snodger, on May 14 2007, 12:20 PM, said:
"You must have the Validation tool (ActiveX), preferably the up-to-date version, installed on your computer. You cannot use Microsoft Update or download programs such as WMP11 and IE7 from their Download Center unless you have the Validation tool installed on your computer. This is a mandatory condition imposed by Microsoft on XP users, irrespective of the validity status of their Product Key."
Not to dispute or argue, but the above paragraph simply says that WGAV is needed for MS Update. We already know this. It does not say, you still need it with muBlinder. The first impression of a user is that muBlinder works by substituting itself for WGAV, and WGAV being a one-time procedure that registers a person permanently and negatively with MS, should not be attempted, lest it will break muBlinder by telling MS update server to ignore any update requests from a certain computer with a certain validation key serial number.
snodger, on May 14 2007, 12:20 PM, said:
If you do not have the WGA ActiveX validation tool installed on your computer, then you should see the message in the image below. Click on the link to the 'Why Validate' page and install the ActiveX. .....If you have the version of Microsoft's WGA Validation tool on your computer that muBlinder v3.5 was designed to deal with, then you should see the message shown in the image below.
The above is from further down the Guide. It is a bit more clearer. But there are several problems. For one, it says "install", but it does not say "activate" or execute it. The user is never sure if he has to execute, and whether he will lose validation if he does it wrong. So the safe thing is not to validate. Second, it does not say clearly and unambigiously "you need to install WGAV and execute it for muBlinder to work". It gives a more procedural instruction, and I find it confusing in that where it says "install the ActiveX", it is not clear if it is the WGAV ActiveX or the "why validate" ActiveX (there is no reason to assume the why validate link is not another ActiveX).
In other words, if the Guide would explain the model, in addition to giving instructions, then that would certainly be bulletproof for people like myself. Writing techdoc has never been easy. The reader generally knows a lot less than the writer assumes. -best and thanks