[Infowarrior] - How To Remove Windows Genuine Advantage Notification Tool

[Richard Forno]

How To Remove Windows Genuine Advantage Notification Tool
June 26th, 2006 by Angsuman Chakraborty

 http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/how-to-remove-windows-genuine-ad
vantage-notifications-tool/

Windows Genuine Advantage includes two main tools - Windows Genuine
Advantage Validation and Windows Genuine Advantage Notification. The WGA
Validation too checks that an instance of Windows XP is properly licensed,
and is required for some Windows updates. If the copy doesn¹t check out, WGA
Notification repeatedly reminds the user to upgrade to a properly licensed
version of Windows. Unfortunately WGA Notification also checks back with
Microsoft once a day even if the licensing check is successful, something
the company hadn¹t previously made public. Neither of the programs is
designed to be removable. Now you can remove the pesky WGA Notification
tool, thanks to Guillaume Kaddouch, a French developer.

RemoveWGA enables you to remove the Microsoft ³Windows Genuine Advantage
Notifications² tool, which is calling home and connecting to Microsoft
servers every time you boot, even after you passed their validation checks.

    Once the WGA Notification tool has checked your OS and has confirmed you
had a legit copy, there is no decent point or reason to check it again and
again every boot. Moreover, connecting to Microsoft brings security issue
for corporate networks, and privacy issues for everyone. It is also unclear
which information are transmitted (Microsoft published an official answer,
but an individual study brought some questions). All of that, along the fact
that Microsoft used deceptive ways to make you install this tool (it was
told you it was an urgent security update, whereas it is a new installation
giving you no extra security) makes me calling this tool a spyware.

You can download the WGA Notifications removal tool here (site).