Microsoft begins roll out of WGA update for XP Professional

Microsoft has started to roll out an updated version of WGA Notifications for the most pirated edition of XP, Windows XP Professional. The new version not only improves detection of WGA circumvention methods, but aligns XP's WGA more with the one in Vista SP1.

August 26, 2008 - 04:53PM CT - by Emil Protalinski

Users reporting failed Windows and Office validations (Updated)

The problem affecting offline activation has been fixed.

July 18, 2008 - 06:03PM CT - by Emil Protalinski

WGA and OGA help MS file more lawsuits against US resellers

Microsoft has filed 21 new piracy lawsuits against US resellers, some of which have already settled previous lawsuits with Microsoft. The company also noted that some evidence for the lawsuits comes thanks to its "Genuine Advantage" checks.

June 10, 2008 - 06:25PM CT - by Emil Protalinski

WGA exploit finder coming, changes made to WGA in Vista SP1

Microsoft has tweaked WGA in Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and plans to release a removal tool that finds WGA exploits and notifies the user.

February 24, 2008 - 08:19PM CT - by Emil Protalinski

The WGA announces nominees for this year's award in game writing

The nominees for WGA's new game writing awards have just been announced.

January 15, 2008 - 05:31PM CT - by Ben Kuchera

Failed WGA checks lead to a barrage of antipiracy lawsuits

Microsoft continues its global war on piracy, filing 52 lawsuits and referring an additional 22 cases to local law enforcement. The company credits Windows Genuine Advantage with helping to bust the counterfeiting rings.

December 11, 2007 - 12:55PM CT - by Eric Bangeman

Microsoft's changes to how WGA handles flagged installs don't go far enough

Microsoft has made some much-needed changes to how Windows Genuine Advantage handles Vista PCs that fail piracy checks. Unfortunately, the company isn't doing more to ameliorate the problems associated with WGA.

December 04, 2007 - 10:48AM CT - by Eric Bangeman

Microsoft loses appeal in product activation patent case

Microsoft's appeal against a $142 million judgement for patent infringement was overturned by a federal appeals court.

November 27, 2007 - 07:59PM CT - by Paul Mah

Microsoft "learning" from WGA failures, but the lesson should be: kill it

After suffering through false positives and an embarrassing server outage, the Windows Genuine Advantage crew says they are really, really sorry, and they promise to work hard to make sure nothing goes wrong again. They should scrap WGA, really.

November 26, 2007 - 10:03AM CT - by Jeremy Reimer

Hollywood writers prepping strike over Internet residuals

The Writers Guild of America has voted to authorize a strike, in part over the issue of payments for content distributed over the Internet. And you thought reality TV was pervasive now...

October 22, 2007 - 11:33PM CT - by Nate Anderson

Seeking market share, Microsoft removes WGA anti-piracy check from IE7

Microsoft has announced that its latest update to Internet Explorer 7 removes the built-in Windows Genuine Advantage check when installing the browser.

October 04, 2007 - 09:02PM CT - by Jeremy Reimer

Microsoft adds Get Genuine Windows Agreement to anti-piracy arsenal

A new program by Microsoft, called the Get Genuine Windows Agreement, looks to help companies that are victims of software piracy by replacing counterfeit copies of XP Professional with the real deal.

October 03, 2007 - 07:50PM CT - by Matt Mondok

Microsoft sued over WGA spyware allegations in China

After a global Windows Genuine Advantage failure caused by human error, Microsoft now has to face a privacy suit brought against the company in China over alleged WGA behavior. This joins similar suits in the US that have described WGA as "spyware."

September 16, 2007 - 10:35PM CT - by Ken Fisher

WGA failure: 12,000 systems affected, caused by "human error"

Human error caused the recent WGA failure that falsely tagged 12,000 users as running pirated software. Microsoft disputes calling it an outage, however.

August 29, 2007 - 10:15AM CT - by Ken Fisher

WGA failure highlights major flaw in Microsoft's anti-piracy strategy

Analysis: Unfortunately for Microsoft, as an anti-piracy system, WGA's track record is mostly negative. This weekend's Windows Genuine Advantage outage was a powerful indicator of the asymmetrical trade-off inherent in Microsoft's anti-piracy efforts.

August 27, 2007 - 09:10AM CT - by Ken Fisher

Windows Genuine Advantage suffers worldwide outage, problems galore (updated)

Microsoft is in the midst of a major failure of its anti-piracy system, WGA. The outage leaves legitimate users stranded for what company representatives say could be a couple of days. Update: Microsoft says it's all fixed.

August 25, 2007 - 05:44PM CT - by Ken Fisher

Windows Genuine Advantage for dummies

Microsoft has released a new version of the Windows Genuine Advantage Notification Tool. How is this version better than the last?

November 29, 2006 - 06:19PM CT - by Matt Mondok

Office 2007's "secret kill switch"

Microsoft Office 2007 will contain a Reduced Functionality Mode that is triggered whenever the product fails activation. We'll look into what this will mean for Office pirates.

November 20, 2006 - 02:06PM CT - by Jeremy Reimer

Vista's hardware tolerance: one significant change before support remediation

Mirror mirror on the wall, how many re-activations do I get for a Vista re-install? We put the rumors to rest.

October 30, 2006 - 10:42AM CT - by Ken Fisher

Windows Vista has new Reduced Functionality Mode

Windows Vista will ship with anti-piracy technology that will lock down the OS if it has not been activated within 30 days of first-use, Microsoft announced today.

October 04, 2006 - 09:12AM CT - by Ken Fisher