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Microsoft Blames WGA Meltdown on Human Error
[Quote:]
Microsoft Corp. last week blamed “human error” on the part of its IT staff for a server problem that caused the company’s Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation service to incorrectly tag legitimate users of Windows XP and Windows Vista as software pirates.
The software vendor also promised that internal changes are being made to avoid a repeat of the glitch, which affected users for nearly 20 hours on Aug. 24 and 25. Users whose copies of Windows erroneously failed WGA’s antipiracy tests were prevented from downloading most software from Microsoft’s Web site. And those with Vista were unable to use some of the operating system’s features.
Alex Kochis, Microsoft’s senior WGA product manager, wrote in a blog posting that the troubles began after “preproduction code” was installed on live servers.
Those systems had yet to be upgraded with another code change designed to enable stronger encryption and decryption of product keys, Kochis added. As a result, “the production servers declined activation and validation requests that should have passed,” he wrote.
So, if you’re using Windows, your computer is at the mercy of whether somebody in Redmond had his coffee this morning. Thanks, but no thanks. No supplier is going to decide if my computer may run software I need, I’ll shop elsewhere.
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