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Windows Genuine Advantage worse than we all feared
Venerable Windows expert Ed Bott has been carefully documenting his misadventures with Windows Genuine Advantage for a few months now. As evidence mounted that the WGA system was not as bulletproof as Microsoft would like to have us believe, Ed decided to get statistical on their ass, so to speak. After scouring Microsoft's own help forums looking for people reporting problems with WGA, Ed found an extremely disturbing trend: a full 42% of the Windows installations that are flagged by WGA as not valid turned out to be perfectly legitimate. That's a far cry from the "almost perfect" and "we know of no problems with WGA" drivel that Microsoft continues to spout. And consider that the numbers used here are only for Windows users that were actually willing and able to find Microsoft's support forums and use them. I'd wager the real number is far worse.Realistically, Microsoft didn't ever expect their user base to actually like WGA. As with all DRM software, there is absolutely nothing in it for the end user; the best case scenario is that the vendor (be it a media or software vendor) is going to inconvenience a number of their customers. The worst case scenario is this one; the vendor makes a large number of false positive detections, and significantly alienates a large percentage of their customers.
I should be clear that in opposing WGA, I'm not advocating software piracy. It's reasonable to expect Microsoft to try to protect their interests. What Ed's saying, and I'm agreeing with, is that Microsoft's first attempt at a tool to prevent piracy is horrifically flawed, and is resulting in nightmarish situations for many of their users.
Lucky for all of us, WGA is baked right in to Windows Vista. Gee, I can't wait for that.
Comments
9
Subscribe to commentsNathanielSep 26th 2006 8:06PM
I skimmed this, and correct me if I am wrong, but I see correct statistical sample, but another case of how statistics lie. The sample is of those people who have come to complain of some problem with WGA. The claim is that 42% of the flagged installations are actually genuine, making WGA look terrible. How about what percentage 137 people make of the total numbers of people that have successfully used WGA to verify their genuine copy of windows? Seems unfair to me, that the people who would have written in with success stories, arent even a part of the sample. Again, correct me if I am wrong.
PXLatedSep 26th 2006 2:19PM
Isn't that par for the course? The first version (and the second) are always flawed when talking Microsoft.
James MorascoSep 26th 2006 2:54PM
WGA is total crap. I have a small computer business and have many copies of Windows XP laying around brand new in box. Each time i install a brand new copy onto a computer I build/repair/upgrade, an average of 70% of the time WGA claims it's not valid, even though I have the COA in my hand along with the box it came from. Now some may say "Well what if the packages are fakes?" I ordered them directly from Microsoft, so it is extremely highly unlikely that they are fakes :-) If I only knew *nix or MacOS as well as I know Windows, I'd make the switch and never return.
Mike KochSep 26th 2006 8:06PM
I'm not disputing that WGA isn't foolproff, and I don't doubt that Microsoft (or any other company) would downplay any problems encountered as they make adjustments and improvements. However, I don't agree with your bet that the "real number is far worse." Only a small fraction of Windows users participate in the support forums, and of those that do, a high percentage are going to be technically-oriented people - geeks like you and me. And it's the geeks that are more likely to be installing and reinstalling and rebuilding their computers, and are more likely to encounter problems with WGA. That would indicate that the overall failure rate is probably far less than the 42% that Ed came up with, since most of the people he interviewed would have been in that higher risk category of geeks, like me. And just for the record, I've built dozens of XP machines and I have yet to encounter a problem with WGA on any of them.
MrDiSanteSep 26th 2006 11:08PM
Quite frankly, this article is exactly the reason that a lot of people have problems with using blogs as sources of information. 1) 137 people is NOT a proper statistical sample, anyone who took math in grade 12 should know that anything under 400 is generally a sample 2) why on earth would he rely on a forum as a good sample of the population? It's plain old silly to believe that the support forum represents the overall population that got flagged by WGA 3) it says in the source that people who experienced problems came to the site. If one is a pirate and knows that one's Windows isn't legitimate, one isn't going to go running to the Microsoft forums for support. Need I go on? I'm willing to bet that the actual number of false positives is a good deal under 10%. Finally, I'd like to put in the traditional statement that I do not work for Microsoft, nor am I paid to write this by anyone, nor do I think that WGA is a good thing - I personally made sure that the notifications didn't install on all of the home machines purely out of principle.
PeterSep 27th 2006 7:11AM
MrDiSante - I agree that 137 is not a good sample in this case, but to say anything less than 400 is never a good sample is just wrong. What if the total population you are working with is only 500 people? Then 137 is a very good sample.
Of the billions of Windows users, 137 is a pathetically small sample and probably less than the margin of error.
PeteSep 27th 2006 8:54AM
"I'd wager the real number is far worse."
Actually I'd wager the real number is FAR better. If a user has an illegitimate copy of XP, they are probably far more likely to turn off WGA and WGA notify and then never be included in the results.
The number of false positives is prob still the same (and could be low since it's not stated), but the percentage is probably much much less.
FabuloSep 27th 2006 7:08PM
"...and significantly alienates a large percentage of their customers."
Isn't it a (35 year old) continuing trend with any anti-piracy technology?
- Uncopiable floppy disks preventing you from backing up your software. (when the pirated copy did not have that disadvantage!)
- Parallel ports dongle that garbled printer output.
- Activation gone wrong (Office, Windows XP)
- Invasive DRMish scheme (ala tax software+macromedia)
- Music you download, can play on a limited device but don't own.
List goes on.
Those schemes look like they are DESIGNED to alienate the legitimate customers. When the actual "pirates" enjoy the untetherer, unrestricted access.
Somehow, nobody seems to learn from past mistakes.
KyleSep 29th 2006 1:08PM
Finally, there are people out there to refute some of this "WGA is a complete failure" talk. I'm not too happy about it either, but I know my copies are legitimate and I'll go to the trouble of fixing it. After all, Microsoft wants to protect their assets (like a business should) and so should I.
People forget that it's these types of things that make a business successful, which is what the shareholders want. That's how the business world runs now. This helps protect their assets, which please the shareholders, which makes their stock go up (or at least in the same ballpark). It's as easy as that.