Even though I addressed the Windows Genuine Advantage statistics in an article the subject holds sufficient momentum to translate into an editorial

Jul 22, 2006 16:20 GMT  ·  By

I never joined in with the crowd criticizing the WGA initiative because I saw no reason why. If WGA would be a weapon it would be a stick, not even a stone; if WGA would be a lover, it would be a limp one at best, if WGA would be porn movie, it would be one of those pointless porno hentai/anime cartoons. WGA is the apex of impotentia coeundi, it is the prototype of all the inoffensive and impotent utilities to have ever emerged from Microsoft; it's the closest thing to Do No Evil the Redmond Company will ever achieve. If Microsoft was a man Windows Genuine Advantage would be its Erectile Dysfunction.

Now, children, Microsoft's Erectile Dysfunction is comprised of two parts. The WGA Validations and the WGA Notifications, much like a man's genitalia? It performs functions of validation and notification and? well nothing much after that? ok,ok, let's be fair, it basically does nothing at all. When first released it at least connected to Microsoft's servers at every boot from machines running both genuine and pirated copies of Windows, but the Redmond Company castrated that feature and now the neutered, amputated WGA sends an ejaculated report only once every two weeks.

Nonetheless it faces two class action lawsuits and an intense wall of criticism and a spyware label. Spyware with a license? That you have to install yourself? Indeed, YOU have to be American to sue Microsoft over that. Oh wait, isn't Windows using the color blue, or red or some sort of grayscale on YOUR machine??? Oh, my God, blasphemy! Sue them!!!

After it validates the license of a genuine copy of Windows OS, or after the validation fails on unlicensed copies, the WGA Notifications kicks in, sends a report to Microsoft and starts posting annoying messages on the desktop in the eventuality that it detected an illicit OS. That's it, it doesn't turn of the computer, and it doesn't even render inoperable the OS. Microsoft secret agents won't come to your door step, Bill Gates will not stop shoveling millions and millions of dollars into syringes and pretend it's HIV vaccine, you will not be thrown out of Windows Heaven into Apple Purgatory and finally you're My Computer icon will not jump out of your desktop and slap you in the face on the charge of piracy.

Microsoft's own metrics indicate that 1 in every 5 copies of Windows is pirated. And this is not your average, over the counter statistics analysis, but the results of the WGA Notifications centralized data from over, are you ready? 300 million computers!!!

60 million detected pirated copies of Windows operating system! And this is just a drop in the ocean. In excess of 1 million Chinese computers are running a counterfeit copy of Windows using the same volume key.

Is Microsoft going to go on a slapping spree on 1 million Chinese to get them buying Windows licenses? Will the televise it? Hmm? that would be an interesting social experiment, but no.

The truth is that the VGA is nothing more than a statistic analysis utility. Somewhere between having no effect at all and generating some erroneous false positives reports and detecting some 60 million pirated copies of Windows while validating another 240 millions, WGA has successfully slipped out of focus and of away from the spot lights. This is actually an epilogue?

Q.E.D.