Windows Genuine Advantage - kill switch?

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Glocksman
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Post by Glocksman »

Xeriar wrote:
Prior to this update, things were slightly smoother, but starting sometime this year (March, I think?) Their policies got a bit crueller about just letting you click "Activate over the Internet".

If it wasn't a first-time installation now, you have to call, even for a repair installation. ****ing annoying. The new WGA tool is only designed to trap a few more people.

That said, at least as of June 29th, the support people at the call center were very helpful, even if their network did crash the first time I called (that was amusing)
Interesting.
Makes me even more happy that I ghosted my initial install (complete with all my apps) to a DVD then, as I futz around with alternative OS's a lot and having to call MS would make it even more painful than it was before I started ghosting my installs.
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Laird
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Post by Laird »

Glocksman wrote:I

My desktop machine is a homebrew that has XP Home courtesy of a retail XP Home upgrade copy that accepts my $5 eBay'ed CD of Win98SE as proof of eligibility. :)
It's a bit of a hassle, but the Upgrade disc isn't tied to the mobo, so I can install it with no problem when I rebuild my machine in the future*.
I kinda did the same thing, had XP home edition from my Dell laptop.(went to work and upgraded from one of our many XP corp CD's.)
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Stark
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Post by Stark »

Yeah, the constant calling is deeply, deeply annoying. It's worse if you're like me and constantly change bits of hardware, and thus have to constantly convince a disinterested guy in India that it's all legal, you're reinstalling etc etc.
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Xon
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Post by Xon »

Stark wrote:Yeah, the constant calling is deeply, deeply annoying. It's worse if you're like me and constantly change bits of hardware, and thus have to constantly convince a disinterested guy in India that it's all legal, you're reinstalling etc etc.
Stark, blame the power grid for cooking something(NIC, motherboard, CPU, since changing these often causes Windows to recompute the activation crap). Bad power is one of the biggest killers of computer hardware around. Do your bit to make sure it keeps that way :wink:
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Vertigo1
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Post by Vertigo1 »

I'm amazed that nobody else mentioned it in this thread. If you're worried about WGA screwing up your machine then Autopatcher.com is your friend. (and no, I'm not advocating piracy by posting this, so don't even go there.) For those of us that have to deal with people's computers on a daily basis, lets just say that you're going to LOVE autopatcher. Why waste bandwith going to windows update and wait for eternity to download updates from their slow ass servers (ok, I'm exaggerating here, but you get the idea) when you can just run one executable and bring it up to date in all of two minutes? (depending on how fast the machine is) That site has saved me HOURS of work alone. (I don't charge an hourly rate, so the more work I get done in a short span of time, the better off I am.)

(note: If you don't have broadband, don't even bother going to that site unless you're going to download the full monthly build overnight.)
(note: For those of you that have a monthly bandwith allotment, you can just download the FULL version once, and download the subsequent upgrades for each month instead.)
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phongn
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Post by phongn »

Um, what?
Autopatcher wrote:And of course a lot of registry tweaks which improve speed, appearance, functionality and security!
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Vertigo1
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Post by Vertigo1 »

phongn wrote:Um, what?
Autopatcher wrote:And of course a lot of registry tweaks which improve speed, appearance, functionality and security!
Think Tweak UI stuff and a little more. Lets you adjust the menu speed and lock down a few things in the user profile.
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Alyeska
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Post by Alyeska »

Link

Lookie whats been trying to install itself on my computer. I only install critical updates, and those are installed automaticaly. This thing pops up every time I turn on my computer trying to get me to install it. Except it ain't critical else it would have auto installed with everything else.

I don't suppose there is a risk that Microsoft will eventualy make this a required download that the computer will automaticaly install if I have update set to auto install? And if I opt not to install this bastard, will it stop bugging me about installing it?
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Sharp-kun
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Post by Sharp-kun »

Pu-239 wrote: Indeed :P . Unfortunately they only allow you one copy of each, mine of which is already being used on this university-owned laptop from work for work-related development- too much of a headache trying to get the original operating system CD, which apparently got "lost" by Dell. It's simply easier just to utilize other means for my home computers... forgot to download Win2K3 before they locked it out during the summer.
Not here. Systems Support gave me 3 XP Pro keys :D
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