For 19-hours, the Microsoft servers that identify which copies of Windows XP and Vista are counterfeit went down, reports Computerworld.
During this downtime time last week, the Windows Genuine Advantage systems accused legitimate software aplenty of being counterfeit and proceeded to do what WGA does. In the case of Vista, it stripped misidentified copies of some of their features. Microsoft admitted fault and customers who had problems were told to go back to the Microsoft site and revalidate their operating systems.
Granted, Microsoft loses billions of dollars to counterfeiting and it is reasonable that they put some protections in place. However, if they choose to play big brother in an ongoing manner – not a one-time keycode– then these kinds of reliability problems are completely unacceptable. Workers shouldn’t be thrown into positions where they suddenly cannot do their jobs with software they have legitimately licensed. So says experts in a PC World story.
