Phil Liu of Microsoft has reported problems with the Windows Genuine Advantage authentication method for Volume License Key (VLK) customers and a temporary work-around.
"Just a heads up on an issue related to (Volume) VLK validation. On Monday and Tuesday of this week (Oct 2-3), some VLK customers may have experienced problems with WGA validation. If a Windows XP system with a VLK recently began failing validation or reporting as non-genuine, then they may experiencing this problem. The problem was the result of an issue on the Microsoft server side, and we are still investigating the cause. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused you, and I am personally working to get the information you need to resolve this issue.
We do have steps available that affected customers can take to correct the problem, and we'll continue to work on solutions and post them on this forum."
Customers who are affected can:
- Delete the data.dat file from Cocuments and SettingsAll UsersApplication DataWindows Genuine Advantagedata (The drive letter will depend on where the OS was installed)
- Revisit https://www.microsoft.com/genuine/downloads/validate.aspx to confirm that the machine is now genuine.
- Run wgatray.exe /b from the command line to ensure that the latest validation is updated for WGA Notifications. This command may not be present on the user's machine and should not be considered an error if it is not. Please ensure that this is run as an Administrator. A reboot may be required to remove all non-genuine notifications.
View: Topic on Microsoft Forums
