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Linux Passes the Microsoft WGA Test
Wil writes "Here's a good one for the Linux fans -- running Wine on Linux and attempting to download a Windows Genuine Advantage protected file from the Microsoft website works just fine. It seems that Bill Gates has a soft spot for Tux after all, or at least isn't bothered about him downloading updates."
If you go to tools->manage addons and disable "windows genuine advantage" then you'll have no problems downloading any updates. They only fixed the javascript exploit.
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
Why would anyone do that, they still haven't bothered to fix this work around.
Before pressing 'Custom' or 'Express' buttons paste this text to the address bar and press enter:
javascript:void(window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all')
It turns off the trigger for the key check.
The only reason it still works is because Wine just went through some massive changes with regard to configuration. The WGA check works by checking for specific registry keys that Wine uses. The new configuration moved those keys from HKLM to HKCU. It's just a matter of time before they change the check they use. The position of Alexandre is that we're not going to play the insane game of working around their workarounds.
The good news is, there's not much reason any more to need the WGA. We've got a new DCOM and MSI framework that makes those two downloads largely irrelevant. Jacek Caban is hard at work integrating a Gecko engine into Wine as part the MSHTML.DLL (usually referred to as "Internet Explorer" on Windows.) So native Windows DLL's are falling by the wayside.
Of course, Microsoft got so much bad press over the WGA check that I wonder if they'd tempt it all again. Last time it raised the ire of eWeek and PC Magazine, so I imagine the next round will just be more bad press. Headline: "Giant software company continues to squash open source software"
obPlug: Wine is slated for a beta release in a little over a month.
----- obSig
There was no copy of Windows acquired, period. Wine is a reimplementation of the Windows API for Linux and family. It doesn't run Windows it runs Windows programs.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
Just enter this into your broswer URL bar ( one line ) :
o n=0; expires=01 Jan 2999 00:00:00 GMT';
javascript:document.cookie='WinGenCookie=validati
This has worked for ages.
Lima India November Uniform X-ray
I would play Half-life + Counterstrike under WINE on Linux, and eventually it got to the point where you needed to run Punkbuster to be able to play it online. Basically, the servers look for Punkbuster to scan your system for cheat tools and make sure that everything looks kosher before they let you play.
I downloaded Punkbuster and was sure that it wouldn't like the looks of WINE's environment. I connected to the server, waited for it to verify and... it worked! I was feeling two types of way when that happened.
1. WINE is god damn amazing.
2. Punkbuster is stupid. I could have any number of hacks running under Linux, I could have been running WINE under ptrace() the entire time, injecting evil as needed into the Counterstrike game world, and Punkbuster would have been completely oblivious to it. No matter how hard it tried it would never be able to inspect the host Linux system for evil. Client side anti-cheat systems are doomed.