Windows Genuine Advantage: When a 'False Positive' isn't a false positive

When a 'False Positive' isn't a false positive

RecentlyI've been hearing questions from journalists, other bloggers andcustomers about what exactly makes systems fail validation.Specifically, I have been asked for two things. First, a breakdown ofthe kinds of piracy that are detected by WGA and which are the mostcommon.  And second, what is the rate of “false positives” with WGA(falsely identifying a copy of Windows as counterfeit)?

First on the question of what makes up the WGA failures. About 1 in5 of the 300 million PCs that have run WGA validation fail.  That ispretty much in line with industry numbers for software piracy.  Byvolume most of the validation failures detected by WGA are a result ofinstalls that use a stolen volume licensing key. Using stolen volumelicense keys has been a well known method of counterfeiting Windows XPfor a while.  This accounts for around 80% of the failures today. As anexample, one stolen license key from a US university ended up on over amillion PCs in China. The rest of the failures are caused by a mix ofother types of counterfeiting and piracy, including a variety of formsof tampering, hacking and other forms of installing unlicensed copies.Sometimes people try to hack Windows Product Activation itself (oftennot totally successfully either) and other times people try to modifyfiles to prevent XP from needing to activate at all. Some failures arecaused by improper attempts to install or repair software on anotherwise genuine PC. All of these activities will result in WGAvalidation failures and they should.

I think it's super important to be clear about the idea of 'falsepositives' so I'd like to take this opportunity to explain a bit abouthow WGA works and why when some people believe they have a legitlicense for Windows but WGA fails to validate their installed copy.

To be precise, an actual 'false positive' would occur if WGAidentifed a specific copy of windows installed on a system asnon-genuine or unlicensed when in fact it was genuine and licensed. Ofthe hundreds of millions of WGA validations to date, only a handful ofactual false positives have been seen. Most of these were due to dataentry errors that were quickly corrected and only occurred for a shortperiod of time.

Given the extremely small number of technical failures of WGA whyelse might someone think that their system was falsely identified asrunning counterfeit Windows? If they aren't actual 'false positives'what are they? It turns out there are a number of scenarios that couldresult in a WGA validation failure that a user might be surprised by oreven deny including the following few scenarios:

Scenario 1: the PC user was sold counterfeit but it looks genuine tothem so their first reaction is shock followed by disbelief andfrustration (occasionally people seem to contact us right at thispoint!) but in truth these people are victims and the product is reallya counterfeit made to look like genuine. When people are ripped of thisway we offer to replace their product with a genuine copy if they fillout a counterfeit report and send it and the counterfeit into us. Sofar we've provided hundreds of free copies of Windows to users who'vebeen ripped by high-quality counterfeit, and we plan to continue thisoffer.

Scenario 2: the PC user really doesn't know that they did somethingwrong, such as install the same copy and key to more than one PC at thesame time. If a customer such as this bought their copy at a reputableoutlet, a national chain or received Windows pre-installed on a PC froma major manufacturer they might believe that what they have is'genuine' but they don't realize that they're violating the license ina way that results in a WGA failure. The solution to this is reallyeducational, there are some requirements as to how Windows can beinstalled, these are of course spelled out in the EULA and for many arecommon knowledge.

Scenario 3: a friend or acquaintance offers to 'fix' or repair yoursystem or offers a 'free upgrade' by installing their copy of Windowson your machine. as in the scenario above, if you didn't now thatwasn't allowed under the license you have for Windows you might besurprised when WGA fails. The challenge in scenario 3 and 4 is thatthere is no way to tell the difference from someone unknowinglypirating the software, with good intent or not, and someone who doesthis for a living to rip off consumers and/or Microsoft.

Scenario 4: you take your PC to get a new video card or hard driveor to be worked on for some other reason at a repair shop, in theprocess of the upgrade a new [improper] copy of Windows is installed.Sometimes this happens because those doing the work will take shortcutsto install a copy of Windows that is laying around or is convenient.Often times this is done with a key and a copy of Windows that's handyfor the repair person but is really the wrong version or edition orinstallation for your system. WGA detects some of these miss-matchesand will fail systems that are installed with versions of Windows thataren't licensed properly. For customers who find themselves in thissituation there's a number of solutions available none of which requirethat they purchase a new copy of Windows.

For all of these scenarios when validation fails the WGA websitewill offer a detailed explanation and an opportunity to print thatdetailed explanation in the form of a report explaining why a systemfailed. The owner of the PC can take this report to the place that soldthem the their PC or performed the latest install of Windows to gethelp. While in the examples above the owner of the PC may not intend todo anything wrong and intentions are often innocent, these are in factforms of software piracy. 

These scenarios are not real 'false positives' because that the WGAsoftware did perform as designed and accurately detect an install ofWindows that was not licensed for the PC it was installed on or waswrong for some other reason. Still our team takes the customerexperience in these scenarios very seriously.

Many teams across the company are working really hard, particularlyour marketing folks, to educate customers about the benefits of genuineWindows and encourage them to ask for genuine software when buying aPC. We also have very hard working legal and investigative teams thatwork to help level the playing field for honest resellers byidentifying and taking legal action against resellers who sellcounterfeit and pirated Windows to consumers.

Lastly, I would like to ensure everyone that we investigate allcredible reports we receive of false positives (though sometimes it'shard to chase down the details we need to try to repro reportedfailures).  I hear in the halls sometimes of reported failures takingplace but when the dev and test teams reproduce the steps reported theresult is, far more often than not, that the software performed asdesigned and the failure was due to the software in fact beingcounterfeit and the customer simply not wanting to believe it.

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