Firewall Leak Tester developer has released RemoveWGA that able to remove Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications tool (KB905474). The Notifications tool is revealed to be frequently calling home to Microsoft to contact and connect to Microsoft servers every time you boot your Windows PC, although Microsoft plans to reduce the checking connection to Microsoft server to once every two weeks. More information on Microsoft Genuine Advantage initiative here.
The logic of Firewall Leak Tester is that “once the WGA Notification tool has checked your OS and has confirmed you had a legit copy, there is no decent point or reason to check it again and again every boot. Moreover, connecting to Microsoft brings security issue for corporate networks, and privacy issues for everyone. It is also unclear which information are transmitted (Microsoft published an official answer, but an individual study brought some questions). All of that, along the fact that Microsoft used deceptive ways to make you install this tool (it was told you it was an urgent security update, whereas it is a new installation giving you no extra security) makes me calling this tool a spyware.”
Note the RemoveWGA only remove the WGA Notifications (KB905474) which are the culprit for always phoning home and not WGA Validation Tool which is mandatory for Windows Update and to download certain apps such as DirectX, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Windows Defender from Microsoft.
RemoveWGA will tell if the WGA Notification Tool is active on your system and allows you to remove the WGA notification tool (WGALogon.dll and WGATray.exe) from your system. As RemoveWGA only remove WGA Notifications, the Windows Update or Microsoft Update or Automatic Updates will prompt you to install again. So it’s important to deselect the KB905474 when prompted to install critical and high priority updates.
In case you afraid that WGA Notifications is installed again without your permission, you can set the RemoveWGA to silently and automatically check during PC startup if the WGA Notifications is active on your system with the “-silent” command line parameter. With the option, RemoveWGA will popup a message only if WGA Notifications is found.
Download RemoveWGA from here.
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