New venue for WGA notifier

My brother: "Hey, my friend is getting a weird popup; it says that his copy of windows is not genuine. What to do?."

Me: "Ask your friend to turn off windows updates."

Bro: "What will happen if windows updates is turned off?"

Me: "Nothing!"

Yup, if you want nothing to happen, then turn off your windows updates. I am no supporter of piracy, but I feel that the cost of a genuine copy of Windows XP is a little too high in India.

The problem with most Indian users is that they don't know whether their copy of windows is genuine or not. Most of them have their windows updates ON by default. This went fine till the time Microsoft decided to push the WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) notifier through the windows updates service. This is when the notifier got installed on user PCs and it started pestering people saying that their copy of windows is not genuine. Well, the ideal thing to do when you find out that your copy is not genuine is to click on the Get Genuine button and get a licensed version. But that doesnt seem to be a viable option for poor people who cannot afford one . Well, the good thing is that Microsoft doesn't do much more than just inform the user of the status of his/her operating system, i.e. genuine, non-genuine etc. This doesnt cause you much more trouble than the occassional irritation of looking at the notifier popup (which can also be avoided using some hacks). Thankfully Microsoft isn't taking legal action against the erring users (as yet). So the situation is fine for now.

Consider this: The windows xp service pack 3 is underway. It will be available in a couple of months. Now imagine what happens if the WGA notifier is integrated inside the service pack 3? All users who install SP3, get the pesky notifier on every boot up (unless you work around it). This move will not be unanticipated since Microsoft already has GenuineCheck.dll integrated with most of its downloads.

So basically the users need to be aware that they are using pirated operating systems, and that windows updates and the service packs are not meant for them.

Where did I get this idea of WGA notifier integrated with SP3? Dont ask me.