Microsoft users are experiencing problems with Windows Genuine Advantage with XP and Vista users unable to validate their installations. If you look now at the WGA support forum, you?ll see a flood of complaints for users of both OS?s, both 32- and 64-bit versions, like this one.

Microsoft is telling readers that they should ?try again? later, with some reports giving a target date of August 28 for the fix.

Thank you for your response.

I?m sorry to inform you that the Windows Genuine server might be down for few days. I have escalate the issue to our Genuine team, kindly try to validate again on Tuesday 28 Aug 2007.

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Technical Support.

The problem appears to pop up when users download or receive an update. This applies to any patch and/or add-ons that requires WGA validation. If and when a validation is attempted and fails, your installation may be marked non-genuine. For Vista Ultimate users, if you reboot after a failed validation, you will lose functionality and the Aero interface. XP users get the annoying WGA pop-up reminder at logon.

At the moment, I advise everyone to stay from anything that requires a WGA validation and the Microsoft download center in general.

Phil Liu, WGA project manager, says he will not sleep until the problem has been resolved.