Vista WGA problems just keep coming
Bad reports about Vista WGA keep rolling in. Here’s another, this time at InformationWeek. Alexander Wolfe reports:
Hello, my name is Alex and I’m apparently running a bogus copy of Windows Vista. At least that’s what my computer told me earlier today after I booted up. Funny thing is, I got my copy of Vista directly from. . . Microsoft. Apparently, I’m not the only one with this problem. If you troll Microsoft’s Windows Vista Activation Forum, you’ll find numerous posts along the same lines.
My troubles began when I booted up my Vista box for the first time in a couple of weeks. (I still use XP on my main machine. I was thinking of moving over to the new system; now, I’m not so sure.) After booting up, I got a message that my activation period had “expired,” and I would have to reactivate. Even though I had previously — and successfully — activated my copy of Windows Vista, this gave me only the slightest pause, since it was a minor glitch not out of the ordinary from what one might expect with a new operating system.
Did I want to re-activate over the Internet? Of course! Alas, that was not to be; apparently my copy of Vista wasn’t genuine, at least according to my PC. (Did I mention that, as a tech reviewer, I got my copy of Vista directly from Microsoft?) My PC did tell me that I could enter a new product key if I wanted to. (That, and $450, will get you a new copy Vista.) Er, no.
He goes on to describe the hassle he had trying to straighten out things on the phone. As he says:
Without getting into the whole issue of off-shore phone support, I think it’s fair to say that average consumers who purchase their computers at Best Buy won’t be too happy about talking to a script-reader who’s not sympathetic to their problems and who isn’t empowered to do anything beyond read the script (or hang up if they get too flummoxed).
What’s needed is a new kind of WGA, Windows Genuine Alternative.
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