WGA: You May or May Not Be Running Pirated Software

Why is Microsoft beating around the bush with Windows genuine Advantage Notifications? As you may, or may not be aware, Microsoft has begun pushing an updated version of the Windows Genuine Advantage tool. The revamped WGA Notifications introduce enhanced anti-piracy capabilities, but also an improved user installation and validation experience, and introduced automatic updates. However, this is not the end of it. Microsoft has also nuanced the assessment conclusions of WGA Notifications. When it comes to genuine copies of Windows, Microsoft now will categorize them as white, black and gray.

"In the case that there is difficulty determining the state of the system a new result category is now possible that (in addition to genuine and non-genuine) lets users know if the validation result was indeterminate and provides them with resources to troubleshoot the problem and learn more about the results. Previously the validation process gave the benefit of the doubt in many cases. Which is good in the sense that if we weren't sure the software wasn't genuine or properly licensed we didn't provide any message," revealed Alex Kochis, senior licensing manager WGA team, back in November 2006, when Microsoft delivered a preview of the current WGA Notifications.

The bottom line is that the WGA Notification will now label software as genuine, non-genuine and indeterminate. Why the euphemism? Because Microsoft is struggling with a consistent volume of WGA false positives. Actually, so consistent that Microsoft has been reluctant of making the actual number of the erroneous detections public. The Redmond Company has only admitted that less than 1% of the non-genuine detections are false positives.