Microsoft Misrepresenting WGA's Functionality?

Legal Ethics writes "According to an article on Groklaw, Microsoft is misrepresenting what the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) tool is to pressure people into installing it. It comes with no uninstall, it fails to disclose many pieces of information it provides to Microsoft, and it misrepresents itself as a 'critical update' when it does not address any security vulnerability, although it remains to be seen if it can create one. ZDNet has a series of screenshots so that you can see exactly how badly it misrepresents itself. Oh, and it also checks for updates, so Microsoft can presumably execute arbitrary code on any machine with it installed, merely by making that code part of a WGA update."

Comments

Somewhat obvious.

[Transcendent]

I gave it some thought before I installed it earlier. I knew all it did was report to MS that I had a legal copy of Windows, but the bad part about it was that it seemed I had to install it before I could download any other critical updates.

It's a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don't situation...

How to Disable the WGA Add-on

[Digital Vomit]

If you want to be able to disable the Genuine Windows Advantage Add-on for IE (accessible via Tools|Manage Add-ons... in IE), you might be surprised (or not) to see that Microsoft will not let you do so. It gives you some sort of stupid "disabled by Administrator" message, even when you're logged on as Administrator (I guess MS thinks it's the administrator for your computer).

To enable the radio button that allows you to disable this worthless add-on, follow these instructions I found:

1. Open Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Internet Explorer > Security Features > Add-on Management.
2. Double click Add-on List and select enabled.
3. Click on Show then on Add.
4. In enter name put {17492023-C23A-453E-A040-C7C580BBF700} .
5. In enter value put 2.
6. OK, Apply, OK.
7. Now you can disable/enable the add-on.

Re:Why punish legit users?

[mattyrobinson69]

install it
disconnect from the internet
open task manager
kill the process 'wgatray'
rename the file c:\windows\system32\wgatray.exe to something else (wgatray.exe.bastard, for example)

There is also a file called wga.dll, or similar, but i didn't do anything with that, if anybody could shed some light on that, it'd be nice. I did the above on a machine that was wrongly reporting as 'pirated', and it worked fine.

Bypass & Disable Genuine Windows Validation Ch

[Digital Vomit]

How to bypass and disable the Genuine Windows Validation Check (from http://www.mydigitallife.info/2006/03/07/bypass-an d-disable-genuine-windows-validation-check/):

1. Open Windows Explorer by clicking Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Windows Explorer.
2. Browse to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Windows Genuine Advantage\data folder.
3. Delete (or backup or move to another folder, if you want) data.dat file.
4. Create a new empty data.dat: You can create a new text file by (make sure you are at the right folder at above) clicking File -> New -> Text Document or right clicking on Windows Explorer window then click New -> Text Document. Then, either rename the file to data.dat. The original .txt extention of the text file need to be changed too. You can disable the hiding of extension of known file types, or follow the following steps to create a new file out of the text file:
   • Open the text document you just created.
   • Click on File -> Save As.
   • Change the Save as type to "All Files".
   • In the File name, type data.dat
   • Click Save.
   • Go back to the Windows Explorer, at folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Windows Genuine Advantage\data, check that data.dat exists.
   • Delete the text file you created previously.
5. Set the attributes of data.dat to Hidden and Read-Only. Attributes can be set by right click on the data.dat file, and then click on Properties.
6. Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation check has been disabled.

Note: The data.dat that are replacing the original data.dat can be blank text file or empty, or you may type whatever you want there.

With this hack (or crack if you want), Windows WGA piracy check will be bypassed and you can now download software from Download Center or apply updates from Microsoft/Windows Updates.

That, OR

[mobby_6kl]

That method sounds good for widescale, corporate deployment, but here's a simpler method:

• Use Autoruns (everybody should have it already) to disable wgalogon.exe on the winlogon page.
  

A link for the rest of us.

[Frenchman113]

This "genuine advantage" notifier is remarkably easy to disable. Here's a link that documents numerous ways to defeat it. http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/04/workarounds-to- disable-non-genuine.html

Re:Why punish legit users?

[zcat_NZ]

There's many ways to get rid of WGA. Here are the two easiest;

Option one:
Start in safe mode and find the file /WINDOWS/System32/WgaLogon.dll. Edit the
file properties and remove the execute and write permissions for all users
including System. The daily checkin and the WGA System Tray tool are both
started from this DLL so making it non-executable kills the whole WGA
Notification system. Making it read-only stops windows update from 'repairing
it' and installing future versions.

Option two:
Download and burn Ubuntu Dapper Drake or order a FREE CD from
shipit.ubuntu.com (downloading is quicker). Back up your important documents and
completely replace Windows.

Personally I chose option two many years ago, but I continue to watch Microsoft's antics with a degree of detatched amusement.

Re:Why punish legit users?

[peragrin]

no MSFT bypasses windows hosts file when calling home. This is known. On one side it's a good thing, as windows update will always point to a MSFT based server allowing for clean updates. (can you imagine the problems if every infected windows machine couldn't get a patch)

On the other side is that MSFT could solve a lot of their problems just be creating an easy, basic way to enforce security. Unix did that years ago on Unix you have basic file system level defaults seperating users. Then you can use other programs to create an ultra fine grained control.

Under Windows all you have is a very complicated fine grain control system that a massive percentage of the apps break if you use it.

Kill off Active X and add a simple yet effective file seperating on the Filesystem layer and the majority of windows viruses problem will vanish. It won't solve all things. it won't solve stupid users installing things they shouldn't, but It would stop most of those problems instantly.

It's also the one thing MSFT won't do. Not even with Vista. They are keeping activeX and while they are trying to use their fine grained permissions control as a basic level they are finding that it doesn't work well. (just look at all the reviews on the vista Beta, 7 steps to delete an icon?)

Bypass WGA

[DrIdiot]

I just bypass it. How to bypass WGA

Re:Why punish monopolies?

[Xabraxas]

you will not find Quake 4 or World of Warcraft on Linux. Gimp is no paintshop killer, and WINE is nowhere near as robust as a real Windows system

I find your remarks a little odd considering:

1. As a previous poster mentioned, Quake 4 runs on Linux natively.
2. World of Warcraft runs on Cedega.
3. Photoshop not only runs on Wine but is actually used with Wine by none other than Disney, who actually contributed to Wine to get that to happen.

If those are actually representative of your needs as a Windows user than you wouldn't have a problem moving over to Linux. If they aren't representative of your needs then get better examples and ask yourself why you chose those examples in the first place.

Take responsibility for your own machine

[chicago_scott]

Just because some piece of software wants to do something doesn't mean you have let it.

Why not just block it with a firewall? According ZonaAlarm the IP that WGA connects to is (or maybe *was*) 64.4.52.189

From WikiPedia:

Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications and Firewalls

Some personal firewalls, though not the basic one in Windows, may alert on the method by which wgatray.exe is started, in the case of Outpost firewall, it is identified as a "hidden process". The wgatray.exe process itself can be firewall blocked, without apparent problems. Removing the reference to WGALOGON.DLL using HijackThis appears to effectively de-install this update, to the point where it will be offered again if it has not been marked "do not show".

And I'm sure there are a dozen other ways to avoid the WGA.