14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft acknowledged the existence of an unspecified error which permitted the company's Genuine Advantage watchdog for the Office platform to roam free this past week. Cori Hartje, director of the Microsoft Genuine Software Initiative, announced as early as April 8 that, just like Windows, the Office System will also be getting its very own Genuine Advantage antipiracy mechanism. However, the initial Office Genuine Advantage notifications pilot program was supposed to debut exclusively in Chile, Italy, Spain and Turkey, and to be distributed through Microsoft update. This was not the case, as OGA was dropped outside of the planned pilot test areas starting on April 15.
"On April 15th the Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) notifications update (KB949810) was inadvertently published to WSUS servers for approximately twenty-four hours," a member of the Windows Server Update Services revealed. "(...) but because of WSUS publication, it became available to WSUS managed clients inside and outside of these intended countries. This update has since been removed from WSUS. For servers which synchronized the OGA update package, the package required a EULA acceptance before it could be made available to WSUS managed clients, via either manual approval, or auto-approval rules."
OGA functions on the same principle as the Windows Genuine Advantage, namely in the eventuality that it comes across non-genuine copies of the Office System, it starts informing the user through repeated alerts and notifications of the license status. The installation of OGA is not mandatory, even though the mechanism is pushed as a Critical update. But end users need to know that they won't be able to remove the component once it was installed.
"We are available to offer full assistance if you have problems or questions related to this issue, via your regular support channels. Customers who want to learn more about OGA notifications can reference the online KB Article. Customers who require support should submit a Technical Support Request for Microsoft Genuine Advantage Issues," the WSUS member added.