Office 2007: Microsoft Office Genuine Advantage

We were helping a client get ready for a presentation. I figured it would be quick to see what the Office site had to offer for a template to simplify the document creation process.

A legitimate Office 2007 is installed on the client system, and this is what we were greeted with:

Templates are only available to customers running genuine Microsoft Office."

I can understand this. And, I can understand the need to validate the installed Office software once. No biggie right?

Not so.

Next paragraph:

The status of your Microsoft Office software is validated each time you download templates.

Microsoft, is that really a good message to be sending out to your legitimate customers?

I.E. "We are watching you". Not the exact verbatim message, but you get the gist of my interpretation of the message.

Why not validate once and be done with it. Most people can accept that. But, to be validated each and every time they visit the Office site to download something is going a little too far in my opinion.

Point of principle: Oh, and offering the, "Do not show this message again." tick box just doesn't cut it either. The repeated process is still there, OGA message or no message.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists