Removing a bogus "not genuine" message from XP

2

I built a VM with an unused XP license I have using an unattend.txt process.

Is there a way to remove the warning message saying my install may not be genuine, and I need to "Get Genuine" from MS?

warren

Posted 2010-01-12T15:05:34.830

Reputation: 8 599

Answers

4

RemoveWGA will take care of it:

RemoveWGA will enable you to easily remove the Microsoft "Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications" tool, which is calling home and connect to MS servers every time you boot. Futures updates of this notification tool will (officialy) setup the connection rate to once every two weeks.

as mentioned in the description, WGA will be back with the next update. either disable automatic update and manually install crucial patches and updates (that don't require WGA) or contact Microsoft to sort out the the issue.

Molly7244

Posted 2010-01-12T15:05:34.830

Reputation:

3

It's only bogus if you've honestly done nothing to break licensing rules and/or it isn't actually WGA but instead malware trying to get you to do something. I've not seen WGA give bogus "not genuine" messages, and contacting Microsoft is the best and easiest way of solving incorrectly licensed software.

As mentioned, RemoveWGA will get rid of the message, but that is not the solution - it only removes the message, doesn't solve the core problem. If this is a correctly licensed machine then you need to go through the Genuine Microsoft Software support to get it sorted. The mgadiag application they link to is good at explaining what license you have and why your software isn't passing WGA. If it's not correctly licensed then you can still go through that process and they'll sell you a license for the machine (or give you a free one if you're willing to tell them who gave you the dodgy license).

WheresAlice

Posted 2010-01-12T15:05:34.830

Reputation: 470

it's a full XP disc I have that was shrinkwrapped until recently. So, I suppose it's possible it wasn't legit, but I did get it from a viable, commercial source – warren – 2010-01-12T15:50:59.173

With all the invalid keys out there, they could have flagged your CD-key as an invalid one. I would verify product editions to make certain you are installing the correct version for the license. It's a little known fact that there are more versions of XP then Home and Pro. I doubt you have any of those, but you never know. – Doltknuckle – 2010-01-12T17:31:27.023

Such as Media Center and Embedded. – Nathaniel – 2010-01-13T05:42:37.893