As I understand it WGA will be mandarory in Vista - MS have already said that computers that don't pass WGA will have basic functionality disabled in VISTA - I am only surprised it has taken them this long to start doing that. Wait to hear the outcry when the false positives start meaning people can't use their systems at all.

-Carol Haynes (October 17, 2006, 03:53 AM)

I think we might be at cross purposes here, although it's probably my fault for overloading the term "mandatory".

So yes, I have no doubt that WGA will be mandatory in that it will attempt to phone home whenever it feels like it (although they might limit this to minimise complaints about it wasting people's bandwidth) and, if the activation check returns a "no" answer, they will disable stuff, probably even the OS itself (except maybe Safe Mode).

The other "mandatory" that I was talking about is what happens if the WGA check fails to reach the activation server, due to limited or no internet access (a fairly common occurrence in offices). If MS makes the reaching of the server mandatory as well, then WGA is going to break for a lot of people. I find it hard to imagine MS wanting to go this far, but maybe I just need a more fertile imagination. ;)

I don't think deactivation can be protected against foul play as easily as activation, which is probably why MS aren't considering it.

Circumventing activation would almost certainly require a crack, and probably a significantly more comprehensive one than the existing XP activation patches (depending on how all this Vista self-protection stuff works).

Deactivation, on the other hand, could be circumvented via an image backup of the OS drive. In order to do a remote deactivation, the user would likely run a deactivation tool which provides them a code which MS can verify matches the machine they last activated against. If this code is valid, MS can allow them to activate the new machine. However, if the user has an image backup (from before running the deactivation tool), they can restore from this and have a working "old" machine again.

Of course, MS could combat this kind of thing by forcing the OS to phone home periodically, but that's a whole other can 'o worms they'd probably rather not get into.

I do think MS are playing a dangerous game with the enthusiast market though. Apart from the obvious risks, such as alienating the people who drive much of the PC hardware treadmill, I wonder if MS have considered how much impact enthusiasts have on other, more "average" home users? Most enthusiasts I know are responsible for setting up a lot of friends and family with PCs, and providing support to them. If the Vista license situation drives them away, what impact will this have on the general home market? Maybe MS simply doesn't believe that enthusiasts will set up their friends with Linux instead?

Is it only GTalk that's doing this? Or rather, are you seeing anything else remotely weird in other apps?

Are you running any windows enhancements like WindowBlinds or anything like that?

Oh, and the obvious "fix" for all broken stuff: did you try uninstalling and re-installing it? :)