Business Software Alliance (BSA) published their sixth global study on piracy which they said “the piracy remains a serious problem in all countries.”
Many vendors have implemented several methods to fight piracy and Microsoft is one of them who introduced Genuine Advantage Tools in addition to Activation requirement after installing Windows and Office.
Most people who experienced problem in using Windows and Office Genuine (WGA and OGA) tools will have second thoughts of using it again. The reason is that there are reports of false detection by the tools on genuine copy with not genuine. The impact to affected users has been reported in forums and other websites. Example:
- Validation will not work using online validation tool
- Phone validation will sometimes help to activate Windows or Office software but at times, will not.
- The computer will display non-genuine copy even if it’s genuine
- The computer will reboot again, if a person failed the validation or opted to not to validate
However, most of the above problems are known to have a cause. Example:
- Incompatible version of software (see KB931699 for list of software that have compatibility with WGA)
- Software Licensing Service in Windows has stopped or you have incompatible Digital Rights Management software (see KB931276 for possible solutions)
- The person replaced hardware that triggered WGA tool to identify changes on the PC
- The product key is currently in use while you are activating it on another computer (an example, you activate same product key in Virtual PC while running Vista that has been activated using the same product key)
Other common scenarios why WGA failed to validate Windows is on their website.
Note: Microsoft renamed Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) Tool to Windows Activation Technologies (WAT). What to expect on this new name was published in their PressPass website.
There are few methods to validate the copy of Windows and Office software:
- By visiting Windows Update, Microsoft Update or Office Update website
- By visiting Microsoft Download Center website and then download any software that requires validation
- Using a browser (any browser) and manually running the validation tool by going to Microsoft Genuine website. See screenshots at Calendar of Updates website.