Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) management reports 1 out of 5 of the 300 million PCs have failed the validation.
Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) management reports 1 out of 5 of the 300 million PCs have failed the validation. And they also listed out few scenarios that causes the failure of validating the WGA.
Scenario 1: the PC user was sold counterfeit but it looks genuine to them so their first reaction is shock followed by disbelief and frustration (occasionally people seem to contact us right at this point!) but in truth these people are victims and the product is really a counterfeit made to look like genuine. When people are ripped of this way we offer to replace their product with a genuine copy if they fill out a counterfeit report and send it and the counterfeit into us. So far we’ve provided hundreds of free copies of Windows to users who’ve been ripped by high-quality counterfeit, and we plan to continue this offer.
Scenario 2: the PC user really doesn’t know that they did something wrong, such as install the same copy and key to more than one PC at the same time. If a customer such as this bought their copy at a reputable outlet, a national chain or received Windows pre-installed on a PC from a major manufacturer they might believe that what they have is ‘genuine’ but they don’t realize that they’re violating the license in a way that results in a WGA failure. The solution to this is really educational, there are some requirements as to how Windows can be installed, these are of course spelled out in the EULA and for many are common knowledge.
Scenario 3: a friend or acquaintance offers to ‘fix’ or repair your system or offers a ‘free upgrade’ by installing their copy of Windows on your machine. as in the scenario above, if you didn’t now that wasn’t allowed under the license you have for Windows you might be surprised when WGA fails. The challenge in scenario 3 and 4 is that there is no way to tell the difference from someone unknowingly pirating the software, with good intent or not, and someone who does this for a living to rip off consumers and/or Microsoft.
Scenario 4: you take your PC to get a new video card or hard drive or to be worked on for some other reason at a repair shop, in the process of the upgrade a new [improper] copy of Windows is installed. Sometimes this happens because those doing the work will take shortcuts to install a copy of Windows that is laying around or is convenient. Often times this is done with a key and a copy of Windows that’s handy for the repair person but is really the wrong version or edition or installation for your system. WGA detects some of these miss-matches and will fail systems that are installed with versions of Windows that aren’t licensed properly. For customers who find themselves in this situation there’s a number of solutions available none of which require that they purchase a new copy of Windows.
Those scenarios are possibles, because I personally do see people do it. At laptop shops, when laptops such as Acer that dont come bundle with OS. When customer buy a lisence copy of windows separately, the reseller normally will use a pirated copy of Windows install it without opening the package.
They also did mention about how the users try to hack the windows.
The rest of the failures are caused by a mix of other types of counterfeiting and piracy, including a variety of forms of tampering, hacking and other forms of installing unlicensed copies. Sometimes people try to hack Windows Product Activation itself (often not totally successfully either) and other times people try to modify files to prevent XP from needing to activate at all. Some failures are caused by improper attempts to install or repair software on an otherwise genuine PC.
Which is is possible because those people that do it are people who are downloading windows from the Internet and requires hacking or tampering of windows to get their latest update. It is possible and when ever that are updates of WGA, there is always a way of by passing it. I personally dont know how to do it, but there are guides on how to tamper it and mostly are from China forums.
Sources: http://blogs.msdn.com/wga/archive/2006/07/16/667063.aspx
