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Microsoft has removed the Office Genuine Advantage ‘nag ware’ feature from the Office range of software.
The first news of the change came on a notice on a support entry relating to validating Office:
“The Office Genuine Advantage (‘OGA’) program has been retired. For more information about the benefits of genuine Office, please visit the following website: Benefits of genuine Office.”
Prior to the change, users of Office that wanted to access online add-ons such as downloading templates were faced with a security process which involved validating the licence key of the application before Microsoft would provide the online support. The change means that any user of Office can now go directly to the online support systems without the ‘nagware’ pop ups.
ZDNet’s Ed Bott investigated further and was told by a Microsoft representative: “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,” Microsoft said.
Microsoft reportedly has no plans to ‘retire’ other anti-piracy schemes the firm operates such as Windows Genuine Advantage.
