WGA Notification Update

A few days ago I was talking about how to disable Microsofts WGA Notification. Not that I have anything against steps that are being taken to reduce the software piracy problem. I just felt that the way it was installed and the fact that it phoned home on every reboot was a bit too much.

Today, Microsoft have released an update to the WGA Notification,

Today, Microsoft released an updated WGA Notifications package. With this update, the pilot phase of WGA Notifications is complete, and the program will continue with a phased roll-out to Windows XP users worldwide. All English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch and Brazilian Portuguese users of Windows XP running Automatic Updates will soon be offered an updated package with a new version of WGA Notifications.

The updated package includes some notable changes to the software based on customer feedback from the previous version.

No daily configuration check
In the pilot phase, a PC that had installed WGA Notifications checked a server-side configuration setting upon each login, to determine if WGA Notifications should run or not. This configuration file check has been removed in the updated WGA Notifications package released today. It is important to note that WGA Validation still periodically checks to determine whether the version of Windows is genuine.

Clearer EULA and instructions to opt-in.
The End User License Agreement (EULA) has been replaced with a standard, General Availability EULA that more clearly explains the purpose of the software and details about WGA Notifications. For customers who choose not to install the updated package, and wish to remove an installed previous version, Microsoft has made available a set of instructions for removing previous versions of WGA Notifications from their PCs.

The instructions for removing previous WGA Notifications can be found here.

Well done to Microsoft for listening to it's customers, this is a step in the right direction I think.