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How many of you have had a bad experience recently with Microsoft's WGA(Windows Genuine Advantage) feature?....I just had mine twice, and believe me it wasn't pretty.

For those of you who haven't heard, WGA is a spyware program that MS (Microsoft)sneaks into your computer if you allow automatic updates from Microsoft. WGA then secretly gathers info on your computer and relays it back to MS where thier computers exam the data.....If for some reason their computer doesn't like what it sees it then invalidates your copy of Windows.....At first this was just an annoyance that came from constant popups telling you that you have an invalid copy of Winduhs, but now a days, it will shut your Windows down and tell you to contact MS in order to buy a legal copy...That's right, it shuts you down and you are stuck until you buy it again....It also gives you the option to call a guy in India where you try to convince him you ain't a thief, and then it's up to him to reativate your Windows or not.

I've been thru this twice in the last week....The last time the guy in India told me they would not reactivate my Windows again unless I bought a new copy....So that's it, I'm on my last chance.....One more virus or failed piece of hardware and I have to buy a new copy of XP.

Here is how it all started.....Last week I installed a new 320GB hardrive as a slave to my old 160GB hardrive that had Windows XP loaded on it....As soon as I connected to the internet, Windows popped up telling me I had an invalid copy of XP on my machine and I had to either buy a legal copy or call their guy in India to get a new key code.....So I call the guy in India, and you can predict how that conversation went....In the end he revalidated my Windows and off I went on my merry way.

Then two days later I recieve my new motherboard and Athlon 64 3400 CPU, so I install them.....And once again as soon as I connect to the internet I get a pop up that says my copy of XP is invalid and not a genuine copy.....HMMMMM, this is starting to be a pain.

So I call the guy in India again....This time he ain't so friendly.....He makes it clear to me he thinks I'm a thief cause the MS computer keep telling him my copy of XP is invalid...."Look man, all I did was install a new harddrive and then later install a new motherboard...Each time I make a change to my machine Windows decides to invalidate itself and I gotta call you guys before I can use it again....I ain't no thief, I paid 200 bucks for XP at Walmart last year and I registered it with MS, no one else has my copy on any other machine, it ain't stolen nor has it been duplicated."

So he reactivates it again and tells me this is the last time they will do it.

After all this I decided to investige...That's when I discovered that thier WGA spyware was the culprit-that they had snuck it into my machine during one of their 'critical security updates'.....Once inside my machine WGA then gathered lots of info about my computer and shipped it back to MS every time I booted up....It gathers your harddrive serial numbers, you CPU serial number, your IP address and your location, your motherboard serial number and even your bios and bios version number.....Then if you have to update your bios or replace any of those items, it invalidates your copy of Windows!

...And that's why many folks with new computers straight from Dell, Gateway or Office Depot with Windows preinstalled are also experiencing the same problem right now....and that's why MS is currently facing two class action law suits....Folks are spitting mad that MS installed spyware under the guise of a 'critical security update' and they are pizzedd cause their legally bought software is suddenly invalidated.

So here is what I just email MS in responce to their email to me:

"CASE_ID_NUM: SRZ060729000812
MESSAGE:

Hello Sara,

Twice this week I have failed WGA validation for my copy of WinXP home.

The first time occured when I replaced my harddrive and reinstalled Windows
on the new drive....A few days later I replaced the motherboard and CPU and
once again it failed validation....I had to call a guy in India and convince
him I was not a thief before he assigned me a new key code.

Ok,.....you guys have had your fun with this WGA stuff, now it's my
turn....Tomorrow I will take my copy of Windows XP back to Walmart and
demand a $200 refund or a new copy....when they refuse I'll show them where
you guys said it was an illegal/invalid copy....Then if they refuse again
I'll simply sue Walmart in small claims court for my 200 bucks.....And you
know I'll win, don't you?....Yes, I will win because you yourself verified
that Walmart sold me an illegal/invalid copy of your product.

....Here is the best part of the whole deal....Once I win the little refund
in court I will publish the whole story all over the web....I ain't gotta
sue Microsoft, all I have to do is prove in small claims court that Walmart
sold me an illegal or otherwise invalid copy of your software.....And you
gave me the proof I need to do it-to win, "Look your honor, here is the
printout straight from my screen where Microsoft says this is an invalid
copy of Windows. Your honor, who better than Microsoft can prove that
Walmart sold me a defective product?"

...And then folks all over the country will do the same......and those that
don't will be very reluctant to purchase Vista....Many of them will fear
that Vista may contain similar or perhaps even uglier spyware.

That's what you get for calling me a thief, and that's what you get for
planting spyware on my computer without my knowledge.

Please excuse me while I go investigate if I can join in the class action
suits already in progress. "

Yep, tomorrow I take my XP back to Walmart and either get my money back or take it to small claims court....I got the original box and reciept, and printed proof from Microsoft it is an illegal/invalid copy.

If this happens to you and you do the same then maybe Walmart, Dell, Gateway, Office Depot and anyone else who sells Windows will help straighten the problem out with MS.

So tell us how to find and destroy the spyware.    :hug:

Best way is to prevent it.....turn off auto updates.

But if you already have it installed then you are screwed....early versions last year were easy to erase cause they were simple browser add on's that you could turn off....The latest version is deeply embedded and not possible for the casual user to fix/remove or even find...only an experienced hacker can even try....

But why should a legal owner of XP have to do any of that or even worry about it?...You bought a legal copy, you installed it and you say to yourself "I don't care if MS validates my copy, afterall I paid for it and I ain't got nuthin to worry about."...That's what you say, right?....Well, that's what I said too until MS shut me down and called me a thief.....So now I gotta hack my legal copy of XP?...I gotta break the law to make my legal copy work?

Simple fact is MS products are full of security holes and bugs and even they can't write spyware that works properly in thier own product....they should have hired a kiddyhacker to do it for them.

But if I want to change anything in my computer, which I might, then the same thing will happen.    They will ask me if I know you.    LMAO

 LMAO , in that case lie like a dead dog on a cheap rug...You don't know me!

Seriously, for you and everyone else out there who has a legal copy of Windows XP:

Yes, it is true that once you allow MS to install WGA on you machine, and then if you make any changes to your hardrive, motherboard, CPU or even your IP address, then MS will eventually tell you that your copy of XP is invalid and you will have to call them and somehow convince them it is a legal and valid copy.

Good luck!

UPdate:

Go here for legal tool to remove MS WGA "notifacation" spyware:

http://www.firewallleaktester.com/removewga.htm

It was written by a very professional and highly respected IT person....This tool will also notify you if WGA manages to sneak back into your computer.

Please understand this does not remove or prevent MS WGA "VALIDATION", only the notification part. The notifacation part is the part that is spyware that calls home to MS and tells them about you and your computer.

The validation part is something you have to willing agree to whenever you want to update certain MS software or upgrade to something like IE7....The validation part must first be done before you can recieve updates or free upgrades from MS....Validation is not sneaky, it is very apparent and you must agree to it before it is done, there will be a validation button that you must push first before you can access certain software updates and upgrades.....If you have a stolen copy of Windows and you try to validate it, you will be prevented from downloading the update/upgrades and instructed how to obtain a valid copy of windows.

It has already shown however where 20% of people with valid and legal copies of Windows are denied by the Validation check, so even if you have a legal copy of Windows installed, the odds are one in five that MS will say it is not legal and deny your updates and perhaps seek to shut your copy of Windows down.

You may want to download and run Autoruns from SysInternals.  Click on the Winlogon tab, and uncheck Wga.Logon.  Restart your computer and you should no longer see the WGA message.

By the way, I found the solution from this link:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware/?p=831


Cheers,

JD

That was a great link......Yeah, I already disabled it in all my machines....Microsoft sure screwed up this time....They admitted WGA will be deeply embedded in Vista and they claim no one will be able to remove it.....Well, except for 10 year olds with net access.

About 6 months ago I put a newer and better mobo in the daw. I had to talk to real person to get activated again.  I have always put the OS on a little hdd and abigger hdd for music. For backup I partition the big hard with about 10 gig and put an Os on it.

On the new mobo I installed xp on the little hdd first went thru the phone home to activate. Then installed on the big hdd.. Phone home again..I had the typical bootup choice between the 2 os. But when booting up on the little hdd it turned into drive D:/..

The new mobo 3.2 gig 800 fsb locks up once in awhile with the old ati 7000  dual video brd so I fought that for awhile Did all the latest updates etc to no avail. One day with a wild hair went wireless and pulled all the latest ms updates (they check updates for hardware etc now}

I have a laptop now for backup so I started to reconfigure everything With the big hdd unhooked I got a missing ntldr So I did a fixboot which didnt work After a google I found the files I needed to replace and fixboot again.

So now the little hdd boots up but guess what You have 3 (not30) 3 days to activate.

About the first time Im way out of town to do a $700 wedding and cant boot up @#$%^&&&^^%%$##@@

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Yep, lots of folks are losing money and suffering a bad business rep due to this WGA thang. Yep, just imagine how it's going to go over when you have to stop your show to phone India to reactivate your Windows...You better not have dial up when you do cause you have to be online when you do it.

Presently lots of business owners are screaming...Lawyers offices, court clerks-you name them, and they too are getting stung by this slimey crap....

I expect soon to hear where police, fire departments, energy companies, federal agencies and all the other emerceny responders and support types are also getting shutdown/locked out of their computers....No cyber-terrorist could have planned it better if they tried....And why should they when Bill Gates does it for them?

Folks are calling it spyware....I call it a trojan cause not only does it hide in your machine and secretly relay info like a trojan, it also causes bad things to happen and you have to then try to repair/remove it like any other virus....It's more than simple spyware, it's a virus.....And we got it straight from the folks who sold us "automatic security updates".

I've discovered more tasty details about WGA...If your computer time and date get changed, it invalidates your Windows....If you change bios, it invalidates Windows. Golly danged it-I can do anything I want with my computer!-I own it, not microsoft!...Even the cops need a warrant to get the serial numbers off my harddrive and other info about my machine...But MS must think they are above the law.

Here is a late breaking tale....A business woman buys 3 copies of XP Pro last week from a Storefront retailer....she returns to her business and installs them...All three are rejected....MS refuses to activate them....They tell her she is out of luck, to repurchase....She lost her money and the business use of her computers....she's still down and don't know what to do about it.

If after all this you need a laff, go read about the guy who runs no MS products-he runs only Linux on his machine.....He goes over to the MS validation site and just for giggles tries to validate his LINUX....Microsoft validation comes back and tells him he has a valid copy of Win XP on his machine! ...So there you have it, people with valid copies of Windows are being denied, buy Linux users are being validated.

Awhile back i read somewhere on the net something like 2/3 of the big corps were still running 2k just on account of that..Thats alot of money folks... Thats like telling me I cant put a bigger engine in an old jeep.

Awhile back I tried to log on hotmail instant messenger It said I needed an update and flat wouldnt let me log on until I did the update.. Half of the updates are to update their software as more  ways are created to outwit them.

One of the dj's here in town is finally going computer ....hes going mac laptop but it has the capabilitys to use windows programs. Windows is a joke inefficient unstable unpredictable Oh you can play free cell on it Put sofware on it and try to work it. Your sitting there with a mobo that takes 400-500 watts and you try to play a song and it crashes.

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2K was thae last stable release..

Got Linux?  LOL

I'm seriously thinking about Linux....I looked tonight to see if Linux would support my audio and video cards...Both card makers have Linux drivers!

Years ago I put red hat on an old hard drive. It didnt support the video brd and I was using quest dsl which it didnt like either.  It was like dos on crack.....So I gave up on it....

Now you're talking. Linux the OS of champions. Great Os, no Registration, and its Free,open source.

[sarcasm]What do you think, will microsoft give us a refund.......... I really didn't know Windows was so restrictive[\sarcasm]

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I'm Not Dead yet...... But every day Im getting Closer !

The newest Linux releases are rock solid, and still free..  :dancin:

Jesus.....I feel stupid for never looking at Apple till now.

Have you seen their new cheesegrater?...It's an Intel with TWO duo CPUs for only $2,400....That's 4...FOUR processors for the price of two.

I just had my first look inside one.....forget the outside, have you ever seen the inside of an Apple?....My god, it's a work of art!....Every thing is laid out in such a logical fashion.....An apple looks nuthin like a PC inside.....PCs are a maze of wires and junk that seems/looks like it was thrown together and wrapped in a case to hide the confusion.....an Apple looks logical inside...That's the word for it-Logical...no maze of ugly wires....Everything has it's place and everything flows from one component to the next...Each piece is designed to fit where it belongs.

Wow!

I gotta have one!

I've had this problem with MicroSoft for a few years now. Just as you said Keith, it denies me.


Too paranoid about hackers means that only hackers will be able to use it. They can still crack the system. If you ever decide to upgrade a video card or just replace one that has fried, forget it.

I like the idea of using Linux on my PC. I will not be buying PCs in the future. Apple has better quality control, better everything.



Microsoft bites, no ifs ands or buts. No way around it. They do everything halfass. The even release an OS that isn't ready and in order to fix it you need to download hundreds of megabytes of updates. Not a problem for me on cable but some people still use dial-up, why wouldn't they?

What was the Navy expression? It only takes one "oh shyt" to erase a hundred "atta boys". MS has more "ohshyts" than they have "attaboys".

Don't get me wrong, I like paying top dollar for halfass software that has security holes like swiss cheese.

When will it end? When Bill Gates files bankruptcy to avoid paying back the money he screwed us out of.

The Windows XP disk we got was from one of their reps for free. I can not participate in the lawsuit.

I'd be even more pissed if we had paid for it.

I have to empathise with Microsoft though.

They have been the victims of fraud on a massive scale and it’s only now that they are trying to clamp down. They are in an extremely tough situation and it is difficult for them to protect their interests without being invasive.

If people don’t like their methods there are always alternatives.

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Dan Bayley