Microsoft Denies the Windows Kill Switch

WindozeSux writes "Microsoft has denied that WGA will kill pirated copies of Windows. According to Waggener Edstrom,"Microsoft anti-piracy technologies cannot and will not turn off your computer." Microsoft also says that WGA is a necessary part of its campaign to catch those illegally using Windows XP which leads one to think what WGA really does then."

What does WGA do?

[Richard_at_work]

From the article:

Microsoft also says that WGA is a necessary part of its campaign to catch those illegally using Windows XP which leads one to think what WGA really does then.

WGA is not to stop *us* from pirating Windows, thats never going to be successful. However, it will prove successful against those shops selling whitebox builds with illegal copies of Windows, and it already gives a cheap (or is it still free?) option to consumers caught out like that in return for providing evidence against their supplier (receipt etc).

These are the people that need to be stopped.

Stop Piracy

[neoform]

"Microsoft also says that WGA is a necessary part of its campaign to catch those illegally using Windows XP"

It sure didn't stop me.. nor did it stop anyone else i know who's got an illegal copy. But it sure did piss off a whole lot of people who did pay for their copy..

20% failure rate (from TFA)?

[geerbox]

Through its spokeswoman, Microsoft said that "80% of all WGA validation failures are due to unauthorized use of leaked or stolen volume license keys."

That can partially explain why WGA will not cause the "killing" of computers with XP. That said, it's a 20% of their no-corporate users (large-volume purchasers of XP are exempt from installing WGA from TFA) that will be having problems trying to get things to update and work.

Re:20% failure rate (from TFA)?

[Peyna]

Perhaps you failed statistics, but the proper conclusion from the statement that "80% of failures are due to unauthorized use of leaked or stolen volume license keys." is that the other 20% of failures are due to something else.

I would guess some percentage would be the unauthorized use of leaked or stolen non-volume license keys. The rest of that 20% could be anything or nothing.

I have no idea what conclusion you were trying to draw from that statement, but you made quite a jump in logic there. That figure gives us no indication as to what total percentage of users have problems with WGA.

Wonder

[donutello]

That last line should read:

which leads one to wonder what WGA really does then.

Come on. That's what editors are supposed to do.

Re:Phoning home

[jfengel]

It phones home more than once because hard drives can be cloned. If the thing only poked its head up once, pirates would run a single legal box until WGA verified itself, then make copies of that disk and sell them. So it has to check every time if the brain wakes up in a "new body".

There's far less cause for it to phone home if it wakes up in the same old body. There's some complexity going on if you replace a hardware component; defining "a computer" is tricky.

Re:Several purposes, perhaps...

[Peyna]

What they really need is better copy protection out the door, instead of relying on a way of detecting it after the fact, they should be finding ways to prevent it beforehand.

I think probably one of the biggest mistakes Microsoft made regarding copy protection was in its method of handling volume licensing. Entire Universities across the country were given a copy of Windows that requires no activation or anything, along with (in many cases) one CD key for the lot. All anyone had to do was copy that CD, give away that CD key and those people are immune from detection. Of course, Microsoft knows a lot of those CD keys that have spread like wildfire, but they haven't blocked the one I got from my university yet.

Better copy protection and management in volume licensing upfront would have gone a long way to prevent a lot of these problems. I do suppose there is a balancing of factors taking place, in that on one hand you don't want to overburden customers that are feeding you millions for a volume license, but on the other hand, you also don't want them to turn around and give a copy to every family member and friend and acquaintance.

Re:How Do They Detect Pirated XP Corporate?

[ScrewMaster]

It does too require a product key, it just doesn't require activation. Microsoft has been known to deactivate specific keys from the Corporate Edition on occasion, if it has been found to have been leaked and is commonly used for illegal installations.

Re:The real question is..!

[Bios_Hakr]

Visual Studio is now free.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/ [microsoft.com]

They also have TONS of video and print tutorials.

Office can be had for $150.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/editions/prodinfo/ students/default.mspx [microsoft.com]

And WinXP is around for between $50 and $150.

So, bare bones, you are looking at $200 to be legal. Or, you can spend a few weeks dealing with waiting for a WGA hack to come out.

Re:Please, this was never going to happen

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful? Your experience is not at all what this article is about. You used the OEM key to activate a commercial version; of course they don't match. XP has only ever worked for 30 days without proper activation. You never actually activated it at all. I'm no M$ fan, but what you describe has been happening for the 6 or so years XP has been out.

This article refers to the recent WGA update and whether it will kill machines that had heretofore been running and updating normally for long periods of time.

Re:Please, this was never going to happen

[Ucklak]

The Key you used is an OEM key and you should have used your retail key.
Tier1 vendors get a key/image that doesn't require activation.

Still pointless that you paid extra money for another XP license while you should have used the original OEM license and spend the time removing the OEM crap instead of reinstalling again.

Re: Please, this was never going to happen

[QuietLagoon]

Note the very careful wording in the Mircosoft's press release. Microsoft's PR firm (not Microsoft) is saying that WGA will not "will not turn off your computer". The release says nothing about preventing Windows from running, which was what a Microsoft person had previously stated.

So Microsoft, through their press agent, has denied something that they were not accused of planning to do. Releasing the denial through th epress agent prevents any further questions on the matter. The agent will just say that they have said all they know.

Bottom line: the matter of whether or not WGA will prevent a copy of Windows from running remains unsettled.

oems and the wga

[Sfing_ter]

for anyone who owns or has worked on oem machines, dell, hp, sony et. al. if you run keyfinder you realize that the key used in the installation is not the key on the side of the box... I like many techs you initially wipe the hard drive and install from an updated cd with the latest drives etc., and try to use the key on the side of the box, then you have a 30+ minute call/s to microsoft, where you are harangued "How many computers do you have this installed on?" If you have a dell based xp install cd (since sp1) you can install that version on any dell (i have seen a dell w/winme machine updated to xpsp2 in this manner) and not be asked for a key during the... they also pass wga.

So, I guess it's like the war on drugs; it's not that you are using a pirated copy, it's WHO"S pirated copy you use...

I'm one of those .001%

[jmichaelg]

No, Microsoft doesn't disable your computer - it just disables your ability to install patches which, given the frequency of OS exploits, is tantamount to the same thing as disabling your computer.

I'm one of those .001% - WGA thinks I pirated my copy of XP even though I bought it at Costco. When I disabled the "you have an illegal copy of Windows" balloon via the security panel, another little message popped up saying that I would no longer be able to download patches. I suspect WGA was unhappy because I had disabled several services such as remote registry and alerter.

I can understand Microsoft's desire not to get ripped off but at the same time, I'm not sympathetic if their software falsely accuses me of being a thief and I end up losing a couple of hours figuring out what their problem is.

Re:Please, this was never going to happen

[HardCase]

...we bought a legit copy of XP Home and installed it using the product key that the HP machine came with...

Oh no you didn't. The retail XP would not accept the OEM key. You made the story up! I guess we know why you posted AC.

-h-

Re:As It Unfolded

[nuckfuts]

If you paid for a full retail version of Windows the license allows you to move it from computer to computer. If you're running an OEM version the licence does not allow this. Up until the last year or so if you wanted to move an OEM version from one computer to another you could phone up and say that you're using it on the same computer but with a new motherboard. Then the OEM licence was changed to specifically disallow that kind of thing, presumably because there is no practical way to tell the difference between a new motherboard and a new computer. And it's not just motherboards that can cause Windows to require activation again. If you change enough components, such as adding RAM, a larger disk and a new video card all at the same time you might cross the line into what's considered a new computer.

All that being said, I've moved OEM versions between computers quite a number of times and I've yet to be refused activation key. It is necessary to speak to someone over the phone, however.

Alternatives to WGA and Windows Update

[nuckfuts]

If you really object to where Microsoft is going with WGA, here is a good article [windowssecrets.com] on how to remove WGA and use an alternative to Windows Update.

The article doesn't mention how to get access to other Microsoft downloads, however, such as Windows Defender.

Re:Turning the FUD tables on Microsoft

[Bert64]

Actually, microsoft do have the right to snoop around your system and to send any information they want back to them. You gave them this right when you accepted the EULA. Don't believe me? read it more carefully.

WGA

[falconwolf]

Here are a couple of plausible theories that make WGA's existence productive, while not infringing on anybody's rights.

This doesn't explain how or why someone sends in their Dell for service gets it back and it refuses to run Windows. Yes, an article Friday I think it was had this as one of the examples of what WGA did to a user.

Falcon

Re:As It Unfolded

[Nightspirit]

This is bullshit. I've installed the same copy of XP home on 3 different motherboards, using 3 different CPUs (of course, not all at the same time, but as part of an upgrade), and never had a problem. All it took is a 3 minute call to MS to get a new key. BFD.

Re:They might not be a nice company

[therufus]

You need to download the Upgrade Advisor Tool [microsoft.com].

Re:Please, this was never going to happen

[Vacuous]

I used to do XP tech support, and all I have to say is this:

Yes they can generate XP OEM keys.

Re:"We can't turn off your computer"

[mcrbids]

oooh look at you with your loaded questions.

no i didn't think it was polished enough, and then i saw there were other more mature tools that do the same thing (dirvish).

I might mention that I discuss the plusses and minuses of dirvish on my related projects page [effortlessis.com] and still get an e-mail every week or so about Backup Buddy.

If it's good enough for you, it's good enough for somebody else. Release your stuff! If only because you might have thought of a feature that I might like! It's this cross-fertilization that makes OSS evolve so quickly and so effectively...