Microsoft kills Office anti-piracy program

[iinfi]

Microsoft kills Office anti-piracy program - Computerworld

Office Genuine Advantage 'served its purpose,' says Microsoft as it drops validation checking

By Gregg Keizer
December 20, 2010 01:22 PM ETComments (11)Recommended (10)
Computerworld - Microsoft last week killed an anti-piracy service that checked whether customers were running legal copies of Office, saying that the program had "served its purpose."

ZDNet blogger Ed Bott first reported on Microsoft's move after a tipster pointed him toward a support document on the company's site.

That Dec. 17 document simply noted that Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) "has been retired," but offered no explanation.

In an e-mail reply to questions today, a Microsoft spokeswoman added, "The program has served its purpose and thus we have decided to retire the program."

OGA, which debuted alongside Office XP in 2007, was Microsoft's way to separate counterfeit from legitimate copies of its popular suite. In 2006, Microsoft restricted Office template downloads to users running a legal edition of the application bundle, then upped the ante early in 2007 by requiring all users to validate their copy of Office with OGA to use the now-defunct Office Update site and service.

In 2008, Microsoft added a notification component to OGA that nagged users of counterfeit copies to upgrade.

Microsoft declined to expand today on its reasons for dumping OGA, with the spokeswoman saying only, "Given our strong commitment to anti-piracy, we are making several new investments that will allow us to engage with customers and help victims of fraud."

She did not spell out what future anti-piracy changes Microsoft has in mind.

The company has disabled links that once pointed to additional information about OGA, and to a validation check. Those links, which were available on a page cached Sunday by several search engines, now redirect users to Microsoft's main Windows 7 page.

Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), which was renamed Windows Activation Technologies (WAT) last year with the introduction of Windows 7, remained active Monday when Computerworld checked several copies of the operating system. WAT serves the same purpose as the now-discontinued OGA, but focuses on the legitimacy of Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7.

Microsoft's anti-piracy policies have had a contentious history as users had regularly complained about the validation checks. In June 2006, for example, Microsoft angered users by pushing a version of WGA to XP via Windows Update, tagging it as a "high-priority" update that was automatically downloaded and installed to most machines. A year later, a day-long server outage riled thousands of users who were mistakenly fingered for running counterfeit copies of Windows.

The 2006 incident sparked a lawsuit that accused the company of misleading customers when it used Windows Update to serve up WGA. That case was dismissed last February after the plaintiffs and Microsoft agreed to drop the lawsuit.

Office users are still required to activate their copies of the suite by entering a legitimate 25-character key after they install the software. Product activation, which Microsoft launched with Office 2000, is another anti-piracy service the company uses for Office on both Windows and Mac OS X, as well as for the Windows operating system.

Copies of Microsoft's software that are not activated drop into what the company calls "reduced functionality mode" that restricts its use and puts nagging notices on the screen.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His e-mail address is gkeizer@computerworld.com.

Read more about DRM and Legal Issues in Computerworld's DRM and Legal Issues Topic Center.

[Faun]

lirl...

[Rahim]

I was about to post this news.
Office Genuine Advantage Bites the Dust — Datamation.com

[ico]

I reckon no one in this world is ever a victim of software counterfeiting.

[niceboy]

I don't understand why they are dropping OGA. If at all they are dropping it, what happens to WAT?

[thetechfreak]

sites like pirate bay, songs.pk(website that releases bollywood songs for illegal download) must come down

as for WAT pirate bay has working cracks! I have used these crack in friends PC and it works without installing Malware.

Really sad.hope MS doesnt stop its WaT program

[Sam]

^^ scan these cracks using Emsisoft Antimalware. 99% will be shown as malwares. & most are. anyway for the students, we can always try OpenOffice. less eyecandy, but who the heck needs eyecandy in editing/creating a doc. for the Microsoft fans or those who don't have much experience with OOf, MS Office 2010 Student Edition. yes, its not free but not that costly.

[ico]

Just use your head and start using Linux. Keep Windows for gaming.

[thetechfreak]

@sam Libre office seems a little better

@ico I feel Windows is little better overall. Though I love graphics of Ubuntu 10.x . Ext4 partition is great. Thinking of installing newer Ubuntu versions after my boards.

Can we install s/w via double click?

P.s- a bit of linux newbie, havent extensively used it yet.

[Liverpool_fan]

Originally Posted by thetechfreak

@sam Libre office seems a little better

@ico I feel Windows is little better overall. Though I love graphics of Ubuntu 10.x . Ext4 partition is great. Thinking of installing newer Ubuntu versions after my boards.

Can we install s/w via double click?

P.s- a bit of linux newbie, havent extensively used it yet.

[thetechfreak]

Thanks a lot Liverpool fan

could you give a little insight on installing from DvD? Digit had given loads of Linux software..particularly installation of Wine?

[ico]

Originally Posted by thetechfreak

Thanks a lot Liverpool fan

could you give a little insight on installing from DvD?

Just double click the .deb package? It will install instantly if all dependencies are satisfied. It won't even ask you for "I agree" --> NEXT ---> NEXT ---> FINISH.

Originally Posted by thetechfreak

Digit had given loads of Linux software..particularly installation of Wine?

My advice to all new Linux users is: Don't use Wine. Look for "native" alternatives.

I know someone who actually (tried to) install(ed) Google Chrome and VLC player using Wine.

And Wine will can be installed from Ubuntu Software Center mentioned above.