Users of the Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage feature, just about all XP and Vista users, could have come face to face with a lovely pirate message from MS over the weekend. A major outage on the servers that handle the WGA process meant that users of XP and Vista may have been unable to validate their legal copy of the OS if they attempted an upgrade or installation. The ‘invalidated’ PCs would not have shut down but the OS would have had its functionality reduced, features such as Aero would have been turned off. Phil Liu, the WGA Program Manager, selflessly stated on the MS forums that

I will personally resolve this issue before I go to sleep - whether or not it is Tuesday I sleep. My goal is to identify a FIX for this issue - afterwards get you all what you are looking for, an explanation and cause.

Fortunately for Phil the issue was fixed on Saturday and according to the WGA blog

We’ve been receiving reports on our forum and through customer service starting last night that Windows Vista validations have been failing on genuine systems. It looks now as though the issue has been resolved and validations are being processed successfully.

If there’s anyone out there who had an issue with validating their Windows OS please share your experience here at Our Picks.

Seriously speaking now, people tend to dislike the new operating system from Microsoft. For many a reason that is, but in the top there seem to be the incompatibility with a great deal of hardware devices, driver problems, installation problems, high requirements, etc.

The question is: To Vista or not to Vista?

While on a visit in Romania, where Bill Gates participated in the celebration of 10 years since the Microsoft branch has been running there, and the launch of Vista, Microsoft’s president declared that, with the right amount of administration, the new Vista could run life support systems in hospitals. Here is a fragment from the interview:

Journalist: Let’s imagine a hospital where life support systems are running Vista. Would you trust it with your life?

Bill Gates: Security has been the top priority for Microsoft for quite some time and that’s why I put out a key call for us to focus on that in a very big way over three years ago, and that’s why we’ve made investments like having people from Gecad ( Romanian company ) join on the security action from Microsoft. The answer to your question is that, absolutely, Vista is the most secure operating system we’ve ever done, and if it’s administred properly, absolutely, it can be used to run a hospital or any kind of mission crytical thing. But it’s not as simple as saying “If you use Vista, that happens automatically”. The issues about patient records and who should be able to see them, the issue about setting up a network, so that authorized people can connect up to that hospital network, the issue about having backup power, so that the computer systems can run even if the generators go down. There are a lot of issues to properly set up that system, so that you have the redundancy and the security walls to make sure it fullfils that very crytical function. So we are working with partners to raise their skills to make sure that when get involved in an installation like that they can make it secure. So I feel better about Vista than any other operating system, but there’s a lot of things that need to be done well, and we’re certaintly committed to step up and make sure these security issues are ieasier and better understood.

This could be the truth or it could be one man’s opinion. You can download the above segment of the interview here. (Big thanks to Alex Radescu for the recording)

But the real question that I must ask is this: Would YOU put your life in Vista’s hands? Do you trust it enough?

This would really give a new meaning to the “Blue Screen of Death“

If you’re living in the United States, we have some good news for you. Microsoft will simply give out trial licenses for Windows Vista, and free copies of the 2007 Microsoft Office Professional System and the 2007 Microsoft Office Groove for the Launch Events 2007.

The Launch Events 2007 are special events organized by the Redmond company, in which Microsoft Office 2007, Windows Vista and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will be launched in the US, in 74 different palces.

“Offer good only to registered attendees of the event on the date they attend, while supplies last. This offer is nontransferable. Limit one item each per attendee. Taxes, if any, are the sole responsibility of the recipient. The free software will be distributed as a downloadable file. To download the software, an access code will be required. The access code must be claimed onsite at event.”

The trial licenses I’m talking about will be available in the following 15 cities of the US: NewYork, Phoenix, Tampa, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia, Dallas and Seattle. The copies of Office Professional and Groove 2007 will be available on all of the locations. These free copies are not affected in any way by no trial sequence. They’re full versions offered to those who will participate to the Launch Events.

If you wish to have higher chances of getting your hands on one of the copies, sign up in the events.

The test drive is intended for evaluation purposes only. It requires Internet Explorer 6 or later, a browser plug-in, and a broadband Internet connection. A minimum 1024 x 768 screen resolution is recommended. It’s interesting that it wouldn’t run in Firefox at all.
It’s good to know that there is no product support for the test drive. You are welcome to participate in a Microsoft Windows Vista newsgroup to share your trial experiences with others and ask for advice. The Windows Vista version hosted in the test drive contains most of the functionality of the regular versions, but browsing the Internet is not enabled. Also, you may notice a slight delay or pause as you experience the product. This is due to the fact that this is a hosted trial and is dependent upon your bandwidth, local machine resources, etc. This does not necessarily represent the actual experience you will have with Windows Vista if it were installed on your PC.

Quite impressive for me. This is a great marketing tool to attract users. The test drive is free and you can try it for yourself if you like.