any benefit to wga?

It is 100% their fault. The pirates are not badly treating the legitimate users at all. Microsoft is completely responsible for the way they treat their loyal paying customers, they can't blame a third party. If they can't come up with a way of defeating piracy without adversely affecting their genuine customers, then they should give up trying. After all, even with the rampant piracy they are one of the wealthiest companies of all time, so they can weather the storm. I have little sympathy for corporate greed, which is all this eventually comes down to. It's inexcusable.

If the choice is between paying for the product and being inconvenienced, or not paying for the product and being inconvenienced, what incentive have I got to actually pay for the product? Other than a moral one, which is why all of my software is completely legitimate and all shareware I use is fully paid for.

I agree, which is why I'm moving to Linux as I stated above.

 

I may be missing something here.If I ran M$ it would be a hell of a lot toughfer to get updates when you can't or will not supply proof that you have a legit,paid for o/s.They are a business that has done very well and owes anyone nothing.Use it or quit downing them.If you do not like wga block it's outcalling with your firewall or use something else as an o/s.How hard is that?I hate whiners!

 

Yes, in my newbie time, I cracked many softwares for the fun.
I always had a big laugh, when a cracked software told me :
"Thank you for buying our product. You are now a registered user."
But I don't do it anymore, it bored me in the end, just like downloading MP3's.

 

Hello ErikAlbert:

Well, you live in Belgium, I live in Serbia. My country is culturally (and possibly morally) let's say, 10 or 20 years behind yours. In our particular case I'm not saying that I am of less morale than you, but in my country is absolutely normal to use pirated software, I do see what the majority of my friends are doing. To be absolutely honest with you, I do have ONE piece of pirated sw on my PC right now, a certain popular media player Pro, out of whim. But in fact I don't really have to use pirated software nowadays as everywhere are emerging quality companies offering quality software for free more and more. I use XP for compatibility reasons, not because I'm in love with it, and it is legal, I never played jokes with OS I am trusting in every day, and I never will. Thanks for your honesty.

Cheers.

 

Hi, don,t forget of third world countries where literally all of software including OS is pirated. People there simply can,t pay for the legit software and most of them even might not be aware of the difference between legal and pirated soft.

 

Hi aigle

That's exactly what I've been trying to say. The average salary in Serbia is 300-400 euros (!!!). I had some luck to pass that boundary by far. But not the vast majority of others. I believe that's the reason why the best hackers come from poverished eastern european or other third world countries. Those folks were simply forced to master the art in order to keep the pace with western countries. You've got to be sympathetic for them and their struggle.
(So, regarding WGA, let us all find a new LegitCheckControl.dll and help the poor ).
Luckily for them, there is also AutoPatcher XP, and as I see they are also preparing AutoPatcher Vista.

Regards

 

How do I block it outcalling with the firewall ZA free? I do not see it in ZA list.Winlogon.exe is there in system 32 folder. Is that it?

 

Hi, its actually a .dll loaded into winlogon.exe, lots more detail here https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=135257&highlight=removewga
plus a link to a tool that removes it on the last page (all the earlier ones have been taken down)

I noticed that m$ tried to serve me up another wga thing the other day,
even though I had told it not to remind me again

 

I have ZA free and winlogon.exe is cleared to call out. When I tried to make it ask ZA said it is advisable not to change settings fore this system program as it could cause crashes/connectivity problems.Should I change?

Thanks for the link. I have read that thread but would prefer to stop it calling home as IU do not want to risk removing in case I cause problems

 

I used ZA Pro to stop it from calling home on a test rig.Worked for me. My question is does this fix also work for Windows Office Update as Well?

 

No. Office uses OGA.