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Interesting tad bit - MS Windows Genuine Advantage Phones Home Every day
Robert Carnegie:
I accepted one issue of the "Genuine Advantage" update, but not the latest one. It was offered as an "Important" update, I think, and I was allowed to say "No. Hide it." Obviously it doesn't do anything useful to me; I bought a licence to use Microsoft Windows XP, and the Genuine Advantage program will either do nothing, or interfere with software that I am entitled to use.
In the meantime, I still get to load other updates. But Windows Update still whines at me that I "hid" an important update. Whiny Microsoft.
Some of my stuff requires MS. But I'll use Linux when and where I can.
Carol Haynes:
Just posted another article regarding WGA in another thread. Check out https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=4010.msg28415#msg28415 if you haven't already.
The interesting thing is that by installing this as a critical update MS have actually gone against their own declared policy on the use of AutoUpdate. When it was first designed MS repeatedly argued that it would only be used for critical updates - no user actually needs WGA at all - it is only for MS's advantage.
nudone:
excuse me if this has already been asked/answered - but is it possible to remove WGA after it has been installed?
Carol Haynes:
I think it is not easy. There are no uninstall options and if you delete the file windows simply regenerates it.
The trouble is that you have to let it run occasionally to be able to download updates. According to the article I posted above some people can't get critical updates without WGA (which is another area where MS have fallen down on their stated policy).
f0dder:
You cannot remove it from add/remove programs, even when you check "show windows updates". Windows will tell you that this file cannot be removed.
You can use something like SysInternals' AutoRuns to disable the necessary stuff. Iirc there's both a service(!) as well as a Winlogon Notify(!!!) entry. Then you can delete a couple of DLL files with WGA* in their name (Wgatraynotify or something similar sounding, iirc). If you get a "file in use" error, you might need to reboot windows first.
So... yeah, it can be uninstalled, but not by regular end-users.
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