Microsoft to supply ALL patches to All users
link: original article - section: microsoft
It’s time for Microsoft’s policy of tying the availability of Windows Updates to Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation to end.
Brian Livingston writing for Windows Secrets had the following to say:
“It’s ridiculous to say that Microsoft provides all security updates to Windows users, whether or not they pass Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation. No, Microsoft doesn’t.
“First of all, a system that fails WGA is restricted in using Microsoft’s update and download sites.
“WGA has a reputation for rating some PCs as unlicensed when in fact they’re completely legitimate. For this reason, many people exit Windows Update at this point and turn off Automatic Updates (if it was enabled) rather than risk disabling their expensive computers.”
Windows Update and WGA are interlinked. If you have a PC that doesn’t validate as running a genuine copy of Windows (or you are uneasy about putting it through the validation process for whatever reason), then you are limited to receiving only those updates that are labeled as “Critical”. While this still gives users access to the most important updates, it means that users miss out on updates classified as “Important” or “Moderate”.
To make matters worse, back in 2006 someone at Microsoft decided to push an update for the WGA mechanism (KB905474) through the Windows Update mechanism and marked it as a “Critical” update. This mixing of genuine security updates and marketing propaganda was an enormous abuse of trust on Microsoft’s part (Apple later pulled a similar stunt when it pushed Safari to Windows users though its software update mechanism) and shouldn’t have been allowed to happen.
