Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) is an anti-piracy system created by Microsoft that enforces online validation of the licensing of several recent Microsoft Windows operating systems when accessing several services, such as Windows Update, and downloading Windows components from the Microsoft Download Center. In Windows 7, WGA is renamed Windows Activation Technology. WGA consists of two components: an installable component called WGA Notifications that hooks into Winlogon and validates the Windows license upon each logon and an ActiveX control that checks the validity of the Windows license when downloading certain updates from the Microsoft Download Center or Windows Update. WGA Notifications covers Windows XP, Windows Vista and current versions of Windows 7. It does not cover other versions of the Windows NT family, such as Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, or the Windows 9x family. The ActiveX control however checks Windows 2000 Professional licenses as well.
WGA also advertises the latest service pack for Windows XP, which requires manual intervention to disable. Previously voluntary, it became mandatory for use of these services in July 2005.
Despite its name it does not actually evaluate the integrity or security of any computer.
Read more about Windows Genuine Advantage: Features, Circumvention, Notifications and Firewalls, Data Collected, WGA in China
Famous quotes containing the words windows, genuine and/or advantage:
“I know some lonely houses off the road
A robber’d like the look of,—
Wooden barred,
And windows hanging low,”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
“Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it hot.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Every nation ... have their refinements and grossiertes.... There is a balance ... of good and bad every where; and nothing but the knowing it is so can emancipate one half of the world from the prepossessions which it holds against the other—that [was] the advantage of travel ... it taught us mutual toleration; and mutual toleration ... taught us mutual love.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)