Windows Genuine Advantage

I got my first taste of the Windows Genuine Advantage today. I’ve been seeing a lot about Photo Story 3 on the web lately so I thought I’d give it a try. The download was pretty painless with a link to the 5MB msi file right off the product home page. But trying to install it simply said something to the effect that I needed the Windows Genuine Advantage and no mention of how to go about getting it (even though I did have a genuine Windows XP license on my machine).

Being the clever IT pro I was I clicked on a banner image that talked about the Windows Genuine Advantage which then took through installing an ActiveX control and then prompting for my serial key and then authenticated that I had a genuine installation. After this I was able to run the setup and install Photo Story. The fact is that this is a pretty convoluted process of authenticating and installing and I don’t think a typical home user would be able to complete what I did.