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Thread ID: 73947	2006-11-06 19:37:00	Technically It's Not A Killswitch: It's Near-Death!	SurferJoe46 (51)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
496855	2006-11-06 19:37:00	A few weeks ago some blogs and news sites reported that M$ had made Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) . . . . . the Office sibling of WGA, which has been in pilot test since April 2006 . . . . . mandatory for Office-related downloads . In fact, according to Microsoft, OGA doesn’t officially move from voluntary to mandatory until January 2007, the same time Office 2007 launches . Testers working with Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh test builds have run into Microsoft’s mandatory OGA validation request when seeking access to Office Online templates . . . . . hence the recent round of stories . Here . ( . com/journals/microsoft . ars/2006/10/28/5777" target="_blank">arstechnica . com) and here ( . zdnet . com/Bott/?p=148" target="_blank">blogs . zdnet . com) . From Ashim Jaidka, Lead Program Manager for Office Genuine Advantage: “Regarding your question about OGA eventually doing the same thing as WGA with regards to lock-downs into the product, Microsoft is absolutely committed to having Microsoft Office participate in the advantages of Microsoft’s overarching Genuine Software Initiative (GSI) from a long-term, broad perspective as part of upcoming releases, but (we) don’t have anything further to share regarding any plans for building lock-downs at this time . ” (read: Shhhh! . . . . . we are trying to slide this one past everyone . . . be quiet!) It’s true that “lock-downs” can mean a lot of things . But in WGA’s case, they take the form of progressive feature disablement, to the point where systems become basically unusable . Does this mean we’ll soon see Genuine Advantage “benefits,” like your Office printer ribbon self-destructing and your letters being somehow dropped from the keyboard . . . no more "b's" or "e's" etc . , as time goes by, on through the rest of the alphabet, thanks to OGA? That’s a distinct possibility .	SurferJoe46 (51)
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