Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) was a program by Microsoft, similar to Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), which required users of the Microsoft Office software to validate their copy of Microsoft Office to download non-critical updates and other downloads such as addons and samples.
This is different from Microsoft Product Activation in that activation is required to use the software and is enforced at the software level, whereas validation permits users to download files and updates from the Microsoft web site and is Internet-based. Validation rejects those product keys that have either been leaked widely or those key-generated to pass through activation but not validation.
Starting October 27, 2006, users of Office Update were required to validate the legitimacy of their Office software in order to download files and updates.
On April 15, 2008, Microsoft released Office Genuine Advantage Notifications to Windows Server Update Services as KB949810.
On December 17, 2010, Microsoft retired Office Genuine Advantage.The Office Genuine Advantage article on Microsoft support website was updated to reflect that.
Famous quotes containing the words office, genuine and/or advantage:
“No man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it. The honeymoon would be as short in that case as in any other, and its moments of ecstasy would be ransomed by years of torment and hatred.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“It is not enough that France should be regarded as a country which enjoys the remains of a freedom acquired long ago. If she is still to count in the world—and if she does not intend to, she may as well perish—she must be seen by her own citizens and by all men as an ever-flowing source of liberty. There must not be a single genuine lover of freedom in the whole world who can have a valid reason for hating France.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“Once a child has demonstrated his capacity for independent functioning in any area, his lapses into dependent behavior, even though temporary, make the mother feel that she is being taken advantage of....What only yesterday was a description of the child’s stage in life has become an indictment, a judgment.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)