13 replies to this topic

[thatsme]

Hi, few days ago while loading windows i started to get logon message: your password will expire in x days. Do you want to change it now?. (x is number which becomes lower every day). i was always pressing no and everyting was ok. I thought this was caused by virus so few days later i downloaded anti- malware. It found some infected objects, removed and asked to restart pc. After that windows do not start at all. It always asks activation code. Any suggestions how to solve it? my windows version is not genuine

[WingedPanther]

That sounds like you may have Windows Genuine Advantage installed via update. However, the best solution might be to switch to Linux :)
Can you boot into safe mode?

[Irfan_A]

If that's really WGA as WingedPanther say, maybe you can remove it. I never use this tool before, but please try if you want. It may works. :)

Link:
Download RemoveWGA 1.2 Free - A small utility that enables you to remove the Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications tool - Softpedia

[thatsme]

Unfortunately, when i try to run windows in a safe mode, i am also asked to type in activation code, so how should i use that wga removal? I am going to switch to linux one day, but for now i have to somehow save what is in my computer

[opwuaioc]

You can actually save what's on your computer through a Linux live CD. Put in a small Linux that comes with a live CD, and through it you can browse your Windows folders.

[Alexander]

Yeah, You'll just have to find a working serial and do it the offline way, WGA is always on my first to-do list (my method injects a DLL into memory to prevent any further spawns) and I'm sure there are plenty of methods online.

As mentioned before, you can actually use a linux CD or an old DOS disk to replace winlogon.exe (I think that was the one) with the one on CD after expanding it; which will reset WGA until you remove it for good, although sometimes it'll in the end require you to recover with the Windows CD (semi-destructive reinstall..)

[Irfan_A]

You just only run WGA removal and it will find out Microsoft WGA Notification Tool currently active on your system or not. If it active on your system, i think this tool will automatically remove it and restart your computer to be clear.

[thatsme]

Is it possible to run it through recovery console?

[Irfan_A]

As i understand from wikipedia : Recovery Console - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, probably not. If you can run .EXE program from Windows Recovery Console, maybe you can. And RemoveWGA only removes notification part, not validation part.

Quote

Also, Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications is different than Windows Genuine Advantage Validation. RemoveWGA only removes the notification part, phoning home, and does not touch the Validation part.

[Alexander]

Why would you get something like that from Wikipedia? Such an obvious site won't list hacks for validation. Torrent up AntiWGA for XP.

[Irfan_A]

I only search for recovery console definition at wikipedia.

[thatsme]

interesting, i ran pc through safe mode, went to anti-malware quarantine list, restored infected objects and now no activation is needed.