Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) was an anti-infringement system created by Microsoft used to validate the licences of several Microsoft Windows operating systems upon … See more

In September 2005, Microsoft filed lawsuits against a number of companies that sold unauthorized copies of software based on information from users who were told they have See more

Through Windows Genuine Advantage, Microsoft collects the following data:
• Computer make and model
• BIOS checksum, make, version, and date
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On October 20, 2008, many users of Windows XP in China received a black desktop, as Microsoft introduced its WGA system for Chinese language systems in an effort to combat … See more

The WGA validation process validates the present installation of Windows and its license key against the detected computer hardware and determines if the software was licensed from Microsoft. It is accessible by either a stand-alone program, a … See more

WGA Validation Tool
When a user installs Windows Genuine Advantage, an Internet Explorer add-on is installed labeled "Windows Genuine Advantage". See more

Some personal firewalls, though not one embedded in Windows, may alert on the method by which wgatray.exe is started; in the case of Outpost firewall, it is identified as a "hidden process". The wgatray.exe process itself can be firewall blocked, without apparent … See more