Black Screens For Unauthorized Copies of Windows
In a bid to deter people from using pirate versions of Windows XP, Microsoft is now updating its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) tool to introduce a few uncomfortable niggles for users of pirated versions of Windows. These include replacing the desktop wallpaper with a black screen every 60 minutes, although you can still replace it with your wallpaper of choice in the intervening period. As well as this, copies of Windows deemed to not be genuine will also have a translucent watermark above the system tray, which Microsoft calls a ‘persistent desktop notification.’”
According to the blog, the scheme will be ‘focusing on the product edition that is most often stolen,’ which is apparently Windows XP Pro. Users of this OS, according to Microsoft, have ‘the highest likelihood of having a non-genuine copy.’ While it’s fair to say that any hardened pirate could happily survive this anti-piracy wrist-slap without giving in and buying Windows, the persistent watermark could become an embarrassment for businesses using pirate copies of Windows.
Source: Slashdot
Haha, grest job Microsoft
Shouldnt they be working on a newer windows, and not a system that is many years old???
Im VERY sure someone is already working on the quick crack for this!
hope they will not blacklist the volume license key im using for my xp pro.
Meh, pirates have already moved on to Vista Ultimate now.
I am pretty sure Eth0 is working on it right now….
reduce price on XP pro to 20 bucks and i wont ever pirate a copy again
Crackfix on the way..
Windows XP Pro Students Edition doesn’t have WGA therefore will not be effected by this. Its only people who are still using the flawed XP Pro Volume with dodgy codes.
well what a waste of time ms. I mean come on, you’ve just discontinued production of this o/s but now you want to catch people pirating it…
To me thats not ilogical. please spend some time and money on making an o/s that people WANT to buy instead of the junk you just bought out! This is for sure a better way to combat piracy of your o/s
There are retail copies of Windows OS!?! O_O
just don’t install updates called windows genuine identification DUH
WTF!!!
i understand they want to keep fixing everything they ever tried to make solid.
but this seems to be to prevent admins from using XP copies in their company environment.
security wise: smart IT Admins
money wise: smart M$ Thieves
XP will be the best ever sold product by microsoft i’d bet.
When Windows7 (the reincartionation if Windows ME) is out…ppl will use a *nix system…either it’d be linux, osx or whatever derivate. But i am sure microsofts time as a big player in operating systems is over.
maybe xbox7 will beat ps10…you never know.
@6 you are so right
Reduce the price of an over a half-decade old product and then maybe I will purchase
But what is it something like 199?
I have plenty of legit XP product keys stickers stuck on various machines, but choose to use keygens etc as I hate dealing with all that crap. WGA seems to work fine without problems!
You can just imagine dad at christmas hey son here is your new computer! But dad it has not got an OS ? Well son you will just have to wait till your birthday in 6months…
To that kid its either wait, or get a cracked copy! What do you think that kid is going to do?
Can we not purchase a student version which is exceedingly cheaper for kids ?? 20-30 $
Regards all
Hmmm.
What if my wallpaper IS plain black?!
Hmm thats weird i though they were not supporting XP anymore?
Whats next “In OS advertising” …. ohh wait that illegal popups…
I really bought a genuine copy back then (Come on, XP is the best os ms ever made, and i think it was worth it back then!) but this thingy wouldn’t affect me: It was a long time since I had anything other than a blank screen as background. You should try it, its really nice to the eyes if ure stuck with on of the old monitors, and I like my workspace tide (not a single icon on the desktop, not even paper bin, i have my keyboard hyperlinked to the most important things)
it’s the black screen of death!
These sound like desperate measures. Whats next? Replacing my home page with microsoft.com? lol
wow this is a dumb idea… sort of like how they retooled Vista to make it better. Which didnt involve ANY code change but a change in marketing needed to tell us dumb people not to listen to our friends and Give Vista a chance! They did this by fooling people into thinking they were using the NEW Windows but secretly it was just XP. They had a prepared laptop with Vista and a tech on hand to lead them through the steps and afterwards were all so suprised they were actually using Vista.
Ms needs to go the sympathy route, say they cant afford to make new copies cause of bad bootleggers, show all the starving MS employees and bill gates car being repo’d and then maybe i’ll kick you a few bucks.
But i think of it like this: i’ll bootleg a modified version of XP but i have at least 3 pc’s with XP licenses and cds. So i own XP… 3x over!
Those are the death cry’s of a long dead OS. Use Linux people, let them die I say.
http://www.distrowatch.com
BTW- you can try Most Linux OS flavors before you install with a live cd. costs nothing. Still recomend Ubuntu for noobs
And here I was thinking that Limewire’s new legal music venture was feeble. This is uberfeeble.
Could the threats be any emptier?
Yawn.
XP Pro!
Move on people Vista works okay now - I actually paid for mine.
every1 seems to have an opinion on their operating system of choice and how they successfully get around buying legit copies of M$ OS, which is fine, but its good business on M$ behalf…
Windows 7 will be more popular than Vista, most likely rival XP if the environmental faors allow it. So isn’t it good business for M$ to push/bully pirates and illegitimate holders of XP Pro (its most commonly pirated OS) into buying Vista now so they will feel the need to get Windows 7 when it hits…
*Just voicing some food for thought different to the numerous comments above echoing each other saying “Shouldnt they be working on a newer windows, and not a system that is many years old???”
-r
Move on people, Linux is easy to use now - I actually downloaded one legit copy for free.
Well, this will not be embaresment to people in Bosnia!
Gratest piracy (illegal CD/DVD/other market is widely spreded in Bosnia & Herzegovina, mostly 90% of Desktop PC-s is sold with pirated copy of Windows) 
@ 27 - bosnian
hahaha is that true or an exxagerated statistic? pretty funny if so
I caught this protection in my Vista x64 Ultimate version like 2 weeks ago, black background time to time and annoying notification in the taskbar, but the “Windows Vista Activation 2008″ does the job to overwrite that annoyance very well, now my vista is like before, no problems.
They still support xp for businesses, they just have to pay for it now.
From another site
This is actually pretty easy to defeat. Just boot into safe mode (XP Home) or regular mode (XP Pro or Media Center). Find the files in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 called ‘wgalogon.dll’ and ‘wgatray.exe’. Bring up the file properties, go to the security tab and remove the inherited permissions from the files (don’t copy them, strip them completely). Answer yes when it asks if you’re sure about this. Reboot and WGA will never bother you again. I’ve done this on dozens of machines and it just skips the update because its too stupid to fix permissions. The only exception to this is the Service Packs or repair installs. YMMV
Of course nobody should have to do it in the first place but this is an example of corporate-think at it’s best from our fiends in Redmond. If XP is so dead why should they be developing new WGA tricks for it anyways? Sounds to me like its them getting a bit nervous about how many people are jumping ship from Vista and pointing at ‘hackers’ as the problem. Again. =)
Dani @11
You are definitely right. This can be avoided by not to install the latest “updates” from microsoft. At least not this one (add it to updates-ignore list).
And the pirates will propably come up with other solutions as well.
the crackers, hackers or me will crack this new WGA within Minutes
[b]Microsoft is fighting a losing battle[/b]
HA HA HA……….
fcuk em
i thought they were discontinuing support for XP? just reduce the price of the software then you greedy tw@. ah but you wont coz you realised now that vista is utter garbage and XP is your best work yet.
i’ve upgraded so many machines from legitimate pre-installed copies of that Vista crap to XP now (to everyone’s delight) that this move seems even more ridiculous and pointless
It’s a piracy to make people buy a system which was discontinued! In 3 years the even won’t make any drivers etc. for it. It’s just like buying a car, that you won’t be able to use in 3 weeks! If you want the people to buy your discontinued products, than give them a lower price. It’s the same with Office 2003! Screw Office 2007 - it’s f*cked up in every way. I wanted to buy a licence for the 2003 Office for my laptop and the only thing I was able to get at the shop was 2007 with a downgrade licence …
This will not stop me. :p
Solution in 2 hours guaranteed.
Raymond posted yesterday about this… with a fix
http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/2008/08/28/latest-wga-for-windows-xp-professional-cause-wallpaper-and-background-auto-reset-to-black-screen-every-60-minutes/
8. Fred is right. Windows XP Pro Students Edition doesn’t have WGA. I checked and there’s no wgalogon.dll or wgatray.exe in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder. I’ve been using it for over 2 months now with no problems. It was posted here months ago. Yay piracy!
http://www.rlslog.net/microsoft-windows-xp-professional-student-edition-sp3-integrated-eth0/
i hope they dont f*ck around with my pirated copy of XP….VISTA SUCKS BALLS
download this file: http://www.uploadjockey.com/download/1dbn82xm/genuine.rar (no pass)
just double click it to make your pirated version of xp a genuine copy ! now you can install any update passing the wga !
tested on xp home, pro and media center edition !
New working crack (no pass):
http://www.mpaa.org/
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH pissing on me pants!, my wallpaper is already black! Im serious! (windows run better if using plain color for wallpaper-fact)what will happen to my wallpaper now?
I bought a computer through my work (way cheaper than building one - and i still got to choose what parts i wanted!) and it got delivered with WinXP preinstalled. The first thing i did was to format the harddrive and install one of my cracked versions. Simply because there’s no activation required (ever), lots of tweaks done, several useless apps removed, smaller memory footprint… and so on. Cracked version works better than the original.
I now have used Vista for about 1.5 years and is seriously thinking of going back to XP… :o/
eth0’s xp student ed release does not contain wga per se but it (Wga) gets installed via xp auto updates &/or windows update anyway
I deactivate windows updates on all systems I setup but this is pretty funny.. I guess they want people to use the cracked versions of vista instead? Gotta be stupid to think there won’t be a fix for this in 24 hours.
XP Pro Student Edition, it’s all you need.
Vista Ultimate x64 FTW!
shouldn’t wga.releaselog.net work?
I uhave been using Xp Pro Student Edition for a while now with no probs at all, however yesterday automatic updates notified me to update WGA so I checked out the KB no (KB905474), and its from like 2006.. so I made it hidden.. no probs
Give out a few badges and someone’s gonna think that they’re a cool statement. I can see kids with genuine copies doing a black wallpaper and watermark in Window Blinds. Rebellious yeah!
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I don’t think they can fix the VLK Hack.
Since the key is authenticated on your PC due to VLK therefore it doesn’t authenticate according to MS. Thats the reason why its called VLK!
So yea the VLK Reg Hack/Key will still work as LEGIT even if you install the WGA.
dugg for use of “niggles”…
oh wait… wrong site.
@54
WTF are you talking about?
Thats why it’s called VLK? (VOLUME LICENCE KEY)
VLK keys can still be validated by M$, it’s just only blacklisted keys that get any attention. The VLK IS validated localy by your machine but this doesn’t stop M$ also validating the key whilst doing updates.
This is nothing to worry about anyway as the fixes are already out.
or use this removal tool and have done with WGA altogether.
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/RemoveWGA-Download-42782.html
Install a custom shell replacement, problem solved?
Are you sure this is “niggled” with “black” screens?
I’m so scared into buying vista right now… ROFL… Do these idiots actually think this will force people into a BS OS that is useless and the biggest let down since ME? And don’t you fanboys start on my case, there is zero advantages of Vista comparing with XP pro since every new feature can be used in XP with addons and it won’t suck your system into a crawl.
Post # 56 RemoveWGA-Download is a trojan.
Since this makes the background black, shouldn’t it be called DOS Genuine Advantage?
lol already moved to vista, no a single problem here.
RemoveWGA is definitely not a trojan. If you have AVG running it will flag it though, so just disable AVG before you run it and don’t forget to enable it again afterwards. AVG flags pretty much everything as a trojan if it even looks the slightest bit dodgy, as in modifying any system files/areas. Remember when the Securom in Bioshock was flagged as a trojan? Same thing.
RemoveWGA is 100% clean. I downloaded a fresh copy from the Softpedia site just now and did a binary compare to the one I have archived from 2 years ago and it’s identical.
They should have put Bill Gates naked picture as the wallpaper instead, so horrible to watch that you HAVE TO buy a legal copy
@5. ETH0 left the scene afaik.
Vista ultimate sucks hard balls.
Poor Bill Gates,he lost a lot of money all these years!