This entry is not about the spyware tendencies of the beta program, Windows Geniune Advantage, that Microsoft is FORCING Windows XP users to download as a "critical update". It is about the schizophrenic way that they are going about validating Windows XP installations.
When the WGA first came out, I avoided downloading it once I heard that it would "phone home" each day and was also still in beta state. However, I soon wanted to download something or other from Microsoft's website, and I was not permitted to do it without this stupid WGA spyware installed. Fine, I downloaded it. This morning, I decided to give IE 7 beta 3 a shot. When I went to Microsoft's website, somehow the WGA that I was required to install was not enough. I still had to validate my copy of Windows. I had to download an executable called "WGAPluginInstall". Once that was done, I next had to download ANOTHER program called GenuineCheck. Huh? I have WGA installed. Then after GenuineCheck ran, I had to enter the number it gave me into the web page to download IE 7 beta 3. Think this is enough? When I tried to install, I was told that I had to manually remove IE7 beta 2. What, you can't write an installer that will just overwrite it? OK, fine. I did that too. What really got me though, was when I rebooted and finally got to run IE 7 beta 3, it had to validate my copy of Windows to. That's 4 times that I can count of having to validate one copy of Windows XP. I had to validate to download, then again to install.
What's up with this?
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