Microsoft quietly shuts down Office Genuine Advantage program
Summary
Late last week, with no public announcement, Microsoft quietly retired one cog in its antipiracy machine. Office Genuine Advantage was officially shut down as of Thursday, December 16, and virtually all traces of the once-controversial program have been scrubbed from Microsoft’s web site.
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Ed Bott
Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications. He's served as editor of the U.S. edition of PC Computing and managing editor of PC World; both publications had monthly paid circulation in excess of 1 million during his tenure. He is the author of more than 25 books on Microsoft Windows and Office, including the recently released Windows 7 Inside Out.
Late last week, with absolutely no public announcement, Microsoft quietly retired one cog in its antipiracy machine.
An anonymous tipster informed me on Friday that Microsoft had shut down its Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) program as of Thursday, December 16. Previously, if you wanted to download an Office add-in or template, you had to pass through a validation step first, confirming that your copy of Office was “genuine.”
Here, for example, is a copy of the Office Genuine Advantage dialog box, circa 2006:
Today, when I visited the templates library at Office.com, I was able to download every template, with no roadblocks standing in my way.
With a little searching, I found official confirmation of the program’s shutdown in a notice tacked on to Microsoft Support Knowledge Base article 917999. At the top of the page, the article was listed as Retired KB Content, with a Last Review date of December 17, 2010. According to the Bing cache, this text was added to the top of the page this week, probably on December 17:
Notice
The Office Genuine Advantage (“OGA”) program has been retired. For more information about the benefits of genuine Office, please visit the following website:
The sudden abandonment of the program appears to have taken other parts of Microsoft by surprise. As of this morning, there’s no hint of the OGA shutdown at Microsoft’s official Office Genuine Advantage Validation Issues forum. And if you search Bing for validate office, you’ll turn up a lot of dead links. The first result from Bing is a page entitled “Why validate Office?” But clicking that link, http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/office/WhyValidate.aspx, leads to Microsoft’s Windows home page. The original page (which is still available in the Bing cache but is not in Google’s cache) contained this text:
To help you verify that you are using genuine Office, Microsoft offers a quick and easy online process called validation.
Validation takes only a few moments, and enables Microsoft to create a match between your PC’s hardware profile and your 25-character Product Key (located on the Certificate of Authenticity), which Microsoft stores and checks against future activation and validation attempts. We do this to ensure that your Product Key is not used by another person in a malicious manner, such as activating a counterfeit or non-genuine copy of Office.
In fact, comparing a cached copy of the Genuine Microsoft Software page from earlier this week with the current contents of that page reveals that the entire site has undergone a complete makeover. The previous version contained links to some 20 separate pages. That page now contains two large graphics—pictures of the boxes for Windows 7 Ultimate and Office Professional 2010, respectively—with a link beneath one promising to help you “learn more” about genuine Windows and Office. The Office link leads to the same generic Benefits of genuine Office page mentioned in the retired KB article.
I tried visiting each of the Office-related links previously available on the Genuine Microsoft Software page. All of the associated pages appear to have been scrubbed from Microsoft’s site. The Validate Windows button still works, but clicking its former companion, Validate Office, just leads to the Windows home page. I’m also told that the Office Notifier, the OGA ActiveX control for Internet Explorer, and the OGA plugin for Firefox are also officially retired.
This week’s change doesn’t affect Office activation, which still requires a 25-character product key and direct contact with Microsoft’s activation servers. It also doesn’t affect Windows validation, which is apparently alive and well and is still required for some downloads, such as Microsoft Security Essentials.
Update Dec-20, 10AM PST: A Microsoft spokesperson provides the following statement:
The Office Genuine Advantage program was designed to notify many customers around the world whether their copy of Microsoft Office was genuine. The program has served its purpose and thus we have decided to retire the program. Given our strong commitment to anti-piracy, we are making several new investments that will allow us to engage with customers and help victims of fraud. If you believe that your Office software may be counterfeit, please visit Microsoft’s How to Tell website. You may also learn more about Microsoft Office products or purchase or download a genuine copy directly. If you have additional questions or otherwise require support on this issue, please contact us for support options.
The spokesperson also confirmed that Microsoft has no plans to decommission Windwos Activation Technologies or Windows Genuine Advantage.
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Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications.
Disclosure
Ed Bott
Ed Bott is a freelance technical journalist and book author. All work that Ed does is on a contractual basis.
Since 1994, Ed has written more than 25 books about Microsoft Windows and Office. Along with various co-authors, Ed is completely responsible for the content of the books he writes. As a key part of his contractual relationship with publishers, he gives them permission to print and distribute the content he writes and to pay him a royalty based on the actual sales of those books. Ed's books are currently distributed by Que Publishing (a division of Pearson Education) and by Microsoft Press.
On occasion, Ed accepts consulting assignments. In recent years, he has worked as an expert witness in cases where his experience and knowledge of Microsoft and Microsoft Windows have been useful. In each such case, his compensation is on an hourly basis, and he is hired as a witness, not an advocate.
Ed does not own stock or have any other financial interest in Microsoft or any other software company. He owns 500 shares of stock in EMC Corporation, which was purchased before the company's acquisition of VMWare. In addition, he owns 350 shares of stock in Intel Corporation, purchased more than two years ago. All stocks are held in retirement accounts for long-term growth.
Ed does not accept gifts from companies he covers. All hardware products he writes about are purchased with his own funds or are review units covered under formal loan agreements and are returned after the review is complete.
Biography
Ed Bott
Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications. He's served as editor of the U.S. edition of PC Computing and managing editor of PC World; both publications had monthly paid circulation in excess of 1 million during his tenure. He is the author of more than 25 books on Microsoft Windows and Office, including the recently released Windows 7 Inside Out.
More from “Ed Bott's Microsoft Report”
Talkback Most Recent of 93 Talkback(s)
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RE: Microsoft quietly shuts down Office Genuine Advantage program
Maybe better to canabilise yourself as opposed to being eaten by the competitionStuartlynn12/19/2010 02:39 PM -
LOL! I doubt that's an issue, as there really isn't
much competition in refernce to Office suites. Their nerest competitor is still in single digits.John Zern12/20/2010 11:21 AM -
Yeah!
@John Zern: The best way to be in the first place is encouraging piracy!!!!paulocwb200312/20/2010 04:05 PM -
Good.
Microsoft LOVES the GA crap. Glad to know I can do my stuff without jumping through hoops.
Oh and before Donnieboy comes and yells, Office does more than print.Cylon Centurion 000512/19/2010 02:44 PM -
Yeah Office does a lot
@Cylon Centurion 0005
For me, I couldnt live without the old standby Excel, but I have also come to rely on: Visio and OneNote.
No other product comes close. Sure, for home use I could probably just use Google Docs. But OpenOffice, no way.
And what about that OpenOffice fork? Havent heard much about that lately.otaddy12/19/2010 04:02 PM -
OOo Fork
@otaddy Why people keep asking about this?? The "fork" happened just a few weeks ago. They haven't even had time to organize. So why is anybody expecting something brand new and from a group that is not even stable to release anything in a couple of weeks??
What about giving them enough time to at least pick a decent name for the product/fork? (because LibreOffice is completely stupid ... even when making a political point).wackoae12/19/2010 04:48 PM -
Cylon Centurion 000512/19/2010 04:56 PM
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RE: Microsoft quietly shuts down Office Genuine Advantage program
@otaddy
Just to help out with the naming:
OfficeUX (say it quickly)
LameOffice
Clone97
AlmostOffice
I think all the orifice jokes have been done.tonymcs@...12/19/2010 08:02 PM -
RE: Microsoft quietly shuts down Office Genuine Advantage program
@otaddy
Stick a "Fork" in it, IT's DONE!ReggieCW12/20/2010 12:58 PM -
RE: Microsoft quietly shuts down Office Genuine Advantage program
@otaddy It works great, despite being still in a beta phase. You can download a copy at http://libreoffice.orgunclefixer@...12/20/2010 01:53 PM -
RE: Microsoft quietly shuts down Office Genuine Advantage program
@Cylon Centurion 0005
"comes and yells, Office does more than print." Actually it's more like whining...ItsTheBottomLine12/20/2010 08:10 AM -
RE: Microsoft quietly shuts down Office Genuine Advantage program
@ItsTheBottomLine
On my home network, Office (2007 and 2010) doesn't even print, at least not directly - I have to save as PDF, and then print from Acrobat reader. Office thinks the perfectly on-line printer is "off line." Having the workaround, I haven't focused on actually fixing the problem - is there one?joann_percy@...12/20/2010 12:31 PM -
Might not be Office at fault
@joann_percy
Have had similar issues, but actually had nothing to do with Office, but the printer driver (last time I buy from Samsung!). And yes, am also using a networked (plugged directly to modem/router). Two things to look to:
Is it a universal driver, that new breed of one-size-fits-all type driver that seem to be a container for multiple printer models in a control-panel style package? If so, go into Printers and Devices, right-click and go to properties... see if there is an option to add the specific printer to the actual main printers list.
Also, make sure you have the latest available driver, as you may be using a driver not fully compatible with your Windows version.kaninelupus12/21/2010 01:24 AM -
RE: Microsoft quietly shuts down Office Genuine Advantage program
@Cylon Centurion 0005
Yeah. Hogs space and resources.fairportfan12/20/2010 11:53 AM -
Never had that problem
@fairportfan
Even running Office on my netbooks.Cylon Centurion 000512/20/2010 05:51 PM
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