Boy am I glad I don’t use Windows! I don’t have to worry about another company deciding that I don’t have the right to use my computer..
There is a ZDNet blog article relating a conversation someone had with a Microsoft support person which was posted to the interesting people list in which the MS support person said:
“in the fall, having the latest WGA will become mandatory and if its not installed, Windows will give a 30 day warning and when the 30 days is up and WGA isn’t installed, Windows will stop working, so you might as well install WGA now.”
I don’t think this is actually likely to be true as the only way they could be sure to disable Windows it if WGA wasn’t installed is to have planned this from the first release of Windows XP, otherwise they’d have no guarantee that the code they need to do this would be installed.
However, the ZDNet person questioned Microsoft and only got this in response:
As we have mentioned previously, as the WGA Notifications program expands in the future, customers may be required to participate. Microsoft is gathering feedback in select markets to learn how it can best meet its customers’ needs and will keep customers informed of any changes to the program.
Now given that MSFT is already being sued over WGA for violating the Washington Consumer Protection Act, Washington Anti-Spyware Laws, California Consumer Legal Remedies Act, California Anti-Spyware Laws, California Business and Professions Code and California’s Unfair Competition Law you would think that they would take this opportunity for a good PR exercise about it..