Meet Linux Genuine Advantage
p2pnet news | Open Source:- Are you a Linux user who’s feeling disadvantaged, ignored and unloved because you don’t have Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage looking out for you?
Be troubled no more.
Meet Linux Genuine AdvantageTM, purpose-developed to make YOU one of the chosen.
It’s an, “exciting and mandatory new way for you to place your computer under the remote control of an untrusted third party!” – say the creators.
Coooooool. But is it for real?
Well, “It’s for real in the sense that the code actually makes your computer less useful,” says the FAQ, going on:
Although there is an actual license server, it doesn’t do anything except return “FAIL”, making any computers running Linux Genuine Advantage disable logins after the grace period expires.
Incidentally, this is similar to what has happened with some other systems (such as Circuit City’s DIVX system after they decided it was no longer profitable.
Um, Okay. But what’s the seagull got to do with it. Wouldn’t a Penguin be more appropriate?
Actually, it’s not a seagull. It’s an Albatross, chosen because, “In modern usage, an albatross can be seen as a symbol of a gigantic, hopeless, long running project that is never going to work, similar to a boondoggle.”
Oh. So it’s all a joke, then?
Linux Genuine AdvantageTM is.
But Microsoft’s Windows Genuine (dis)Advantage isn’t.
All other considerations (and there are plenty of them) aside, “Some of Microsoft’s WGA servers reportedly went offline last night or early this morning,” says Yahoo Tech.
So?
Well, “If your copy of Windows tries to validate itself with Microsoft, it might be marked as unvalidated, or put simply, counterfeit. (Validation occurs during all new Windows XP and Vista installations, as well as during biweekly check-ins with Microsoft on both platforms during normal operation.) ”
Oh.
The story adds:
“Microsoft’s only recognition of the problem has been in an email to a user having trouble, who posted the information here on a Microsoft official forum. Microsoft’s suggestion: Try to validate again on Tuesday. Hey, hope you don’t need your computer over the next four days …”
Also See:
Windows Genuine (dis)Advantage – New WGA lawsuit, July 6, 2006
Yahoo Tech – Windows Genuine Advantage Servers Down, Taking Users With Them, August 24, 2007
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August 27th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Do this.
Go to Start > Run (or just use the “Search” bar in Vista) and type regedit.
Browse down to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, then System, CurrentControlSet, and Services.
Find “wuauserv” near the end of the list. Delete it.
Go back up to Software in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, and follow down the trail of Microsoft, Windows NT, CurrentVersion, Winlogon, Notify.
Find “WgaLogon” in that list and delete it too (in XP, don’t know if that will work in Vista).
Restart the computer.
Voila, you’ve destroyed Automatic Updates AND WGA, all in 30 seconds. This is one way to not deal with MicroCrap anymore. In XP anyway.
Alternatively, you can download a Linux distro and start fresh. Just don’t be one of the losers that uses Ubuntu, the slowest Debian derivative ever made…
August 27th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
But won’t that make Mr Gates REALLY angry?
August 27th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Old news.
August 28th, 2007 at 5:42 am
Not to me it wasn’t.
August 28th, 2007 at 6:21 am
A couple counter-points to The Angry Offender’s suggestions.
1. Disabling Automatic Updates is like driving without a seatbelt. Sure, seat belts are uncomfortable, and if you get in a crash they can hurt, but would you rather have a bruise on your chest or be a stain on the pavement?
2. Ubuntu may be slower than raw Debian, but it’s faster than Knoppix (Debian-derived) and MUCH faster than Windows. It also has the advantage of better support (including commercial support) and an interface that’s easy for newly-converted users to understand. If you’re such a speed freak, Slackware has been repeatedly acclaimed as the fastest binary distribution and Gentoo makes all kinds of claims as well.
August 28th, 2007 at 7:36 am
It depends what you mean by speed. From what I understand about gentoo you have to compile the source code every time you want to install a new program.(The programs source, not gentoo’s) Sure it may run faster but if you install a lot of stuff that gets time consuming. I don’t know Fedora but I had the commercial Red Hat distro and that required a lot of time spent tweaking shit. If you want Ubuntu to run faster you can run XFCE instead of gnome.
As far as the seat belt analogy I think a lot of people would forgo them if part of the requirement for having one was that your car dial in to the car company on a regular basis giving them your information and if they didn’t like what they saw your car would refuse to start.
August 28th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Hmm…that’s funny, I find Ubuntu quite efficient. I have a Power Mac G3 B&W that runs Ubuntu Dapper PPC. This is not by any means a “modern” box anymore, even with its 1GHz CPU upgrade and 1GB DRAM. I can definitely confirm that it is way better than Mac OS X on the same hardware.
On the x86 side, I’ve run Ubuntu on quite a few boxes, from Celeron Tualatins (1.3GHz) to my latest Core 2 Duo monster. Sure, Slackware (my absolute favorite distro) is a bit faster on the same hardware, but Ubuntu ain’t no slow dog, either…and that includes the Celeron 1.3GHz.
What makes Ubuntu so neat is that it’s Debian made easy for Windows users. Now, “Debian proper” has narrowed that gap pretty well with Etch, which I love and highly recommend to others. For my parents, I recommend Ubuntu. Either way, Free Software wins.
–TP
August 29th, 2007 at 5:03 am
@Reader’s Write
“Disabling Automatic Updates is like driving without a seatbelt.”
In the last few months I have found the updates from Microsoft to be more trouble for many clients than the problems they supposedly fix. You might search the web for references to SVCHOST redlining at 90-100% CPU utilization to see a good, recent example.
These days it is not uncommon for some of Microsoft’s patches to be patches to patches to patches that were not done correctly.
I was stung by the WGA server failure and wasted the better part of a day researching and dealing with the problem.
IMHO, Microsoft’s Automatic Updates are more dangerous than beneficial and I have turned them off on all my machines and now recommend that my clients do the same. I wait several weeks/months after patches are released before applying them, once I know they are not trouble. This is safer than trusting Microsoft, who has not proven itself trustworthy.
October 7th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Started with radio shack computer, windows 95, 98, then on to xp over the years. I like to look into things and see what makes them tick. I was changing hard drives, software and hardware several times a year. It’ like building a car, you are never finished. Well with xp, Microsoft and I ran head on, they wanted a picture of my hardware in my computer and I said no and it was not long before I was having all kinds of little problems. Just so happens I had ghosted xp before this happened so I disconnected the internet ,reloaded the ghost program. My xp program will never see the internet again. I use xp to run my film processing software and starting with 6.06, 6.10 and now 7.04 I use ubuntu. When I crash , I just reload, and go on, I do not need someone at micro soft to ok it. WGA has not only cost micro soft me as a customer but all the third party software writers that sell me software.
Ubuntu is stable and as a os it,s great. It gives you thousands of choices in set ups and software which is all free, I grant you it makes you work sometimes to make it do what you want it to do , but that educates you where micro soft makes you lazy.
October 9th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
ROTFLMAO!
>”Disabling Automatic Updates is like driving without a seatbelt.”