Windows Vista Genuine Validation Fails Due to Incorrect BIOS Data

Thanks to Steve Jobs for this post in his blog. Even if the operating system was activated properly.

One of the downsides of the Microsoft anti-piracy program for the Windows platform is associatedwith 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 excess of 600 million unique operating system validations since that time.

In mid February 2007, Microsoft introduced an overhauling to the WGA mechanism following a preview made available back in November 2006. Along with the new installation experience for WGA Notifications, the visual redesign, and the revamped diagnostics pages, the most notable changes introduced to the mechanism involved a gray area for the Windows operating systems that it cannot clearly determine as either genuine or non-genuine.

In May, Microsoft revealed that the WGA mechanism can be the source of failed validation when it comes to Windows Vista. “When you try to validate a copy of Windows Vista, you may receive an error message that resembles the following: The Validation service is unable to determine whether this copy of Windows Vista is genuine. You may receive this error message even though you were able to activate Windows Vista as expected.Typically, this issue occurs when Windows Vista was preinstalled on a computer by an OEM,” Microsoft revealed in Knowledge Base article 937474. the users are advised to access the Genuine Microsoft Software website in order to resolve their issues.

According to the Redmond Company, the issue is connected to incorrect licensing data in the BIOS. Still, this error message is just one more example of the problems inherent with the WGA tool. If there’s one thing that Microsoft has been extremely quiet about, even more than the future of the Windows platform, that is WGA’s false positives. Microsoft dodged all issues related to the errors in the functionality of its Windows Genuine Advantage solution. The company’s position has been that WGA false positives are but a small number and do not impact the tool’s overall performances or accuracy.

Is Windows Vista the new Windows ME? Just read an interesting article that comes to the conclusion that Vista is not a new ME but rather a new Windows 95 - expect it to work properly in 3 years' time

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=261

It seems to be working fine right now, although trashing Windows never seems to go out of style.

Maybe the mods could "pin" a thread at the top of this forum and name it "Windows Bashing Posts Go In Here." Thereby saving the truly worthwhile forum postings from being pushed into premature obscurity, and allowing the rest of us to get on with exchanging ideas, getting help, problem solving, and assisting people with technology issues.

Been running vista ultimate now for 3 months and have no complaints. System is stable, quicker, the search is fantastic and the desktop goodies are great and the photo and imaging another plus. As said it just seems some people will blast Microsoft for the hel_l of it. There was even a guy winging on about windows 95 the other week. Some people just need to whinge, for me a big thumbs up