Ed Bott recently pounced on a problem with Vista's WGA -- something we all hate to some degree, but which appears to be particularly problematic when one of a small pool of applications is installed that changes system settings. Among the offenders were PC Tools Spyware Doctor [fixed], Trend Micro Internet Security / PC-Cillin Anti-Virus [fixed], and nProtect GameGuard, an anti-cheating package that apparently touches off a whole mess of problems with many systems. Install that program (which is often bundled with many games) and suddenly your system starts a 72-hour countdown to being delicensed until you remove it.
Okay, now for the good news. MS owned up to the issue and released a patch via Windows Update for it, so it's at least something they are (painfully) aware of and doing their best to minimize. If you don't know if you have it or not, open Windows Update, click on View Update History, sort the resulting view by Name, and look for Update for Windows Vista (KB931573).
The larger questions of whether copy protection really does more harm than good remains perpetually unanswered, of course.
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