# microsoft not genuine?



## vickinell (Oct 10, 2003)

Yesterday when I got on my computer a bubble popped up and said my micro soft was not genuine. I have had my computer almost 3 years. I purchased it through Dell. I could not get anything to come up. Today it is working fine. Has anyone else had this problem? A couple of days before I could not get my mail at my yahoo address.


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Sounds like a Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) nag screen. For whatever reason, Microsoft thinks your Windows installation is not genuine. It relates to the WGA utility that's used to validate Windows before installing updates from Microsoft. Security updates from Microsoft are probably blocked to your machine now.

You could call Microsoft, but they'll probably try to get money out of you. Dell may be your best bet. If you don't have any luck either Microsoft or Dell, PM me and I can give you a recipe to remove the WGA nag screen. There are also alternate Windows update sources where you can get free Windows updates regardless of registration status.

The WGA nag screen is not related to your ability to get Yahoo mail.


----------



## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

Original poster ignore this as its just a spoof, but Nevada, you will get a kick out of it I think. http://www.linuxgenuineadvantage.org/


----------



## vickinell (Oct 10, 2003)

Thank you for your information. Now that my computer seems to be working fine I am going to send a message to Dell. When I got my computer I got the extended warranty for 3 years, which is nearly up. They are the ones that sent me my computer with all the downloaded programs and it has worked for 3 years. So I need to get in touch before the warranty runs out.


----------



## millipede (May 28, 2006)

my dad installed and ran the windows verifier thing(whatever it is called) and it told him his version wasn't genuine, even though it is. 
Quite often I will manually download and install my updates and I managed to catch that one before it was installed. I told it to ignore it and not ever remind me of it. That's a handy function.


----------

