Dump Windows Genuine Advantage Callbacks

Thu Jun 22, 2006 1:15PM EDT

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The furor over Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage's daily phone call home, which checks up on your operating system to confirm its not pirated, has finally reached a breaking point. Utilities are available, including the new RemoveWGA, which stops WGA from making that call.

RemoveWGA has become so popular that its website is currently down, so you might check back in a day or two if you'd like to download it.

eWeek has a fuller story about the WGA-nuking phenomenon. It's not about people trying to get away with pirated copies of Windows, but rather concern over what exactly Windows is sending back to the mothership on a daily basis. Personal info? Baby pictures? No one knows, but just about everyone agrees that Windows doesn't need to be checking up on you every single day. (However, Microsoft recently announced plans to change the check-up from every day to every 14 days.)

If you can't download RemoveWGA, check out these 10 other ways to get rid of WGA. Feel free to report back here with your results!

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  • 1 Posted by carterszoo on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:19PM EDT Report Abuse

    What concerns me more than what info WGA is sending to Microsoft, is the technology behind WGAtray.exe. WGATray.exe is an unstoppable process. When it's running, there is no ending it. I've tried several different ways including PSKILL (from systernals.com). What happens when Spyware/Malware companies figure out how Microsoft did it? The next vulnerability that is announced by Microsoft... watch out... it could get ugly.

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