kcredden
September 27th, 2006, 02:14 PM
Ok, been keeping up on this problem; the WGA tagging people's computers as 'pirated' even if you got the receipt where you paid for it. Looks like we may finally found the smoking gun to cause this.
"We found a widely used security tool from McAfee that triggered WGA failures on perfectly legitimate systems. And we read dozens of reports from frustrated Windows users whose systems are running legally licensed copies of Windows XP but who are blocked from receiving security updates via Windows Update and who are blocked from installing premium Microsoft downloads such as Internet Explorer 7 because the WGA tool mistakenly identified their Windows installations as counterfeit."
full text here (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=142)
and I've been asking around on family, and friends (which I won't disclose) and on other places I frequate, and found something interesting too. At least one person I know, admits to having a Win2k pirated copy they downloaded several years ago, and to this day has had NO hint of the WGA throwing fits. They download all the stuff allowed on Win2k, and it always says his copy is legit. No, I don't have a copy to confirm or denie this, but if it's true...:) I wish I had a copy of XP that way.
Anyway, it appears that McAfee has some sort of patch that fixes the problem. Hop over to their site, and see what you find.
I've haven't used McAfee in nearly a decade, so I can't be sure of anything. But hope this fixes your problem, once and for all.
Oh, it also shows that ones that posted this problem, isn't crazy after all. I had thought, that as many posted here with the same problem, yet MS saying that their "false positives" are extremely low was a load of hooie.
Good luck!
"We found a widely used security tool from McAfee that triggered WGA failures on perfectly legitimate systems. And we read dozens of reports from frustrated Windows users whose systems are running legally licensed copies of Windows XP but who are blocked from receiving security updates via Windows Update and who are blocked from installing premium Microsoft downloads such as Internet Explorer 7 because the WGA tool mistakenly identified their Windows installations as counterfeit."
full text here (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=142)
and I've been asking around on family, and friends (which I won't disclose) and on other places I frequate, and found something interesting too. At least one person I know, admits to having a Win2k pirated copy they downloaded several years ago, and to this day has had NO hint of the WGA throwing fits. They download all the stuff allowed on Win2k, and it always says his copy is legit. No, I don't have a copy to confirm or denie this, but if it's true...:) I wish I had a copy of XP that way.
Anyway, it appears that McAfee has some sort of patch that fixes the problem. Hop over to their site, and see what you find.
I've haven't used McAfee in nearly a decade, so I can't be sure of anything. But hope this fixes your problem, once and for all.
Oh, it also shows that ones that posted this problem, isn't crazy after all. I had thought, that as many posted here with the same problem, yet MS saying that their "false positives" are extremely low was a load of hooie.
Good luck!