Over at ZDNet, I’ve been writing a lot about Microsoft’s anti-piracy program called Windows Genuine Advantage. (My latest WGA-related post is a detailed look at exactly how this program works. If you haven’t seen it, go read the article and view the accompanying screenshot gallery.) One comment I hear regularly is how easy it is to work around WGA.
I’m not so sure. Yes, there are lots of instructions and a few utilities for removing the WGA Notifications code. But I have yet to see anyone come up with a hack that allows a machine to access Windows Update (not Automatic Updates, but the full Windows Update site) or to install (not just download, but actually install) Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3.
But maybe I’m just not looking in the right places. So I throw the question open to you. Have you found any WGA validation workarounds? If so, please leave a link in the comments. You can remain completely anonymous if you want. I’m just interested in seeing how the hacker community is approaching Microsoft’s latest attempt to build a wall around Windows.
Caveats: Please don’t bother posting links to the RemoveWGA utility from Firewall Leak Tester or its many clones. All those programs do is get rid of the optional WGA Notification component. I’m looking for stuff that specifically aims at the validation side. And I already did a Google search and know all about last year’s GenuineCheck.exe hacks, which no longer work. If you post something here, it needs to be something that has been confirmed to work within the past few weeks. OK?
Ed Bott 
Hey try checking out: http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3508438/Windows_Genuine_Advantage_Validation_v_1.5.540.0
This will allow you to validate on windows update etc but not IE7 install.. I think there is a workaround with IE7 where you can just run update.exe in the IE7 install files dir and it bypasses the check. 🙂