Windows Genuine Advantage - A Short Intro for Living With Outlook Visitors

Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) is a Microsoft product that has created a large ruckus in a short time. My goal here is to give you background information in support of the main page, where we talk about what impact WGA has on Outlook users like you and me.

NOTE: Everything around WGA is changing rapidly. To the best of my knowledge, the information on this page was correct when I wrote it, but details may have changed by the time you read this.

Windows Genuine Advantage consists of two programs that Microsoft is installing on user's computers through the Windows Update and Microsoft Update websites. According to Microsoft, these programs are meant to protect legitimate Windows users from the negative effects of software piracy. According to many outside Microsoft, WGA Validation Tool, one of the two programs being installed, is Microsoft spyware.

Now different people have different definitions of spyware, and Microsoft denies that WGA Validation Tool is spyware, but enough people see things differently that there is a massive backlash against the Windows Genuine Advantage program, and as of early July, at least two lawsuits about WGA have been filed against Microsoft.

What are the Windows Genuine Advantage programs and what do they do?

WGA Notification Tool lets you know if WGA Validation Tool thinks your copy of Windows is illegitimate. It does so by popping up notification messages telling you that you may not have a legal copy of Windows and encouraging you to get one. There have been reports that the messages appear on copies of Windows that are definitely legitimate, but this is more an annoyance than anything else. Plus, there are ways to disable the notification messages. The real issues are with the WGA Validation Tool.

WGA Validation Tool checks your computer to determine if your copy of Windows is legitimate. As I already mentioned, there are reports that it doesn't always correctly recognize a legitimate copy of Windows. That's a headache for the people affected, and a real pain in the neck, but even this incorrect behavior isn't what has people so worked up.

Why are people so upset about WGA Validation Tool?

First, it was installed in what many people consider to be a misleading manner. The WGA tools were automatically installed on systems that have Automatic Updates enabled as if they were critical security updates.

Second, when Microsoft first started putting the WGA tools on people's computers, they were still pre-release (beta) products. Beta products are products that are still being tested, and not yet ready for official release. So people were in effect being unknowingly turned into product testers.

Third, there are reports that the WGA Validation Tool is treating some legitimate copies of Windows as if they are not. If your computer fails the tests run by the WGA Validation Tool for any reason, you are supposed to be prevented from downloading any non-security Windows updates. That means that if the beta software that was installed on your computer made a mistake, you couldn't get updates you should be entitled to.

Fourth, it is hard to uninstall the WGA tools. There is no entry in the Windows Add or Remove Programs dialog box for either of the tools.

Even worse in many people's view, WGA Validation Tool gathers a lot of information about your computer, and communicates with Microsoft servers without your consent. This communication happened every 24 hours. I've seen varying reports of what information is sent to the Microsoft servers during this communication, but in the end, it doesn't matter.

Put it all together and what many people in the industry are seeing is a picture of Microsoft stealthily installing spyware on their computer.

For More Information

For more information on the Windows Genuine Advantage controversy, you could check out some of the following links:

• A Microsoft press release on the officially released version of Windows Genuine Advantage.



• The Wikipedia entry on Windows Genuine Advantage



• Lauren Weinstein's original blog entry on Windows Genuine Advantage.