Cancelling WGA Installation sends a report to Microsoft
The German computer magazine CT analyzed the new WGA Notification that is installed during Windows Update. They decided to cancel the installation and immediately after doing so the firewall reported that update.exe tried to connect to the internet. This caught their attention of course and they decided to analyze the data that was send after the connection was established.
They used Wireshark to analyze the traffic and found out that update.exe sends data to genuine.microsoft.com. Some of the data seems to be encrypted while some could be identified. It sends registry information, namely the SusClientID as well as information about the version of the WGA tool, the windows version and the language of the operating system. It also sets a cookie which contains a GUID which could possibly be used to identify the computer.
Update Windows without Microsoft
I recently received an email from one of my readers who asked if there would be a secure way to update a Windows XP installation that already had service pack 2 installed with the latest patches issues by Microsoft in the months after the second service pack was released. His main concerns were about WGA, Windows Genuine Advantage. He did not like the fact that data was sent from his computer to Microsoft.
Make Clean Installs with Vista Update DVDs
For some time everyone thought that it was only possible to use a Vista update DVD from within Windows XP to update to the latest operating system. The Windows XP key would become invalid and the Vista installation could commence. DailyTech posted a workaround which makes it possible to install Windows Vista using a Vista update DVD without XP.
Block windows update from automatic updating to IE7
It seems that Microsoft added the upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 to the automatic upgrade feature of Windows XP. Automatic Updates will notify the user that a new version is ready for download giving the user the option to Install, Don't Install and Ask Me Later. It seems a pressing matter to Microsoft to get a large basis of Internet Explorer 7 users in a hurry to regain lost grounds in the waging browser war against Opera and Firefox.
