Judge throws out Microsoft WGA spyware case
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted February 11th 2010 4:51PM
posted February 11th 2010 4:51PM
Windows Genuine Advantage software might be many things (annoying and by no means error-free, to name but two) but it ain't spyware -- at least according to a judge in the District Court for the Western District of Washington, who dismissed the lawsuit that we first caught wind of back in '06. The news comes a month after the plaintiffs failed to have the suit certified as a class action, which is never a good sign -- and which bears out Microsoft's assertion that the case is "fictional" and from an "alternate universe." Zing! Both parties are being mum on the subject of any settlement that might have been reached, but if it were us we'd have at least held out for one of those world famous Windows 7 Whoppers.
Everyone who was making it a case probably had pirated copies of windows on the comp. Got the update and was like "No" when it gave them the warning.
Don't worry though there is a app for that
@chosenone1
Huh. And here we all were seeing whole companies (with licenses intact I might add) getting crippled due to GA deciding they weren't licensed.
Silly us.
@canny Funny, I ran a system for about a year without any serial number what-so-ever, and had nothing other than a few prompts regularly asking to validate.
Any issue with WGA should be easily solved by using phone activation (assuming you actually have a legit copy).
@YuriTenshi
"a few prompts regularly asking to validate." That's when the shutout starts.
I'm sure those companies (a few of which were customers of mine) found it quite funny. Especially for the 24/7 support contract company that called MS and were told essentially to sod off as it was outside the "working day", and they did not elect to buy support contracts for the servers to cover license queries.
Yes, I know, no support contracts for a small operator doing 24/7 contracts, "Shock, OH NOES". Bottom line, you should not need a support contract for license verification. And GWA should not need any payment to MS to fix for legitimate licenses, regardless of time.
@canny
Why don't your customers just use a KMS server? Will solve about 99.9% of your problems.
@canny sorry sir/mam, but you just lost credibility as a "consultant", assumption based on "your customers". MS offers "license server" that keeps track of all your licenses so you can track compliance. Reminds me of a quote from Daily show "Being an expert on Fox is like being a winner in the Special Olympics. If you show up, you are one."
@xtasi
In his defense, I've had "customers" that only had about 10-15 workstations in their offices. MS only offers a licensing server if you have 150+ machines and you have to have a MSVML, which only large enterprises can afford.
Honestly I don't think these guys had much ground to stand on, Sony has gotten away with much more obviously malicious (remember the rootkit) software in the past. On the other hand, MS is everyone's favorite whipping boy..
My mom nag less than Windows Genuine Advantage.
@cdf74dc9
nags
@cdf74dc9
She probably doesn't care about you. Your mom is BAD ...
Bah, I can't stand WGA. Although I guess with the rampant piracy it's necessary, but it's so easily worked around that it's pointless.
Actually I think that's the case with any DRM :/
To be fair, it is at times a great source for entertainment.
Remember a while back when from one day to the other thousands of genuine copies were deactivated due to piracy claims and at the same time pirated copies experienced no problems whatsoever?
@Steve Anthony Ballmer
Oh hai Mr. Ballmer, would you mind signing my MacBook...no on the bottom please.
@Steve Anthony Ballmer
Fantastic comment. Id give ya Comment of the month award! :)
What about the World Famous Big Macs?
What I like is when Microsoft calls the Genuine Advantage install a "Critical Update"
What's the big deal about WGA anyway? You just need to do a bit of Googlin' to get that "fixed." Presuming you're running a pirated copy of Windows.
Oh, *LEGITIMATE* copies of Windows?? Can't help you there.
There are few times in a news day where I'm able to basically repeat the exact same comment I had, but here it goes:
There's a reason I check the option to only download and install the updates that I choose. I never install anything that looks or sounds anything remotely like Genuine Advantage even though my copy of Vista is legit. I'll be honest though, my copy of Office isn't. I needed to use Publisher once for a class and the cheapest version of Office with it is Small Business or Professional and both of them cost $370 on Newegg. Fuck that shit.
@kenny goo
You can get a FREE Fully Working Demo copy of Office, which would have worked long enough to do what you needed for that one time in Class directly from Microsoft!!! Did it have to be Publisher? How about Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress. Again, Free working Demo's to try out and cheaper if you really needed it. The other Office stuff you can get and use for FREE with OpenOffice. I know, there's always a excuse to steal.
@JBDragon
I didn't know there was a "demo" version of Office and does it even come with a trial version of Publisher in it? That's not exactly basic Office software. Plus do you actually have all the edit and saving features of regular Office? I didn't have the luxury of having shit cut out. On top of that I needed it for longer then 60 days. I used it on and off throughout the semester. Yes it had to be Publisher. We were using Publisher and .pub files. There is no other program out there that can use .pub files, so Publisher was my only option. I couldn't use Open Office (which I had been using before and still have).
You're way to quick to point the finger when you didn't know the situation. Calm down.
Windows is a virus
It seems that Microsoft thinks this has cleared the way for WGA. Within days of the case being thrown out, MS have announced the Windows Activation Technologies update being pushed out. This is essentially WGA for Windows7. I'd guess MS were holding on to it until the legal issues with WGA were sorted: not that it was really sorted (both parties agreed to drop the case, and the judge dismissed it - there was no actual judgement for or against WGA).
I imagine that once a bunch of people find that WAT has declared their legal copies of Windows7 non-genuine (as is quite possible), this whole process will start over again.