14 DAY TRIAL // It's not the first time Windows Genuine Advantage has stirred up controversy over its actions or accuracy. And it is certainly not the first time the anti-piracy tool from Microsoft has returned false positives, cataloging genuine copies of Windows XP as pirated. So the fact that Volume License Key customers have reported encountering problems with WGA validations shouldn't come as a surprise.
Consequently, Phil Liu, the MSFT forum moderator of the Microsoft WGA Validation Problems blamed the recently reported problems on Microsoft. The Redmond Company has not, as yet, resolved the problem and is still investigating issues related to validation management on the Microsoft server side. The WGA failure or non-genuine reports are connected only with Volume License customers of Windows XP.
Microsoft has even provided a workaround to temporarily resolve the matter: 1) Delete the data.dat file from C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication DataWindows Genuine Advantagedata (The drive letter will depend on where the OS was installed)
2) Revisit http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/downloads/validate.aspx to confirm that the machine is now genuine.
3) Run wgatray.exe /b from the command line to ensure that the latest validation is updated for WGA Notifications. This command may not be present on the user's machine and should not be considered an error if it is not. Please ensure that this is run as an Administrator. A reboot may be required to remove all non-genuine notifications.