Windows Genuine Advantage Is it really our advantage or theirs?

Well, as we all know, the Windows Genuine Advantage was launched on July 25th, 2005, but is it really to our advantage or theirs? Especially after reading this section of the article:

 

Mississauga, ON. - July 25, 2005 - Microsoft today announced the transition of the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) pilot to a version 1.0 launch with worldwide availability. WGA is part of Microsoft's ongoing commitment to protect its customers from software counterfeiting and to help support its partners through education, engineering and enforcement of policies and laws. WGA, designed to differentiate the value of genuine Windows software from counterfeit software, enables customers to enjoy the capabilities they expect, provides them with the confidence that their software is authentic, and delivers ongoing system improvements, including approximately CAD $450 in software offerings available only to genuine users.

 

It sounds like it's to their advantage because they of course want customers to buy genuine software, they are the people who are raking in the money. The consumers won't care less using a counterfeit software.

 

What are your opinions? Mine is, it's their advantage, not ours!

 

xboxrulz

Well xboxrulz i will agree that is their advantage but also say that it can become an advantage to those who spend their hard earned money to buy a product that meets the marketing standards, by that i mean it went through research and development and then consumer testing and probably back to R&D, so where do you think microsoft gets the funds to do all of this, by selling their product to people who buy it because they approve of it and it meets their needs.When the product becomes pirated the cycle begins to corrode because microsoft gets less money for their R&D and the original users are waiting for the next release for better products but this cannot be achieved. Another point is that microsoft have even given you the choice for your security as WGA is an activex control you can manage it using internet explorer and choose to run it or not. So microsoft have by no means tied you down to using that method.

yes, but have you also notice that it also blocks out people who uses WINE which they have no part of, but it's the Windows compatibility layer, and they lock the people out just because they want to block the competition.xboxrulz

Yep... Genuine Advantage is a Genuine Pain for me, a paying customer.I got a copy of MS windows with a computer i bought, I dont use windows, but i do own a copy.now... i have a problem with WMV-9 video files, to play them i require the windows codecs, which are available in 32bit linux, but not 64bit linux, as 64bit wndows has not yet been released.So the only way for me to play WMV version 9 files, is to use windows media player though WINE (cedega).But because of this genuine advanatge nuicence, i cannot download windows media player from microsoft !!!Paid for it, but i cant use it !Its okay to stop people from stealing software, BUT NOT AT THE EXPENCE OF PAYING CUSTOMERS.

Whoa....so now we can't even download their stuff to use through WINE? So basically, this is Microsoft taking their nomally free products, all of a sudden calling it $450-something worth of free software, and....iirgh. This is stupid. I don't use any of their software, but for people that like to use WINE, that is absolutely ridiculous!

Yep, so for me to view WMV version 9 media files, i either have to wait for the open source guys to crack this closed format (by which time no doubt MS will be working on WMV-10)or i have to wait for win64 wmv-9 codecs to become available to the mplayer developers.or i have to waste disk space installing 32bit compatability libs for a 32bit mplayer.

if you download win32-codecs from mplayer, it has a codec for WMV.xboxrulz

@qwijibow You dont have to pay for your free microsoft products nor have microsoft tired to stop you using another medium such as wine, i think you guys have worked up into a terrible fuss over them and in this fury miss the answer completely and just go on blaming microsoft - you dont even need windows genuine advantage to get the windows media player for example, now i know especially for linux users or any other operatign system for that matter you cant keep on top of every one. So since im in the IT field i will give you an example and you can work on it in future.If i were to install 5 computers brand new and needed to also put the latest edition of windows media player on them all would i waste my bandwidth and time by going to windows update site and doing the validation - No ofcourse not, in the microsoft world they try to make life easier and its called a redistributable file which as the name states can be used over and over again and im sure other os's have this system aswel. So all you need to do it go to the microsoft site and search for the media player 9 redistrbutable file and it will give you a link to it to download the exe. This can be done for almost all windows products and i say almost because for comercial server hotfixes u will need validation for those. So before we go raining on someone elses parade maybe a bit of googling is in order or perhaps post here at Xisto and we windows users would be glad to help as the linux community is glad to help converts.Good LuckReaver

funny, no WINE installed software can access to download IE6, WMP9 and other Windows patches without going thru WGA. iT's because Microsoft deliberately denied WINE from entering.xboxrulz

So you are saying microsoft have blocked wine installed software from going to the url address of https://www.microsoft.com/de-de and using the search bar to type in : IE 6 redistributable, WMP.x redistributable and downloading them from the links provided and also stopping you from viewing the history of hotfixes for these products and their links....

WGA is stupid, annoying, and pointless. Same for windows update. It is also easy to get around, although I am not going to say how. Micro$oft knows their software is gonna get pirated, stolen, cracked, etc., so why don't they just let windows be free, while upgrades and other software like office would cost money. That way, Micro$oft would make money, but not have to worry about alot piracy. But this is my opinion, so don't get me wrong. Micro$oft should get money for all of their work, but they should't be able to essentially monopolize over the end-user computer industry. I mean, 98% of my high school (which has about 2000 students) have only heard about windows. Something is obviously wrong here.

I was annoyed when, after buying my laptop last August, I had to sit through this "validation" check b.s. when I started this thing up for the first time.The point of the thing isn't to make customers happier; it's to help Microsoft catch people who rip them off by counterfeiting/illegally copying their software. That's fair enough, sure. I would probably do the same thing if I owned a software company, as nobody really wants to be ripped off.But at least don't try to pass this thing off as being "good for customers." The only way this thing can help we buyers is if Microsoft can keep prices low (hahaha - well, low for Microsoft anyway) by not losing as much business to pirated copies.

yes, doing it Walmart style, it would be great!xboxrulz

Yeah, it IS to microsofts advantage. They just want people to buy their software and not use illegal/cracked versions. This is really a pain for me because my computer had to be sent away to a computer store for some deep maintenance. It came back with windows xp, (yes it was on the bill) but... this genuine advantage crap is really annoying. There are downloads that i need from microsofts site and i simply cannot get to it anymore. I had gotten an upgrade and now it keeps saying my windows is not genuine.This is not fair. I payed for it, it was working until a minor upgrade.

Yeah, it IS to microsofts advantage. They just want people to buy their software and not use illegal/cracked versions. This is really a pain for me because my computer had to be sent away to a computer store for some deep maintenance. It came back with windows xp, (yes it was on the bill) but... this genuine advantage crap is really annoying. There are downloads that i need from microsofts site and i simply cannot get to it anymore. I had gotten an upgrade and now it keeps saying my windows is not genuine.

This is not fair. I payed for it, it was working until a minor upgrade.

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I hope you have already raised a complaint against the store that has done the maintenence, repair or upgrade work and recovered from that situation, because that's certainly not a problem you should encounter when you have paid for a genuine copy.