TSGL: The pirates are being shot

[Michael Sweeden]

Hey, Don:
That is the new Windows Geniune Advantage Notification which is downloaded
with Autimatic Updates. It can be removed manually or with a tool such as
RemoveWGA which will make the changes for you. You can search for
"removewga" in Google or I can mail it to you off-list. I am a little
annoyed that this is coming in with updates that USED to be classified as
critical, and I suspect it'll just get worse. I have at least one client
with a legit license that this stupid "feature" flagged as counterfeit, and
from what I've read it's producing more false positives than Microsoft is
willing to admit. And I was given no phone number for assistance, only an
email address and this person named Annie Fan was adamant in her position
that the license was most certainly invalid and in the end she did nothing
to resolve my problem.

So, I ran RemoveWGA to exorcise the culprit, then when it came in again via
automatic updates I chose custom install, unchecked the box for WGA
Notification, and also checked the next box about never reminding me again
about this update. Trouble is, I'd say when the next "version" comes out
it'll be a different update, which will get installed automatically and have
to be removed, and I would be surprised in the thing doesn't get more
invasive and aggressive as time goes on. It's almost enough to make one
switch to Linux!
Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: list-bounces at tsgserver.com [mailto:list-bounces at tsgserver.com] On
Behalf Of Don Penlington
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2006 2:27 AM
To: Tech Support Guy Mailing List
Subject: TSGL: The pirates are being shot

2 of my friends have over the last few days rung me to say that on reboot 
of XP they are getting a message from Microsoft indicating the use of a 
non-uauthorised version of XP.

In both cases they have OEM versions, presumably unregistered, on 2nd-hand 
computers.  I have checked startups, and looked through the usual registry 
Run entries on one of the computers, but cannot find where this message may 
be originating.

I'm wondering if Ms has suddenly opted for a rootkit to originate these 
messages.

One had his XP on auto-updates which I've now disabled--presumably that's 
how these messages started. The other had tried to download a piece of 
software from the Ms site.

The messages are no more than a mild annoyance on startup, and seem to be a 
new addition to the usual validation procedure.

Does anyone have any idea how they can eliminate these messages?

Don Penlington
 From the Beach at Surfers Paradise in sunny Queensland.
Computer tutorials, local scenery,  and other things at my website:
http://users.tpg.com.au/deepend/index1.html


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