[BC] The Empire Strikes Back--XP WGA

[Tom Taggart]

WGA is “Windows Genuine Advantage,”–windows having all the advantages. Since they have no real competition they can do anything they want to you.  The official line is “WGA” is an “opt-in” upgrade during regular OS upgrade cycles.  Once installed, if it finds your XP OS is not properly registered, then (goes the official line) you can’t update your operating system.

Wrong.  It’s a spy-ware time bomb, and they are activating it to blow up computers with ersatz software.  Tick Tick, Tick. 

I worry about the computers we use on air and the billing computer, but not the rest of the machines around the station.  We have a college kid working full-time who has enough skills to assemble boxes and install software.  So I haven’t been paying attention to what he has been doing with computers in the office.  If he runs into a problem, he’s been consulting with our play-by-play part-timer whose day-time job is in IT at a government agency.  This fellow “borrowed” some software from work, including a government-issued universal XP install disk. Which the two of them used on several of our office machines. The Empire struck back last week, killing a couple of our office machines.

As far as we know, only one computer was updated recently, by the new sales girl.  She has since quit, going to work for the local newspaper.  The day after we brought in Arbitron to train her–but that’s another sad story.  We haven’t run the Microsoft updates for the other machines. Yet the WGA software is on all of the machines. (Search for “WGA” files on your hard drive if you run XP!)  And the ones that died were really dead.– won’t boot at all.  So much for just ‘preventing updates.’

My crucial computers–the two air machines, production box and traffic, all have registered software. The rest of these machines, including the two that died, kind of migrated here.  There’s the sales computer that came from a client (in pieces) to pay off part of his bill; the GM’s old computer from home; his sister’s box with a dead hard drive; the sale’s manager’s machine with a dead power supply. We’re just using these machines for word processing and internet, and there is nothing critical on them.  

The live ones have been backed up; and I’ve purchased a new Compaq for sales.  With the “real” XP running $300 per machines, there is no point in buying new operating systems for these junkers. The Compaq– an XP Home machine with Word Perfect pre-loaded, will come in the door under $400.  The GM will get a new machine next.  The rest of the staff can suffer for a while.

If you contract, or have a large shop where IT is done piecemeal by other folks, you may want to check to see if the WGA software has infiltrated your XP machines.  Especially if the machines have been serviced by “the local computer guy.” Easy to do a re-install of Windows from the OEM disk at the shop when a machine gets bulky, or a hard charging drive has a coronary. Not to mention those boxes gotten on trade which may or may not have legit software.

Better to know now which machines have the time bombs before Redmond gets really vindictive and blows up your office.
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