RemoveWGA 1.1

[krit86lr]

RemoveWGA enables you to remove the Microsoft "Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications" tool. Also, Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications is different than Windows Genuine Advantage Validation. RemoveWGA only remove the notification part, phoning home, and does not touch the Validation part.

 

Download at Firewall Leak Tester

 

I'm not sure what MS thinks about this as they have not commented on it yet to my knowledge. MS offers this solution to remove the notifications which is not very user friendly.

 

Just thought I'd share.

 

I do suggest that any potential user read this thoroughly:

 

"Known issues

 

1 - One user which had a particular patched "uxtheme.dll" (to allow applying custom WinXP themes) wasn't able to run the tool. I had only one report like this, moreover the patched DLLs (uxtheme.dll) I have tested do not conflict.

Anyway just in case, there is version with the WinXP theme style support disabled : download

 

2 - If RemoveWGA is blocked/intercepted by another security application, it may prevent it to run completly fine until the end, and it may kill it. If a security application popups about RemoveWGA, you must allow it in order to remove the WGA notification part.

 

3 - The last WGA notification update KB905474, cannot be removed in a clean way, because it purposefully blocks the deletion of the WgaLogon.dll.

Because of that, the only way is to force the WGA dll to unload from memory, prior deleting it. Doing so, it will crash your system (you should do a hard reboot before it happens). It is not a proper way thought, and you shouldn't do it if you haven't backups. If you prefer to not take any risk, Microsoft has published an article explaining how to remove the WGA notification PILOT (not the final release) manually :

http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;921914

 

At a last resort, you can try to remove the NTFS 'execute' bit from system32\WgaLogon.dll, or boot on a BartPE CD and delete the dll."

[Eldmannen]

Thanks, I downloaded it. But it couldnt find anything, because I had already removed it before.

But I downloaded it just to be sure.

 

It sucks that Microsoft started this WGA thing, and it sucks that they are making it so hard to get rid off.

 

I read on some news site that Microsoft was getting sued by people claiming WGA was spyware...

[hazelnut]

Hi krit,

Already posted the link to this file 2 weeks ago, as did Humpty in a different thread

 

http://forum.ccleaner.com/index.php?showto...amp;#entry40428

 

however I recieved a pm from a member here saying what I had done was illegal !

[krit86lr]

Hi krit,

Already posted the link to this file 2 weeks ago, as did Humpty in a different thread

 

http://forum.ccleaner.com/index.php?showto...amp;#entry40428

 

Ah, sorry about that Hazelnut. I haven't been keeping up lately.

however I recieved a pm from a member here saying what I had done was illegal !

 

I confirmed today that it IS NOT ILLEGAL!!! I posted this on the Microsoft WGA Validation forum today, and it wasn't a problem.

[hazelnut]

I also checked krit, a fine line perhaps to some, but somone said to me that there was lots of 3rd party apps which remove software e.g. uxtheme.dll patcher and tcpip.sys patch driver so where was the problem !!

 

Good of you to post the link in a more user friendly way now more is known about it, and things have moved on, ( such as the wga lawsuit info posted by eldmannen)

[YoKenny]

such as the wga lawsuit info posted by eldmannen

The land sharks (lawers) are rubbing their hands with glee.

 

Ah

Money for nothing and the chicks are free

is the typical creed US of A people live by.