Windows Genuine Advantage Servers Out

krewemaynard writes to let us know that Microsoft has been having major problems with its WGA servers since at least Friday evening. Quoting Ars: "Users of both Windows XP and Windows Vista were writing to say that they could not validate their installations using WGA, and one user even said that his installation was invalidated by the service... The Microsoft WGA Forums are full of problem reports, and Microsoft WGA Program Manager Phil Liu has acknowledged that there is a problem, and that MS is investigating." Update: 07/25 22:10 GMT by KD :Microsoft has identified and fixed the problem and posted instructions for anyone whose system mistakenly failed a WGA check. (The link posted earlier was to a 2006 article.)

HaHa

> "However, the sense we get from Phil Liu is that Microsoft is pretty much in the dark right now."

Nothing new here. Move along.

Aren't?

Aren't these servers dependent on availability of the Skype protocol? :-)

Re:Aren't?

It wasn't the Skype systems going down that caused this. The WGA servers failed themselves in their check for legitimacy and no one installed a legal copy so after a certain period of time, the WGA software shut the Internet connections off to get their attention and force Microsoft to buy a legit copy again.

WGA sucks

I like and use Microsoft software, especially the development tools and servers, and I've (almost) always considered they are worth the money. But WGA is the most stupid thing Microsoft has ever done. I could understand product activation to a certain extent - it's really no different than most commercial software protection schemes in most respects. But WGA needs to be killed off. WGA is a hell of a lot closer to treating customers like criminals than WPA ever was.

Personally I've never had problems with WPA or WGA, but this incident pisses me off just thinking about how pissed off I would be if that would ever happen to me. Microsoft needs to understand that there are limits to how much bullshit people can take, even among people who appreciate some of their software.

On the other hand it's not like I'd switch to Linux anyway. Ubuntu completely screwed up my X configuration after an apt-get upgrade that took two hours (6.x to 7.4) and I just shut the thing down. I need to move my FreeNAS to a better box anyway so that's what I'll probably do after wiping it. If I had a dime for every time I've typed su vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf I'd get me an iPhone or something.

Lack of choices suck too.

Re:WGA sucks

Apple ran their 'cloners' out of business not that long ago.

Earlier, they sued anybody with a similar GUI out of business (except Microsoft. They essentially 'created' Microsoft's market for them by running all GUI-on-x86 competitors out of the market for Microsoft)

Earlier yet, they sued anybody with a machine similar to the Apple II.

Apple has a long history of 'Innovation by Litigation.'

Re:WGA sucks

Ubuntu completely screwed up my X configuration after an apt-get upgrade that took two hours (6.x to 7.4) and I just shut the thing down.

So let me see here.

a) You didn't read the upgrade instructions but simply assumed Ubuntu = Debian and tried to manually switch versions using apt-get.
b) Even on Debian upgrading between versions is done using dist-upgrade rather than upgrade.
c) You got lazy and interrupted the process halfway through
d) The only problem you had was that you had to reconfigure X

Now, let us hypothetically assume that Windows had a package manager that let you upgrade from XP to Vista over the net. Let us further assume that instead of following the instructions for how to use it, you run a low-level tool with incorrect command line parameters to do it the way you would have done it on a completely different system. Let us finally assume you interrupted the thing halfway through. How much do you want to bet that fixing your display settings would be the only problem you would experience as a consequence?

In a word: PEBKAC

Re:WGA sucks

It will work out of the box and you won't have to spend hours recompiling the kernel etc. to get it to work.

Will it validate?

Re:WGA sucks

It will work out of the box and you won't have to spend hours recompiling the kernel etc. to get it to work

Are you just horribly mis-informed, joking, trolling or shilling? The missus and I have been using GNU+Linux on our laptops, desktops and servers (2 laptops, 2 desktops, 1 home server and one dedicated web server) and have never compiled the Linux kernel. The only times I've ever bothered compiling anything is if I want cutting-edge, not-even-released-yet software, and what's wrong with that?

Funny, I was starting to think that there would be a single day on Slashdot without an anti-Microsoft story.

Here's a deal for you: when there is a single day where Microsoft don't cock things up, shill standards organsations or act as an abusive monopoly then there will be a single day on Slashdot without an anti-Microsoft story.

Liability

Too bad they are not liable for any costs/lost revenue by their customers that are caused by this.

Too bad it doesn't happen more often, and piss off more people.

Personally it doesnt effect me either way :)

Slashdot Delay

Of course, by the time it hits Slashdot, WGA is operational again. Digg and Reddit have had this on the FP for hours

"Fight club scenario?"

A friend of mine was immediately reminded of the Fight Club movie - how they tried to blow up all the banks at the end so nobody would owe anybody anything. Imagine if some digital vigilante wiped out Microsoft's database of keys, maybe like an inside job... all installs everywhere would simply be invalidated in an instant :) Now *that* would be a strong and immediate demonstration of both how the whole "activation" thing and DRM are wrong.

Man can dream...

Re:"Fight club scenario?"

But I guess they already know WGA and DRM are wrong... for the consumer. Remember this outage cost much more to the consumer than they cost to them, at least until people begin considering the painless alternatives.

Project Mayhem

The Data Retention committee of Project Mayhem is working on this - but you didn't hear that from me.

Re:Project Mayhem

There is no project mayhem.

Re:"Fight club scenario?"

Do you mean 'wrong' as in 'immoral', or 'wrong' as in 'does not work'?

Personally, I think it's both.

Like many people here, (I imagine), I change hardware frequently, and am also cursed with being my neighbours', friends', childrens' software and hardware support. So I get this 'activation' bs regularly. Have you ever tried fixing a system that was delivered with a 'recovery' CD, that tries to access some (corrupt) partition etc...of course, no 'original' installation CDs

How long before you cut your losses and install from one of your 'corp.' CDs, or - if it's not in the family - download some streamlined thing from isohunt? Believe me, its 10x quicker than going the ms way. Shit, it's not even as if they or I did not BUY the software in the first place... Anybody want a load of VALID ms serials - you can have 'em...

The real problem is that 'activation' punishes the honest user, whilst doing little or nothing to stop the pirates... /end rant.

good thing

The masses need to get hurt before they come to the conclusion that giving full control over your PC to a commercial entity is not a good idea.

lets hope it lasts a few more weeks or so.

Inevitable - look it up in the dictionary

To all those people who say "Nothing can go wrong with the system" and "I've never had a problem with activation."

This [microsoft.com] (redundant link) is what can go wrong, and it was only a matter of time. There is no such thing as an unsinkable ship. I believe in Murphy's Law, so long as you add the word "eventually" to the end of it.

--
Toro

There is a workaround, apparently.

"Please go to http://www.microsoft.com/genuine [microsoft.com] and click VALIDATE WINDOWS to resolve this issue immediately."

Haven't tried it, because I don't need to. But....

Alternative workaround

Available here. [linuxgenui...antage.org]

The bigger problem for Microsoft...

is that they're calling the people that sell their software thieves. They are biting the hands that feed them. One of our customers bought a copy at Fry's, and when they called Microsoft about the problem, Microsoft accused Fry's of selling pirated software. Accusing the people that make money for you is a good way to kill a business.

The whole concept if flawed

This whole concept of authentication and WGA is flawed. It adds too many points of failure that in the end hurts legitimate users. Why should we be punished for MS's piracy problems.

For me it started with XP. Since I can no longer interchange parts in and out of my computer without worrying about setting off the authentication, I've worked hard to get my myself and my family off Windows. I'm the computer dork in the family and if I can't trouble shoot stuff without worrying about this kind of stuff it sort of kills the fun in building your own machines.

I'm not surprised this is happening and I won't be surprised when this stuff continues to happen in the future. Please get rid of these awful 'features' Microsoft

Between this and their slow-ass update servers

it's a wonder any company can get anything done with Windows.

Corporations need to realize that making Bill the richest guy in the world is not the most effective use of their IT capital. Just imagine if all those license fees, the cost of downtime for malware attacks, the cost of license following, the cost of unnecessary servers due to lack of scalability, etc., ad nauseum, had been diverted to open source development. Microsoft would be out of business now.

Good News!

Wow this is good news! This means that M$ just gave us another reason not to use Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Personal Infrastructure

There have been stories lately about how the IT structure in the US is vulnerable to disruption. While I think that danger is overstated to some degree, there is no doubt some critical infrastructure that is connected to the internet and subject to breakdown.

We each have our own personal infrastructure in our homes. If Windows is part of it, then you're subject to breakdowns in other parts of the system, i.e. Microsoft WGA.

Last week I returned one of those fancy Harmony remote controls because programming it requires contact over the internet with Logitech's servers. I refuse to subject myself to that nonsense, especially when a standalone piece of software would not be difficult to write and distribute.

If there was a way to divorce my personal Windows-based IT infrastructure from the online whims of Microsoft I'd jump on it. Too bad the monopolistic behavior of MS makes this impossible for the moment.

When they end-of-life XP they had better issue a patch to remove the activation component from it.

eggs in one basket

monoculture == dangerous!!

Phil Liu has workaround already

Phil Liu details a workaround here, third post down. [microsoft.com]

Please go to www.microsoft.com/genuine and click VALIDATE WINDOWS to resolve this issue immediately.

Additionally, I know you all are looking for an explanation/root-cause. I will get that ASAP. We are aware it is a server-side issue - the cause is unknown at this current time.

Best of luck to all you Vista users.

--
Toro

switch to LGA?

Damn it, it is broken?! I want to benefit from this Advantage program! They should open source WGA. Bugs would be fixed immediately by volunteers, so we can enjoy it without problems!
I'm switching to Linux Genuine Advantage(TM) [linuxgenui...antage.org], guys. It is better and open-source!

Sysadmins! Go to work!

Turn on all the machines! Log in! Get those machines invalidated as quickly as possible.

This was going to happen

I knew sooner or later this was going to happen, not to mention how many times I've been pissed off about Vista's WGA, I changed a video card and vola! Not genuine anymore... But anyway that was long time ago and now I'm trying to be M$ Free just like I'm trying to be GE-Free, Drug-Free, or woteva Bad-Baddies-Free.

Repay the compliment

Microsoft frequently shill online forums, they're even attacking the venerable ISO! From this Groklaw article [groklaw.net]:

And if it were me, I'd want to know if there is any Microsoft shadow in the background. Someone placed a threatening comment on Groklaw the other day, saying someday the "darkness" behind PJ would be revealed, and to "sleep well", and because of the threatening tone, I checked the logs and the comment appears to have come from an ad agency that does a lot of work for Microsoft. So I am wondering about things I didn't think about before. I remember what happened to an innocent man's reputation in the Massachusetts ODF affair.

So, this would seem like the ideal time to feed them some of their own medicine. Get over to the WGA forums [microsoft.com] and do some pro GNU+Linux astroturfing. Here was my message:

I came here not because I have a problem but because the mainstream media is starting to pick up on this issue, I suspect that pressure on MS to fix the problem will tremendously increase once this hits a few news/social networking sites.

The reason I'm not having any issues? I use Ubuntu and have the pleasure of knowing my OS and computer are owned by me. Maybe a few people here should give it a try: you never know, it might work! If it doesn't, all you've wasted are a couple of hours when you couldn't use Vista anyway.

Either way, I hope these problems get fixed for you guys soon.

As long as you're polite and make a point it can only help the adoption of Free software. Show these people that we're not zealots and offer them a way out of the WGA doldrums! :)

Microsoft fanboi

JohninTN's contribution to that forum is just funny. He seems to think that people should just "calm down" when the functionality that they have paid (rather a lot of money) for suddenly doesn't work because of some MS boneheadedness. His attitude in this thread [microsoft.com] is quite amazing, in my opinion.

big apps, bugs, and the awesomeness of it all

Big bugs like this are awesome because they make the smaller ones that I generate on daily basis look like cow fodder. However I suspect no bug is necessarily bigger or smaller but it's the scale of how many people/users are affected. Oh how I wish my apps had that large of an installed base. Fingers crossed and wish upon a star.

true story

I actually had this happen to me:

- A Vista installation at a company I work with 'invalidated'.
- I called Microsoft.
- A person named Josh, who had quite an Indian accent as well as a speech impediment answered and after MUCH effort I provided the information required. (Please note I have the greatest respect for people of Indian decent as well as people with speech impediments but you can, I am sure, appreciate how this makes communication difficult.)
- A few minutes later he came back on and said that 'Microsoft is currently having computer problem' and please can I call back later.

In fairness, 2 days later the machine automatically revalidated but the whole thing was rather comedic.

]{

Proof the piracy has the 'genuine advantage'

I never install copy protected software, since I feel that it validates my right to use the software that I have paid for.
If i was buying the software on a lease/maintenance agreement, things might be different, but Windows is VERY expensive, and rather poor quality. I know of no other server OS that needs frequent reboots to correct weird slowdowns, and strange resource leaks.
I am just glad that I switched to Linux when Microsoft went down the product activation route with Windows XP. They cleary think that their customers are criminals, and i'm sure most of their customers have a similar opinion of Microsoft for delivering substandard products and exercising criminally monopolistic practices.
Good ridance Microsoft. I don't miss you.

I really love these features

I really love these "features" that prevent users from using their computers. I can't remember how many times I had to troubleshoot licensing problems in NetWare. Windows NT and 2000 used to be quite trouble free regarding this kind of crap. But now with WGA I'm making money off copy protection again. Right now I'm migrating a server from Windows 2000 to Linux for a client for that very reason. Thanks for giving me business, Microsoft.

Switch

This doesn't seem to affect my Ubuntu installation and my iBook is also unaffected.

Wow... No Aero, No DirectX after a reboot

Who let's themselves be treated this way? You wouldn't let Ford decide whether you could shift past 2nd gear based on your lease payments being up to date. What the fuck is wrong with you people?

I'm PRAYING this lasts a week

God let this be a huge disasterous boondoggle for Microsoft. Please please please please please. I don't even believe in you God, but if you're up there, and you're a Just God, you will hear this and smite their backups with a bolt of bitrot.

If I go into work on Monday and everyone's computer is running in "restricted mode" it will be MUCH easier to convince my boss to let me get rid of our last remaining MSSQL instance.

I downloaded and installed OS X 10.4.

Not a problem. Found a legit copy on eBay I could afford. Installed that over the pirated version. Not a problem.

Downloaded and installed the WWDC beta of 10.5. Not a problem.

Are we seeing a pattern here?

DRM, copy protection, vendor lock in, Genuine Advantage, Sony's rootkit fetish.

NONE of them work.

And when something like this which affects millions of legitimate users happens, what is end result that gives MS reason to ensure it doesn't happen again?

You go and buy their latest OS AGAIN!

Seriously, how many times are you going to let yourselves be fucked over by MS, before you switch to Linux or Mac or just sodding file class action suits against the bastards?

In Soviet Russia, YOU fuck over Operating System monopolies!

We are only a few years away from

A court agreeing with Microsoft that you do not own your own computer you merely license it.

The "Update: It's Fixed" link is from 2006

I think the "It's fixed" page kdawson posted is talking about one of the other WGA outages, since it's from 2006. Link quoted here, note timestamp: http://blogs.msdn.com/wga/archive/2006/10/05/WGA-s ervice-outage.aspx [msdn.com]

WGA doesn't have a problem...

WGA *IS* the problem.

The MS Fanboys must have TONS of mod points!

Look at ALL the comments modded 0.

Just wait 'till MS has their own corps of Enforcement Gundams!

Then you'll see some mighty fine Ubermodding!

National Security Risk

Isn't it interesting that the government doesn't consider systems like WGA a threat to national security?

The dangers of software monoculture are well known, now combine that with an authentication system the government has no control over. Once the entire Windows desktop marketshare (+90% of all desktops) is using a Windows OS featuring WGA, what's to stop criminals and terrorists from capturing the datacenters that house these servers and holding a major factor in world finance hostage?

WGA can disable your running system?

I didn't realize WGA did periodic (constant?) checks on the system validity. I thought it was just a one-time check at installation (like entering the product ID on Win2K). That's hilarious that you can pay MS hundreds of dollar for the software, only to have it crippled when they screw up and accuse you of being a thief.

Why do people use that crap?

Defective by design

Just the fact that this forum [microsoft.com] even exists, shows how defective by design WGA is. A dedicated forum to WGA problems with 226 PAGES with 20 TOPICS each... I still cannot understand why people keep buying this crap...

Scale of problem?

Does anyone know what the actual effect of this issue is? I haven't used windows in years so I don't really know how often you'd end up talking to the genuine advantage server, does anybody have an idea how many windows users would have been affected by this incident and have lost functionality as a result?

Desperate times indeed...

The Project Manager of WGA posted on the MS forum recently about the servers going down. He said something to the effect of "We apologize for the inconvenience, but desperate times call for desperate measures." I would post my comment there, but it would undoubtedly get deleted (I see no anti-Microsoft comments - gosh, wonder where they all went? Must mean everyone is happy!), so I am posting it here: Since when the heck has MS been in "desperate times"?!

Bothers me.

Why? You don't have to care about my feelings in general to care about what I have to say- I speak for just about everyone here. Windows costs a lot of money to the end user upfront at the checkout as well as to licensed companies in support costs when compaired to some other OS' that I won't mention and so when that cost is further raised by DRM or ANY kind and productivity is halted as a result of lack of redundancy to support their own protection scheme(s) then the end user is being thought of last and their pocketbooks first. I understand why people go into business and sell their products but if your product is flawed due to DRM or insecure due to shoddy workmanship/programming or perhaps a really loose versioning system when farming out modules for programmers to write then you are at fault and may be liable for the costs- how many times have we heard about how MS feels Windows is more secure than ever and that DRM in their products will never inconvenience the legitimate users of their product. Then I smell a lie here and nobody should be able to get away with it. Who's to trust this group? Who watches the watchers and makes sure they have redundancy in their servers as any infrastructure should have? And when will they pay you back for your time lost?