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Wojnarowski
Microsoft's WGA changes today
Genuine Advantage not proven
By John Oates ? More by this author
Published Tuesday 20th February 2007 10:42 GMT
Stay one step ahead, receive articles like this on your desktop as they
happen.
Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage is being updated today, in what the
company claims is response to customer feedback.
The original WGA was hugely unpopular, especially when it emerged the
software was secretly "phoning home" - sending information about users'
computers back to Redmond.
It also caused problems for some network managers faced with dozens of
"false positives" - users told they were running fake software when in fact
they were not. The original WGA found 22 per cent of systems scanned failed
the test.
Microsoft has taken a page out of the Scottish legal system and added an
extra verdict of "not proven" - WGA for XP will now label your software
genuine, non-genuine, or not sure. Last time round some users found minor
hardware changes like installing a new video card meant they had to
re-activate their software through WGA.
The opt-in software is available for download from
www.microsoft.com/genuine/. It will then be rolled out in Automatic Updates
over "the next several weeks or months". The software will be updated every
90 to 120 days. More....
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/20/wga_changes_today/
Genuine Advantage not proven
By John Oates ? More by this author
Published Tuesday 20th February 2007 10:42 GMT
Stay one step ahead, receive articles like this on your desktop as they
happen.
Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage is being updated today, in what the
company claims is response to customer feedback.
The original WGA was hugely unpopular, especially when it emerged the
software was secretly "phoning home" - sending information about users'
computers back to Redmond.
It also caused problems for some network managers faced with dozens of
"false positives" - users told they were running fake software when in fact
they were not. The original WGA found 22 per cent of systems scanned failed
the test.
Microsoft has taken a page out of the Scottish legal system and added an
extra verdict of "not proven" - WGA for XP will now label your software
genuine, non-genuine, or not sure. Last time round some users found minor
hardware changes like installing a new video card meant they had to
re-activate their software through WGA.
The opt-in software is available for download from
www.microsoft.com/genuine/. It will then be rolled out in Automatic Updates
over "the next several weeks or months". The software will be updated every
90 to 120 days. More....
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/20/wga_changes_today/