, on 10/10/2007, -4/+9I installed vista a week ago - since that time...
It was activated after install - before complete driver setup.
Installed the IBM drivers and then had to reactivate it.
It failed after windows updates to the catalyst driver, causing sporadic behaviour and lockups (turned out to be some conflict with the lenovo ultranav driver). It took about a day to isolate the cause of the issue
the wga servers took a ***** at which time i mailed support - to be told that i should go on line to activate it - which is where i got the support email address.. and that should that fail we could reactivate it(with no details)
and yesterday after installing another catalyst driver from IBM and the Intel storage matrix driver, it once again told me it wasn't a legit copy of windows.
When I contacted customer service I was told to go through phone activation and then had to give them the product code. when they gave me the product code, which is 8 sets of 6 numbers and doesn't accept copy and paste... i received an error message after the 5th set saying something like ' this is not the code you were given, please re-enter'. The support person on chat told me i must be entering it wrong - and asked me to do it again, and again... at which point i suggested he double check that the number he typed was correct... shortly thereafter he returned with nearly the same code, but a few numbers off (seems like a cs error to me!) which did work.
Shockingly - when I called to speak with the VP of Customer service whose name is Richard Kaplan (vpesc@ms.com), i was unable to gain access to discuss the complete and utter failing to the customer on Microsoft's behalf. Later it was added that he does read email. Great.
In all instances I was passed to an outsource house in India with non native speakers..
Microsoft, this is absolutely unacceptable. I am going to be pursuing a refund. You can tell me all you want that the activation is unobtrusive, but you are wrong. Simple driver updates to 2 major components triggered it again.
The product is flawed, Customer Service is flawed, and the attitude about the former two is flawed. - mudfly, on 10/10/2007, -3/+8Microsoft can dispute anything it wants, but WGA is a piece of *****. They should just call it for what it is.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Yeah, WGA has screwed me too. I installed XP Pro on an XP Home system (pre-installed by HP) and the validation wizard wouldn't run becasue of IE7. Microsoft Tech support told me I had a pirated copy of XP Home (from HP???) and made me buy another license.
That didn't work either!
When I told them IE wasn't working and asked if the validation wizard depends on it, they said YES.
I asked them to show me how to un-install IE7 (which I did) and then everything worked fine!
They cheated me out of $150 because their software is DEFECTIVE!
Where's the class-action lawsuit? - realyst, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Of course it's human error. Microsoft is manned by humans, afterall.(no matter the evidence to the contrary).
- purpmint008, on 10/10/2007, -3/+6"Alex Kochis, a Microsoft senior product manager for WGA, says that Microsoft learned of the outage "through a combination of posts to our forum and customer support." The company is now working to improve its monitoring so that it does not need to rely on customer notification in the event of future WGA problems."
Damn near EVERY company operates like this. Its not just MS. Why don't people ever APPLY common sense / just-in-case scenarios? - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -6/+9Just visit microsoft.com/genuine and you'll be back to normal in 10 seconds.
- jamminman, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5You sir, are an idiot. No one is bashing Microsoft for the sake of bashing Microsoft here. We are mad about an archaic system that doesn't work and actually hurts the consumer. Think a little more before you speak next time. nub.
- JonForTheWin, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5>it's a lot more fun to make ***** up for fun and profit, isn't it
This WGA thing was lyk TOTALLY made up. As Jamminman pointed out, nub indeed. - ryanatkin, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4it effects xp too. i wish it would have let me activated my pirate copy on that day. i only have 8 days left until im screwed. anyone know what to do?
- Optimaximal, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2You're a retard...
- skodai, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Buy a copy?
- archer75, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3It's not a big deal. If you weren't consider genuine right then you do it later. It happened to me as well during that time. No negative side affects on my system. All worked fine and I just did it later.
- hiro, on 10/10/2007, -1/+312000 out of how many million? Insignificant. Buried
- V1ncent, on 10/10/2007, -3/+5What?! Redmond doesn't use System Restore on their servers?!
- estvir, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3It took only a few months for the amount of people using Vista to easily overtake MacOS.. and Linux, *BSD.. COMBINED.
Hell, there were probably more beta testers for Vista than Linux [desktop users]. - johnstar, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1what happens when they discontinue support for windows xp (is activation support?)
- lycaki, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2I remember one time, I had made a change on my system and it was a Sunday Evening
it prompted the Activation process... told me to call, so I did. The guy told me all the systems were down and I'd have to ring back tomorrow to get authorised. I told him, what the hell do you expect me to do with my PC now, I can't even log on!
You've prevented a law abiding genuine software user from accessing their computer - he apologised and obviously it's not HIS fault but WTF - I was beside myself with anger for MS. I don't know why we let them get away with it sometimes... it's not right! - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1boo fkin ohhh
- akkibaba, on 10/10/2007, -3/+412,000 computers running Vista, eh? I'd say that's 12,000 human errors right there...
- sputty01, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2crack xp's validation... its been broken for years, google is your friend.
- marx2k, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1This wouldnt happen if SkyNet was running *****. Stupid humans
- mudfly, on 12/13/2007, -0/+1I laughed!
- grumpyrain, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2FTA> Kochis says that it's wrong to call this failure an "outage" because the servers were not down; they were just functioning incorrectly
Stop arguing over semantics. OK it was not an outage, it was worse than that.
---
According to the official WGA blog
"If the servers are down, why don't you just assume the systems are genuine?
We do. ....."
---
We (your paying customers) would have preferred an outage because that doesn't screw us around. An outage would have also prevented our customers from filling up support lines accusing us of selling them counterfeit software.
WGA Blog> but we now realize that we didn't have the right monitoring in place to be sure the fixes had the intended effect.
What, they don't happen to have an XP or Vista install on hand? - furo, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3WGA failures are not a bad thing, folks. Just the opposite. I really, really hope someone does something to pull the plug on a few hundred/thousand PCs in a large corporate enterprise. Better yet, the government. It would spell an immediate and complete moratorium on the deployment of anything containing WGA components.
Ultimately, I think WGA is self-defeating. The pirates certainly aren't too terribly inconvenienced, but the rest of us absolutely are. Coupled with the other DRM "functions" and the network performance fiasco when playing any audio, Microsoft's bid to exact total control is slowly accumulating negative favor. Any corporate IT department that is seriously considering Vista deployment is just plain incompetent. Vista could have been so much better but for the DRM and WGA hooks that took over the entire OS foundation. Flawed by design, indeed. - abhiroop, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3It is the ease of use that is put into question here. It takes half the time to install a pirated copy of XP than it does for a real one. Plus the pirated copy doesn't come with any bloatware. Generally with software people will go for legitimate one's because its easy and hassle free, do you REALLY want to find cracks and patches? In the case of windows its the opposite!
- furo, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2My thoughts exactly... or did they only have hacked versions without the need of activation running? Peter Q. Techie can't call his mom to have her try it? What a crock. For Microsoft to not have any apparent monitoring, failsafes or workarounds staged and ready to go at a moment's notice is a complete and total failure in planning and implementation, particularly given the scope and wide-reaching effects that it can quite obviously have when things go wrong.
- artoisval, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2Time to switch to Linux. The Linux Genuine Advantage never fail.
- protogenxl, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Data Center: Okay, you 10 seconds to Disconnect the Blue Network Cable or we will lose all of the servers.
Guy in the Patch Room: Disconnect the Blue Wire? THEIR ALL BLUE WIRES!!!! - icsbase, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0"Why can't they just tell the truth and say they let monkey man in the server room?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bylDojTWfyU"
Perhaps they DID let him in there... - GawtMilk, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1It didn't affect me at all. But oh well.
- estvir, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1I don't think WGA swings the same way as you but judging by some of the comments of other Digg users you're in luck!
- heystoopid, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Missing a few zero's on the figure !
- meshman, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Where I work, every workstation is licensed legally and every last one of them has WGA cracked. It's the best solution to the whole thing. I have no problem paying for the licensing but I refuse to waste my time calling MS for new keys every time I do a re-install.
- motters, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1WGA is the best thing that Microsoft have ever done. It has caused many people I know to move to alternative operating systems.
- LondonDude, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Surely the "Human Error" that caused the problems with WGA was the decision to release and fore it upon people in the first place???
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