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Microsoft WGA Becomes Nagware
Posted by Tim Davis 4 hours ago | 71 comments
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Thanks to Aviran for the heads up over in the BPN.

Microsoft announced that on Tuesday it will make Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) more bothersome than ever. A new update for WGA is now on the Windows Update website as a mandatory update. Once installed, your copy of Windows will be checked for validity. If your Windows installation is found not to be genuine, Windows will display a message telling you that “This copy of Windows is not genuine.” Windows will check and display messages on every boot as well as once an hour (or so). The new WGA tool also puts an icon in your system tray if your copy of Windows is not genuine.

Once notified and prompted to validate your copy of Windows, you will have 14 days to do so. If after 14 days you do not comply, you will not be able to download updates from the Windows Update website. Critical security updates will still be available via the Automatic Update built into Windows.

Microsoft hopes that by nagging users to get a genuine copy of Windows, it will cut down on piracy. We all know how much we despise pop-ups. Microsoft also urges anyone who purchased an illegal copy of Windows to report the counterfeit dealer. As a reward, Microsoft will (in most cases) give a free license to victims of counterfeit.

If you do not wish to validate your copy of Windows, there is a way to turn off the notifications by clicking on the system tray icon. If you decide to do so, Microsoft notifies you that you will no longer be able to receive updates via Windows Update. Once you agree to these terms, notification will be disabled. However the tray icon will remain in your system tray. When a new version of WGA is available, the notifications will be enabled again.


Read this at neowin what ya think?

If I'm understanding correctly this will make it so that people without a version of Windows that they bought legally, then they'll have to miss out on security updates and things making it more risky to pirate windows....

I guess microsoft has to do what they have to do to make money from it... and IMHO it's kinda stupid... cause I'm sure they'll be wrong a lot with detecting whether it's genuine or not.

i just had this prompted but i told it not to install so no nagging for me

its not all that hard to disable if you know what your doing..

Today I found "Windows Genuine Advantage" in Application data. I'm assuming that means that WGA has been installed on my computer. My Windows is legit so it doesn't matter anyway.

Edit: I just searched for updates and...

quote:

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Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool (KB892130)
710 KB , less than 1 minute
The Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool enables you to verify that your copy of Microsoft Windows is genuine. The tool validates your Windows installation by checking Windows Product Identification and Product Activation status.


Total: 710 KB , less than 1 minute

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guess not...

Has WGA ever been non nagging ?

Yes it sucks ......

quote:

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Originally posted by UTI
If I'm understanding correctly this will make it so that people without a version of Windows that they bought legally, then they'll have to miss out on security updates and things making it more risky to pirate windows....

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Thats what they had planned initially a while back

Bah! Activation, Validation, why must Microsoft make such hassles for us?

Rafael's bypass doesn't work anymore either, so everytime I want to download from Microsoft Download Center I need to run the check, get myself a validation code, copy that code, paste it into the validation page, have the page check it, and then get to a real download page .

quote:

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Originally posted by rav0
Bah! Activation, Validation, why must Microsoft make such hassles for us?

Rafael's bypass doesn't work anymore either, so everytime I want to download from Microsoft Download Center I need to run the check, get myself a validation code, copy that code, paste it into the validation page, have the page check it, and then get to a real download page .

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I know it sucks. Rafael's bypass was bypassed by microsoft ages ago?

I couldnt use the gm script cause Microsoft Update doesnt work on it and trixie sucks arse!!!!

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Just as i posted this i thought i should finally check what updates the icon was sitting there for ...... look at this

Let me laugh...
You know what?
I believe that this will be cracked in less than five days...

Also, I really don't care about this, since I never install updates to my computer (and I still use SP1 fyi)

Rafael's bypass wasn't bypassed (unless you're talking about a long time ago, when it was quickly re-released properly).

Recently, Microsoft has gotten Rafael to take it down. He's closed his anti-tgtsoft blog as well, but he's using extended64 again.