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27 Comments
- itwizpro, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22Ok no more Breaking News: Tags, Bad Digger Bad
- astroid0, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Cmon man, I'm a pirate. Why would I do that?
- sp00nz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Agreed. But this is still pretty interesting.
- apache2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9was just about to say, getting tired of seeing "breaking news" in the titles, makes me feel like I'm in the 50's and watching TV
- atomicpoet, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11Alternate news title: Microsoft Staves Off Public Humiliation
Subheading: Microsoft still less evil than Sony - gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I think this was news about a week or two ago. They announced that the WGA check would be changed from every login/every 24 hours (if you leave your computer on all the time it checks daily or something like that) to once every week or so. I think the important point is that it's still phoning home, and it's still annoying and not in the interest of the user and that it's still phoning home (title's innaccurate)...just less frequently.
- chevy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Exactly, and that shows that MS seriously just doesn't get it. They wanna validate my copy of windows before I download an update? Fine by me. What is not fine is some stupid service running whenever it feels like in order to prove I'm not a thief. I resent my resources being stolen from me by a program that has NO benefit to me.
If MS had any respect for their customers they would validate only when downloading updates, no once a week, no at boot or at login, just when downloading updates. - blanski, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Misleading title. The component was NOT removed, it was simply altered to do it less often.
Quote from the article:
"The company said that the Validation component of the tool will still check periodically to determine whether the version of Windows is genuine." - tnvwboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@Rosewood
You posted the exact same thing in a different WGA related article. It's not nearly as relevent here as it was there. It's still not a good idea either. - RickySan65, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"I never downloaded it anyway"
Windows probably did that already for you mate - samnmax, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I'd be more impressed if they stopped marking it as an urgent update like it were some sort of security fix, and also provided a mechanism to uninstall it. You don't have to be a pirate to not want this crap on your computer. Microsoft is debasing the value of it's 'automatic update' system by shoving this crap on its paying users.
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I never downloaded it anyway. Now hopefully it's gone for good.
You don't need all those security updates you know. Not using IE,OE and Messenger is enough to avoid most Windows vulnerabilities. A firewall will take care of much of the rest, like the few Office trojans still around. Ofcourse, you could probably use OpenOffice instead.
That is, unless you regularly click on unscanned .exe's. In that case, nothing is going to help you. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Nobody here gives a *****! Why did you even click on this story or comment in it if you're using nix and not windows?!
- thehacker123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2good i hated that even though i have a genuine copie
- bitcloud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm running sygate, AVG, startup monitor (that tells me every program that registers a startup app and asks for confirmation) and I run any suspect apps in "sandboxie". I also use firefox.
can anyone confirm parents comments? Am i safe avoiding the windows updates? - j00fek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1still on sp1 here no problems since. glad i didnt fall into the MS hole
- iKevin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2What is a big deal? They've just removed one of MANY annoying things in Windows...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1WGA patch, issue resolved
- Criterion, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Inaccurate, as it hasn't been "removed", just toned down so it doesn't phone home so often.
- evanfraser, on 10/12/2007, -7/+7Too little too late MS, I'm sticking with Linux.
- jimhobbs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Alittle PO'd i was running alittle experiment to see if the watchdog actually would do something.. now of course my legit laptop boots and my desktop doesn't just due to the fact one was running genuine and one wasn't **** you micro crap. Anyone got away to get my desktop booting again it is totally legit just not running genuine advantage crap. Don't care to lose the last month and a bit of data since starting my experiment
- chaosmachine, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Breaking News: Amazing!
- theonesteve, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I followed the link to the Knowledge Base Article (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=921914) and decided to take a looksee at the instructions for WGA removal. Has anyone else noticed that the last few registry keys to delete are a bit strange? Two of them are the exact same key (couldn't find it on my install, I think I removed the WGA stuff a while back) and the other doesn't appear to exist (a folder name removeremove in the CurrentVersion area? Ooookayyyyy....). Unless my install's just quirky, it seems like the Knowledge Base article was pushed out fast to quell the uproar and it wasn't proofread for accuracy.
- RompeRatones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0that's what they want you to think
- Leo55, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Better alternate news title : Microsoft removes one of the 500 phone home component.
- dw2005, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1"Breaking News"
Come on! - Rosewood, on 10/12/2007, -18/+6https://partner.microsoft.com/40009735
For those of you who have been bested by WGA (well, you just don't want to have to worry about the various hacks for the various programs), I present to you the Microsoft Action Pack. Now, before you -digg me, I realize this has been around for ages. However, when you could pirate every piece of MS software and not have to worry, who cared? $300 gives you damn near everything microsoft offers. Oh, this includes 10 Windows XP Pro and 10 Windows XP Pro x64 licenses.
The catch? You have to be a registered microsoft partner and you pay $300. So, get yourself a .net account or whatever it is called these days, jump through some hoops in answering some questions, and $300 later, you are set for your software.
Oh yes, your subscription goes out in a year and at that point you are supposed to stop using the software if you don't renew. Well, you are a pirate. What do you care? Get a few people together (against the TOS) and do it anyways.
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