Linux Format forums

[wyliecoyoteuk]

Do I detect a whiff of desperation?
Or is it a complete coincidence that so soon after MS launched Windoze Vaster, the Microsoft update tool has mysteriously metamorphosed into the MS WGA validation tool?

I dont like WGA, for good reason, not because I use pirated software.
However, last time I booted into winblows on my laptop, I was asked to install the latest version of "windows update", which surprise, surprise, was actually the "windows genuine advantage Validation tool".
I canceled it immediately.

The problem is that the MS tools are woefully inaccurate, we have several IBM laptops, purchased over the last 3 years, and One of them now is demanding activation via phone after a HDD upgrade, despite a perfectly good license, another is telling us it has a pirated copy of windows, even though it still has the same configuration and windows install that came with it.

Maybe we're just unlucky, but WGA has about a 20% failure rate on our XP PCs.
I just wish I could move more of them to Linux.
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[ollie]

When Microsoft first introduced the Validation Tool or Windows Genuine Advantage Tool I spent around 3 hours on the phone with Microsoft Australia trying to get a "suspected pirate copy" re-activated so my customer could use their PC.

The "suspected pirate copy" was a full retail boxed version of Windows XP Professional that had been won in a competition on a local radio station. With this experience to go on I hate to think how many problems are going to occur with XP upgraded to Vista PCs.

It's just more reason to promote Ubuntu 6.10 and openSUSE 10.2 as real alternatives to Vista.

[shifty_ben]

[GMorgan]

The rules under the EULA need to be challenged. It is suspected that EULAs would not be upheld in Britain so perhaps there should be a legal challenge to this sort of thing.