Disable "Get Genuine Office", Microsoft Nagging OGA (KB949810)

Recently Microsoft released an office update KB949810 know as OGA (Office Genuine Advantage) which once installed on your PC will refuse to uninstall. If you review your updates history, you will find "Office Genuine Advantage Notifications (KB949810) en-us" under Office 2003 or Office 2007 becuase your Automatic Updates were turned on. This update does not show under "Control Panel", "Add Remove Programs" list even if you have tick "Show Updates" checkbox.

While non-genuine Microsoft products will face problems, it has caused many issues for official license users of the product. Microsoft says that this was a "voluntary Microsoft update" but you have no control to uninstall once it is installed.

Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Genuine_Advantage

With rampant software piracy occurring non-genuine Microsoft counterfeit Office products are distibuted worldwide and invisible OGA cop is out there to control them. While the intention is positive, paid fully licensed customers are facing massive problems. Many System Administratiors have cast their opinion on forums "My suggestion is to decline that update (KB949810) and not install it anywhere"

Several ways to overcome your problems:

Corporate and Business System Administrators as a "WSUS Admin" block updates - not distribute them! using WSUS distribution control feature.

Try to Download and install the appropriate language version for your system:

English
Spanish
Italian
Turkish

In case you have get false alert you can avoid being nagged by following these steps:

Go into the application's Options of Microsoft Office product (i.e. click the Office Button in upper left corner and select "Excel Options" or "Word Option" depends on which Office application you are running)
Select "Advanced" from the navigation pane on the left.
Find the "Show add-in user interface errors" checkbox and unselect it.

Another alternative is to RESTORE to last well known good working restore point before Feb,10th 2009.

Revert back to previous state, If you have a full backup you can restore from your good copy of the backup and remember to decline that update (KB949810) and not install it anywhere again in future because its optional "voluntary Microsoft update".

In worst case, to stop the error alert messages, delete file named "OGAAddin.dll", but I wouldn't suggest you do that.

Best way is to follow this simple troubleshooting procedure suggest by Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) Specialist:

1. Download and run the MGA Diagnostic Tool: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=52012

2. After running the MGA Diagnostic Tool, click on the "Windows" tab and then click on "Copy".

3. Next, visit the following website and create a post in the "WGA Validation Problems" forum and paste the results of the WGA Diagnostic Data in a detailed post. http://forums.microsoft.com/Genuine/default.aspx?SiteID=25

4. A WGA troubleshooting specialist will analyze the data and recommend an appropriate solution.

Finally fastest, easiest way is to uninstall current version of Office and Get Genuine Office Trial from Microsoft Today. For instant download click here, it's trail from Microsoft Online Store.

Hint: You can get highly discounted special price for Office products from Amazon.com

Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 under $80

Those who do not want to spend any money or are low on budget can use following alternatives to Microsoft Office:

Google Docs accepts most popular file formats, including DOC, XLS, ODT, ODS, RTF, CSV, PPT, etc. with many New Features.

Take tour of Google Docs or Watch Video from Youtube Click Here. Only disadvantage of Google Docs is you need to be online to retrive/update your files.

The other big rival of Microsoft, Sun Microsystem has developed StarOffice and OpenOffice. OpenOffice.org 2 does everything you want your office software to do, the way you want it to. You can download Open Office from serveral site. Click here for fast complete download of Open Office free software instantly.

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Kindly let us know your views and how you feel by commenting here and don't forget to send this blog link to your friends who might be facing similar problem.