Latest WGA for Windows XP Professional Cause Wallpaper and Background Auto Reset to Black Screen Every 60 Minutes

One of my very good friend called me up today telling me that those with pirated copies of the Windows XP Professional operating system in their computers that are Internet-capable could find their screens going black and the icons vanishing as Microsoft Corp gets tough…

I immediately told my friend that it is impossible and might be a fake news because Microsoft wouldn’t go that far to make our screen go blackout as that is even worst than privacy invasion! Later I did a bit of googling and found that many people has started talking about it. Some people even mentioned that they’ve already encountered this problem and they had to do a hard reboot to recover from the “blackout”. “To continue working, users will need to reset the machine’s desktop background. All will return to normal, but only for 60 minutes before another blackout occurs.”

So I decided to test and check it out myself to see if this “blackout and icon vanishing” penalty for pirated version of Windows XP Professional is true or not.
I plugged in my hard drive that I use for testing purposes, installed a clean Windows XP Professional with a genuine product key and also installed service pack 3 + all latest updates. Then I used Magic Jelly Bean Keyfinder to change Windows Key to a pirate one (from eth0). Rebooted the computer and the logon interrupt message “You may be a victim of software counterfeiting. Click Resolve Now to get help with this problem.” window appears. I clicked Resolve Later and logged into Windows as normal. I waited for more than 60 minutes because I expect a screen blackout with all my icons go missing but nothing happened.

At first I thought that maybe I don’t have the latest WGA installed. I went to C:\Windows\System32 and found that LegitCheckControl.dll, WgaLogon.dll and WgaTray.exe files installed in my computer is version 1.8.31.0. From Microsoft Download site, the latest version of Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications is version 1.8.0031.0 which is actually the same as 1.8.31.0. To be sure, I download WindowsXP-KB905474-ENU-x86-Standalone.exe and installed on my computer. So I have the latest WGA and using a non-genuine XP Pro key that failed the genuine validation, why isn’t my screen blackout and icon vanishing?

I searched further and found an official Windows Genuine Advantage blog website. It did explain about the latest update to WGA notifications for Windows XP Professional and I now understood what does the local newspapers meant by “blackout”.

After installing this new version of WGA Notifications on a copy of Windows XP that fails the validation, most users will discover on their next logon that their desktop has changed to a plain black background from whatever was there previously.

You can of course go to Display Properties to set a new wallpaper or background color but every 60 minutes it will change back to the plain black background. This will continue to happen until that copy of Windows is genuine. Other than this, the user will see the addition of what Microsoft call the “persistent desktop notification” at the bottom right hand of the screen. It says “You may be a victim of software counterfeiting. This copy of Windows did not pass genuine Windows validation.”

I believe this is another move from Microsoft to push users to upgrade from XP to Vista. For those that don’t want to upgrade to Vista and wants to continue using XP, you can wait for the famous Windows Genuine Advantage Validation v1.8.31.0 Cracked eth0. If you hate the blackout and the watermark, you can uninstall WGA by using RemoveWGA 1.2. The author of RemoveWGA can no longer host the file but then RemoveWGA can still be downloaded from Softpedia. Or easier, don’t install KB905474 from Windows Update.

 

[ Download RemoveWGA 1.2 from Softpedia ]

Free System Information Utility

There are so many free system information utility now. Some of the popular ones are CPU-Z, PC Wizard and Everest. However, most of those system information utility list out a lot of useless memory address and unnecessary information which not many people would understand.

So here’s “System Spec“. A utility to produce a specification of your system’s hardware and software and lists a specification of your Windows PC without listing lots of useless memory address and unnecessary information. This tool doesn’t require any installation. Just download and run the single executable file.

With System Spec you can see, save and print a complete spec of your PC. This no-install, system information utility can also perform various windows functions. Additional advanced info includes CPU, drives, applications, display, memory, networking, internet, CD / DVD drives and more.

System Spec is able to extract Main System Info, Personal Info, Memory, Display, Drives, CPU, Internet, Programs, Network, Adapter, and Sound information from your computer. As you can see, depending on your needs, it can be very basic and it can be advanced as well.

There’s some very useful keyboard shortcut built-in to the program. If you press CTRL+C simultaneously on the program, you will get the message “System information copied to clipboard“. This means that the basic information displayed on System Spec are copied to clipboard. If you open a notepad and press the key CTRL+V to paste, it will paste the information to your notepad. You can also save your system information to CSV by pressing F2. Printing the full spec only requires you to press CTRL+P.

 [ Download System Spec ]

Windows Genuine Advantage Validation

After years of no updates on the Windows Genuine Advantage Tool, looks like they are back with a new version! I got to know about this because I stumbled on the latest Windows Genuine Advantage Validation v1.7.59.0 CRACKED ETH0.
I immediately went to Microsoft Update but didn’t find any updates for Windows Genuine Advantage.

In the cracked archive, there is only 3 files. Cracked LegitCheckControl.dll, installer.bat for installing the cracked DLL and eth0.nfo which is their information file. Let’s see what is in the installer.bat batch file.

1. taskkill /IM wgatray.exe

- First it will try to end the wgatray.exe process using the taskkill command. For your information, taskkill command is not available for Windows XP Home edition. You might need to change the command from taskkill to tskill. You also need to exclude the .exe extension if you’re using the tskill command. If you don’t want to modify the batch file, you can copy the taskkill.exe from XP Professional system32 folder to your XP Home system32 folder.

 

2. del %systemroot%\system32\wgatray.exe.old

del %systemroot%\system32\wgalogon.dll.old

- If you’ve used ETH0 WGA crack before, you should have wgatray.exe.old and wgalogon.dll.old. ETH0 batch file always backup the original WGA files.

 

3. ren %systemroot%\system32\wgatray.exe wgatray.exe.old

ren %systemroot%\system32\wgalogon.dll wgalogon.dll.old

- Now the batch file will rename your current wgatray.exe and wgalogon.dll by adding a .old extension to the files.

 

4. del %systemroot%\system32\LegitCheckControl.dll

del %systemroot%\system32\wgatray.exe.old

del %systemroot%\system32\wgalogon.dll.old

- Deletes the original LegitCheckControl.dll and also the original backed up wgatray.exe and wgalogon.dll. I am not sure if step 3 is necessary because why not just delete the files straight away without renaming them?

 

5. copy LegitCheckControl.dll %systemroot%\system32\ /Y

- Copies the cracked LegitCheckControl.dll to your system32 folders. You are now allowed to doWindows will now allow Windows Update, Microsoft Download Center and Microsoft Update.

 

This crack is slightly different from the previous versions because it doesn’t include cracked wgatray.exe and wgalogon.dll. It even delete both of the files from your system. Maybe Microsoft has decided not to include the nags and popup anymore due to so many complaints? I decided to find out myself…

I HAVE a genuine Windows XP Professional. I deleted LegitCheckControl.dll, WGaTray.exe and WgaLogon.dll from my system. Then I went to Microsoft Update. I get the page that says “To use Microsoft Update, you must first install the latest version of some Windows components“. Yeah right, I know for sure it’s the Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool. I clicked on the “Download and Install Now” button and true enough, it says that it is downloading Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool (KB892130).

 

Once it has finished downloading and installing the WGA tool, I went to Windows\system32 folder to search for WgaTray.exe, WgaLogon.dll and LegitCheckControl.dll. I can only find LegitCheckControl.dll but not WgaTray.exe and WgaLogon.dll. Looks like Microsoft has decided to remove their ridiculous nag popups after all.

UPDATE: A minor updated version of Windows Genuine Advantage v1.7.59.1 is released. Previously is v1.7.59.0. Link below is updated to WGA 1.7.59.1 ETH0 CRACKED.

[ Download Windows Genuine Advantage Validation v1.7.59.0 CRACKED ]

Change Your “Start” button

Few days ago, I got a software that it’s be nice to modify the default “Start” button to his name or any text that’s cool.

I know it’s possible to change the default Start button text because many years back, there was a utility to do that on Windows 98. After a quick search, I manage to find a small and free utility that’s able to easily change the default Start button text.

“StartBtn Renamer” is a simple utility for renaming the [Start] button under Windows XP. With this freeware tool, you can change default label of the [Start] button with your own text. StartBtn Renamer also is Open Source. This means that the source code of the program is presented with it, so that you could change it according to your own taste and wish, therefore you can add more possibilities on it.
Simply run the standalone program “StartBtn.exe” and then type your desirable label in the “New Label” field. By pressing the key, or clicking on the “Rename It” button, the [Start] button will rename with the new Label.

You can also rename the [Start] button by running the file “StartBtn.exe” from the command prompt. To do this, you must go the directory which you have been installed the application, use this syntax to run the program. To change the default [Start] to shetu, you just need to run the command “StartBtn.exe shetu”.
StartBtn Rename, a neat and simple tool that works ONLY on Windows XP.

[ Download StartBtn Renamer | RapidShare Download Mirror ]

Customized Your Internet Explorer Title Bar

Some Days ago one customer reported to me that two of his computers are infected by virus. When I asked what are the symptoms that made him think that his computers is infected by virus, he said there’s a text saying “Hacked by pokemon“. I find it funny because out of so many nicknames, a hacker actually chose “pokemon”! Anyway, I was eager to see what can this virus or trojan can do. Will it be as powerful as Brontok? Or will it be weak that I don’t even require anti-virus to remove it?

When I reached my customer’s place, he ran Internet Explorer, and the title bar did have an added text saying “Hacked by pokemon”.
I tried searching for this virus in Google and it’s not a popular virus because I couldn’t find much information about it. Even searching in Symantec’s website yield no results. Sorry as I couldn’t give you more information about this virus because when I was there, the virus was already removed using AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition.

The only problem is, the Anti-Virus didn’t restore back the Internet Explorer title bar text. Here’s how you can change Internet Explorer window title bar text.

Adding extra text in Internet Explorer window is not something new. I first saw this feature many many years ago when everyone was still using Internet Explorer 3! Follow the steps below to change your Internet Explorer window title bar text.

1. Go to Start -> Run
2. Type regedit and click OK.
3. Navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
4. Right click, New and select String Value.
5. Type the string value as Window Title
6. Double click the Window Title and type the title you want in the value data.
To remove added text in Internet Explorer title bar, just delete the Window Title string value.