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Having dealt with the SoftMod Windows Vista activation crack, Microsoft will start hunting down pirated copies of Windows XP Professional, the flavor of the operating system labeled by the company as most popular with pirates. The software giant has cooked and will release an update to Windows Genuine Advantage ... |
25 March 2009
12:38 GMT |
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A recent Microsoft study indicates that even for professionals it is very hard to distinguish between high-quality counterfeit software and the real thing. This is why Microsoft emphasizes the importance of the free tools it is providing as a way for its business users to verify whether or not the Microsoft soft... |
23 March 2009
13:00 GMT |
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Microsoft has overhauled its online antipiracy resources. On December 9, 2008, the redesigned Genuine Microsoft Software website went online featuring a style intimately connected with the redesign suffered by the official Windows.com earlier this year. The website provides a range of information related to both genu... |
11 December 2008
14:31 GMT |
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Microsoft is providing end users with the instructions necessary to disable or remove altogether the WGA Notifications anti-piracy mechanism from Windows XP. However, according to the Redmond company, only the pilot version of the Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications can be either rendered useless or uninstalled c... |
1 September 2008
07:46 GMT |
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Microsoft has confirmed that the behavior of Windows XP Service Pack 3 has been aligned with that of Windows Vista Service Pack 1. Updated versions of Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications have started popping up on the Microsoft Download Center as early as August 25, but it wasn't until a day later that Dire... |
27 August 2008
00:32 GMT |
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Microsoft has adapted the Windows Genuine Advantage Notification tool to the third and last service pack for Windows XP. Designed to inform the end users that their operating system has failed to pass the Windows Genuine Advantage Validation process, the WGA Notifications component is now set up to integrate seamless... |
26 August 2008
15:11 GMT |
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Microsoft has made available for download the Windows SteadyState for the 32-bit editions of Windows XP and Windows Vista. SteadyState is a Windows management tool designed for scenarios in which access to machines is completely unrestricted. The evolution of the Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP, Wind... |
10 June 2008
12:36 GMT |
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Microsoft's online validation tools designed as anti-piracy mechanisms are increasingly applauded by the company for contributing to identify pirates of its software products. The Redmond giant has made available both the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) and the Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) to protect its flag-... |
10 June 2008
06:54 GMT |
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The fact that Microsoft has relaxed its antipiracy mechanism built into Windows Vista concomitantly with the release of Service Pack 1 failed to stop hackers from providing a crack for the latest version of Windows Genuine Advantage Validation. Various reports point out that Genuine Advantage Validation and Notificat... |
1 April 2008
15:02 GMT |
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Microsoft's former marketing chief, Michael Sievert, revealed back in December 2007 that, with the advent of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, two of the most popular Vista cracks would be history, namely the OEM BIOS and Grace Timer activation workarounds. Vista SP1 is designed not only to identify the pirated vers... |
25 February 2008
07:54 GMT |
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The counterfeited software has always represented a problem for both software companies and consumers and the phenomenon is getting stronger nowadays. It appears that pirated technologies are available even in retail stores, which makes the fight against such software almost impossible. According to "PC World", ther... |
7 December 2007
04:08 GMT |
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Keeping within the lines of its policy that Windows pirates are Microsoft customers, Microsoft prepares a set of changes to its current anti-piracy tactics. In this context, the Redmond company informed that it would scrap its Windows Vista killer, from the operating systems anti-piracy architecture. Reduced Functio... |
4 December 2007
12:01 GMT |
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With the advent of Windows Vista, cracks also became available being designed to bypass the activation process of the operating system. The new activation infrastructure and the Windows Genuine Advantage, set in place by the Redmond company, proved insufficient to deal with Windows Vista cracks. But no more. While co... |
4 December 2007
10:23 GMT |
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Windows XP, released at the end of 2001, went virtually barefoot into the world and was little ready or able to tackle the piracy phenomenon. It was only with the availability of the Windows Genuine Advantage mechanism that Microsoft addressed the pressing issue of pirated copies of XP actively, and furthermore, it d... |
4 December 2007
06:51 GMT |
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Internet Explorer 7 is slowly crawling towards the top of the world wide web, and Windows pirates are its vessels. Microsoft's latest strategy with IE7 is to apply an "all is fair in browser war" tactics. And to get the upper hand in the browser measuring contest that puts IE7 and Firefox 2.0 in the same arena o... |
3 December 2007
02:59 GMT |
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Back in August 2007, Microsoft's anti-piracy mechanism suffered a temporary service outage which caused genuine copies of Windows XP and Windows Vista to be incorrectly labeled as pirated. In excess of 12,000 Vista and XP users were affected by the erroneous invalidations, with the Redmond company blaming the la... |
22 November 2007
11:31 GMT |
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Microsoft is labeling software piracy as a persistent and evolving crime. And despite this "anodyne" aspect, the Redmond company is going out of its way to help ensure that Windows pirates are well protected. According to data made available by The Business Software Alliance and market research firm IDC reported in t... |
8 November 2007
11:56 GMT |
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Windows pirates failed to crowd to Internet Explorer 7 stripped down of the Microsoft antipiracy mechanism. At the beginning of October, the Redmond company introduced the first major update to Internet Explorer 7, moving the browser from build 7.0.5730.11 to 7.0.5730.13. The refresh was exclusively addressed at IE7 ... |
2 November 2007
14:07 GMT |
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Today, October 18 2007, Internet Explorer 7 is one year old. And Microsoft has a real present in store, just the thing to celebrate such an occasion. That's right! Microsoft has come out and said it straight! The Redmond company is recommending all Windows pirates to access, download and install Internet Explore... |
18 October 2007
10:29 GMT |
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On October 4, 2007, Microsoft delivered the first update to Internet Explorer 7 in approximately a year since the version of the browser was initially made available for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003. Along with some minor tweaks to the graphical user interface and a revamped first-run experience and overvie... |
5 October 2007
14:04 GMT |
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Microsoft has poured a lot of efforts into reducing the piracy phenomenon affecting the Windows platform. But as it appears, the measures set in place by the Redmond company do by no means bode well with end users. Back in 2005, a firm step was taken to tone down the volume of pirated Windows copies in use with the i... |
14 September 2007
05:15 GMT |
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Microsoft denied having introduced any sort of updates to the anti-piracy platform built into its latest operating system, Windows Vista or to the Windows Genuine Advantage mechanism designed to safeguard over the legitimacy of the copies of the operating system. Reports independent of Microsoft and unconfirmed by th... |
12 September 2007
11:50 GMT |
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Even if Internet Explorer comes as the default browser for the Windows operating system, the Redmond-based company Microsoft strives to improve the application, being continuously challenged by the rivals. Firefox is probably the only browser able to face the competition, some of the Internet consumers even sustainin... |
9 September 2007
14:11 GMT |
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Unfortunately for the Redmond-based company, the week started with some sad news for its fans: Firefox blocks the access to Windows Live Hotmail without any warning. Actually, it bans two of the most used features, blocking the users from composing or replying messages. The folks working at Microsoft confirmed the gl... |
2 September 2007
13:11 GMT |
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Microsoft will validate as genuine all copies of Windows Vista and Windows XP that pass through the Windows Genuine Advantage in scenarios in which the WGA servers are down, the Redmond company informed. In such cases, even pirated copies of Windows Vista and Windows XP will not be flagged as non-genuine, permitting ... |
30 August 2007
05:05 GMT |
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Microsoft revealed that the Windows Genuine Advantage erroneously labeled approximately 12,000 genuine copies of Windows Vista and Windows XP as pirated, following server infrastructure problems. In this context, Microsoft has yet to explain what the source of the problems was, but Alex Kochis, Senior Product Manager... |
28 August 2007
09:00 GMT |
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Windows Genuine Advantage, an integer part of Microsoft's anti-piracy efforts under the Genuine Software Initiative umbrella, suffered a massive worldwide server infrastructure outage over the course of the past weekend. As an immediate result, the WGA labeled all genuine copies of Windows Vista and Windows XP g... |
27 August 2007
05:42 GMT |
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Unlike Windows XP, which was sent barefoot into the world, Windows Vista comes in the context of a mature anti-piracy infrastructure courtesy of the Windows Genuine Advantage mechanism, and with the Reduced Functionality Mode limitations. Reduced Functionality Mode in Vista is delivered in two distinct flavors: out-o... |
17 August 2007
12:03 GMT |
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Should Microsoft welcome Windows piracy just because there are concerns that fighting it will push users toward adopting the rival Linux and Mac OS X operating systems? I have come across this absurd claim after Microsoft collaborated with the Chinese government and the FBI in helping with the takedown of the largest... |
16 August 2007
12:59 GMT |
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Microsoft's anti-piracy efforts will undertake a major overhauling. The Redmond company plans to take down both the Windows Validation Assistant and the Office Validation Assistant. However, Microsoft is going to fill in the empty spaces left by the discontinuing of WVA and OVA with Windows Comparison Guide (WCG... |
3 July 2007
11:34 GMT |
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Microsoft is the last company in the world you would expect to offer advice on how to download and deploy software requiring Windows Genuine Advantage validation on a system that will not pass WGA verification. And yet again, this won't be the only example of the Redmond company sabotaging its own fight against ... |
26 June 2007
12:32 GMT |
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Microsoft is not doing a very good job at shielding Windows Vista from piracy. As a matter of fact, just the opposite, the Redmond Company is actually promoting cracks for Windows Vista. The first out of the two screenshots included at the bottom is a clear illustration of how – via Live Search – Microsoft is doing i... |
26 June 2007
05:47 GMT |
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One of the downsides of the Microsoft anti-piracy program for the Windows platform is associated with the false positives generated by the Windows Genuine Advantage mechanism. The WGA went live in July 2005, and according to Cori Hartje, director of the Microsoft Genuine Software Initiative, the tool processed in exc... |
25 June 2007
03:37 GMT |
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Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage mechanism has validated a copy of the Ubuntu distribution of Linux as a genuine Windows product. The WGA has been a target for circumventing techniques since its introduction in July 2005. But Windows Genuine Advantage workarounds involve cracks designed to fool the mechanis... |
19 June 2007
10:10 GMT |
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Despite of the measures built into the operating system and the "genuine" system created around it, Windows Vista is as much a victim of piracy as Windows XP was. And Windows XP was sent out barefoot into the world, as far as anti-piracy is concerned. Microsoft did not manage to introduce the Windows Genuine Advantag... |
21 May 2007
07:01 GMT |
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At the end of the past week, security company Symantec has issued a public warning related to Trojan.Kardphisher, a Trojan horse that deactivates genuine and activated copies of Windows. According to Symantec, the malicious program can successfully compromise a range of Windows platforms, including Windows 2000, Wind... |
7 May 2007
06:23 GMT |
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In excess of 600 million Microsoft products have been running for a whole year in the piracy marathon. 600 million is the total number of unique Microsoft products validations that have been processed through the Windows Genuine Advantage program starting as back as July 2005. "We have had an amazing year and have ma... |
31 March 2007
03:46 GMT |
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This was a title that I never though I would write. But the truth is that Microsoft is happy with the way Windows Vista piracy is evolving. Is there a catch to this? No. The fact of the matter is that Windows Vista has delivered a heavy blow to software counterfeiters. The reason for this is the new Windows Genuine A... |
28 March 2007
10:46 GMT |
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Microsoft has issued a formal response to media reports that its Windows Genuine Advantage Notification anti-piracy tool contacts the company servers when the users cancel the WGA installation. The clarification on the matter at hand was provided due to the past history of WGA and the customers' concerns about t... |
8 March 2007
06:17 GMT |
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Microsoft has released an updated version of the Windows Genuine Advantage Notification tool in February 2007. The Redmond Company's anti-piracy tool has been initially previewed back in November 2006, delivering a new installation experience for the users. However, Microsoft also sneaked in a little surprise in... |
7 March 2007
06:48 GMT |
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There are two myths associated with the low market performance of Windows Vista in its first month of commercial availability. The muted reception that Windows Vista got at the retail outlets is related to the fact that the latest operating system from Microsoft "does not offer much more than Windows XP" and that the... |
1 March 2007
10:15 GMT |
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