THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA

A registered Microsoft partner had an issue with his Action pack version of Windows XP... it said it was not valid and set off a WGA notification... and while I applaud Microsoft for their efforts in trying to clean out the scum of the world who rip off intellectual property, the current manner in which WGA issues get attended to is still very annoying.

The WGA forum is about the only and best channel there is to get specific and direct help on this issue....

http://forums.microsoft.com/Genuine/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=485803&SiteID=25

But right now it's a web based forum that right now every single time I post errors out.  A forum filled with folks that range the gambit from ones who didn't know they bought bogus software, to ones that think they are in the XP tech support forum to ones that clearly want to rip off Microsoft.  Now Microsoft would probably say "well that Partner needs to escalate the issue to their Account Manager to handle this".

Wonderful.  Okay.  But who "IS" your Account Manager?  In fact, it wasn't until I became a SBSC credential holder that I started getting emails from my NorCal Account Manager (see it pays to become a SBSCer).  The partner that is having the issue with his Action pack validation doesn't know who his account manager is either.  And currently there's no place that he can call to work through the issue.  I do know that SBSC members will get T-PAMs, dedicated telephone partner account managers in the future (yet another reason to become a SBSCer). But the average registered partner typically has no idea who their account manager in their region is.  On the one hand it's a strong reason to become a SBSC partner, but on the other hand, it's hard for a mere registered partner to know where to turn.  In fact being in the "belly button" of California, there are times I'm not sure if I'm a SoCal Microsoft partner or a NorCal Microsoft partner.

Bottom line, that forum doesn't make a partner feel like they are treated any better than a software pirate.

So for those that are having issues with WGA here's the steps.

• Run the WGA diagnostic tool - you'll see at the top if the product key comes back genuine...
• To resync the validation files go to www.microsoft.com/genuine and click on Validate Windows
• Then click start, run, type in "WGAtray.exe /b" click OK and reboot.

Many times it's an issue with the validation files.  If that doesn't work... go to the forum and post your issue there.