Or it will, anyway, on February 12th as Microsoft pushes out a patch via Windows Software Updates Services that is absent the increasingly omnipresent Window Genuine Advantage validation checks for software installation.

More details available on Mary Jo Foley's blog.

Speculation is that WGA is hurting business customers and some see this as a test balloon for more WSUS releases without the "Advantage" wrapped up in them. To be honest, I haven't been tracking how much stuff comes across the WSUS channel with and how much without bundled WGA checks. There are certainly quite a few patches which don't use WGA, primarily security related, but otherwise it seems like a rather scattershot approach to implementation. It's possible that this is just a random blip, too. Or it may be that IE 7 adoption hasn't been stellar, particularly in the enterprise where it has been breaking custom web applications left and right, and that Microsoft wants to remove one more barrier to entry. WSUS pushes are a sneaky, but effective means of spreading software that otherwise is not taking off in the wild… too many administrators rubber-stamp approvals and a lot of un-intended installation occur as a result.

MJ also notes that Silverlight, Microsoft's Flash competitor, is due for a similar under-the-WSUS-radar release in late January. I guess the annoying pop-up ads on Microsoft websites aren't getting it done on their own.

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