Microsoft “learning” from WGA failures, but the lesson should be: kill it

The introduction of Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) anti-piracy program was met with emotions ranging from indifference to outright anger by legitimate Windows users. Certainly those who were falsely accused of pirating Windows had something to be upset about, as did the people who suffered from the service being unavailable earlier this year. Even those that have not been caught in the WGA snare are uncomfortable with it: the idea of a low-level system process watching your system for signs of piracy so it can reduce the functionality of your system is just a little Orwellian.  

Microsoft's Alex Kochis, a senior product manager on the WGA team, has posted an apology of sorts on the official WGA blog for this summer's failures. While stopping short of delivering an absolute promise that another WGA outage will never happen, Kochis said that the team had been "taking another hard look at our operations" and that they have been "taking steps" to prevent a similar outage in the future.

Kochis explained again that the WGA availability issue in August was caused by a faulty upgrade to the system. Because of this, the WGA team has changed the procedure by which they roll out updates in the future (those of you who work in enterprise environments where there are already processes to test new Windows patches before rolling them onto production servers may be permitted a slightly smug grin about now).

In addition to better testing of patches, the WGA team is developing an improved method for dealing with any additional outages that may happen in the future. Like a team practicing for an inevitable disaster, the group is conducting "fire drills"—practice scenarios that prepare the group to respond to possible WGA emergencies. One of the fire drills was even held at 1 AM, waking Kochis' wife while Kochis leaped out of bed to respond to the fake crisis. One can be of two minds about this. On the one hand, it's great the Microsoft is ready for a disaster. On the other hand, it raises the question: is any of this really needed?

The idea of Microsoft employees practicing WGA outage "fire drills" would be merely comical if it weren't for the dismal reality of the drills needing to happen in the first place. Of course, all software companies are touched by piracy, and despite the fact that hardcore pirates aren't deterred by WGA or other online protection schemes, cutting down on casual copying does provide a measurable benefit to any software firm's bottom line. Microsoft isn't alone here: Adobe enabled Internet activation for its Creative Studio 2 suite, and Quark even went as far as to require license servers in order to run its product.

Microsoft remains the only major operating system player to use such a deeply-hooked antipiracy system, however. The company has suffered embarrassment at many of WGA's failures, each time affording the guys at Cupertino a major marketing opportunity.

And no one is saying that Microsoft needs to accept piracy. Recall that Windows already comes with a CD key-based protection system when installing, and it also requires Product Activation over the Internet or via phone in order to use the product afterwards. Those non-WGA-based antipiracy tools also thwart casual copying. What they do not do is monitor the system for changes so that they can kick a user into reduced functionality mode in the event of supposed suspicious behavior. WGA is a much harsher mistress: if it fails for any reason, there is little you can do to get back on track that doesn't involve the folks from Redmond fixing your problem. "Please sir, might I use my OS?"

The other problem with WGA is that its very name is oxymoronic: there is no advantage for users who pass WGA's tests. Microsoft attempted to add a carrot to go with its WGA stick by tying it to certain products (such as the first releases of Internet Explorer 7—subsequent versions have had their WGA requirement removed), but for all intents and purposes, passing a WGA check brought no additional benefits to the end user. Fixing WGA's flaws may not be enough here: Microsoft should really take a long, hard look at whether or not WGA is really necessary at all.