Removing the Genuine Copy notification in Microsoft Office
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Office Genuine Advantage notification
You may have noticed recently that a message pops up every time you start one of the Microsoft Office applications, informing you that your copy is not genuine. This was added as part of the automatic update KB949810.
What should I do? Well, obviously, if you are running an illegal copy of MS Office, you should consider yourself well and truly chastised and go and buy a legitimate copy (available below). If, however, like some people I have heard from, you bought a pre-assembled PC with MS Office already installed, or have another good reason to believe that your copy is perfectly legitimate, you may want to get rid of these annoying notofications...
Please note: THE FOLLOWING TIPS COME WITH NO GUARANTEES AND YOU USE THEM AT YOUR OWN RISK. ANY CHANGES TO THE COMPUTER'S FILE STRUCTURE OR SYSTEM REGISTRY SHOULD ONLY BE CARRIED OUT BY AN EXPERIENCED TECHNICIAN.
What should I do? Well, obviously, if you are running an illegal copy of MS Office, you should consider yourself well and truly chastised and go and buy a legitimate copy (available below). If, however, like some people I have heard from, you bought a pre-assembled PC with MS Office already installed, or have another good reason to believe that your copy is perfectly legitimate, you may want to get rid of these annoying notofications...
Please note: THE FOLLOWING TIPS COME WITH NO GUARANTEES AND YOU USE THEM AT YOUR OWN RISK. ANY CHANGES TO THE COMPUTER'S FILE STRUCTURE OR SYSTEM REGISTRY SHOULD ONLY BE CARRIED OUT BY AN EXPERIENCED TECHNICIAN.
Microsoft Office products on Amazon
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007
Amazon Price: $79.49 (as of 01/03/2010) 
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition
Amazon Price: $109.49 (as of 01/03/2010)
Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 FULL VERSION
Amazon Price: $365.99 (as of 01/03/2010)
Method 1
Change the OGAAddin.connect keys in the System Registry
Run regedit
Search for "OGAAddin.connect" and use the Find Next function until you find an instance of OGAAddin.connect that has a value called Load Behavior in the right-hand pane (you can make this quicker by checking just the Keys check-box in the Find dialog box).
Change this value from 3 to 0.
Do this for all instances of OGAAddin.connect/Load Behavior
Method 2
Remove OGAAddin from Office Applications
Run one of the Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, etc) as administrator.
Click the Office button and go to Options >> Add-Ins
Select COM Add-ins in the "Manage" drop-down list, and click Go
Disable or remove the OGAAdmin Add-In
Repeat for every MS Office application installed
Click the Office button and go to Options >> Add-Ins
Select COM Add-ins in the "Manage" drop-down list, and click Go
Disable or remove the OGAAdmin Add-In
Repeat for every MS Office application installed
Method 3
Remove the OGAAddin registry keys completely
Run regedit
Go to each of the following registry keys, and any other that may contain OGAAddin.connect registry value sub-key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Powerpoint\Addins
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins
Delete the OGAAddin.connect registry value.
Go to each of the following registry keys, and any other that may contain OGAAddin.connect registry value sub-key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Powerpoint\Addins
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins
Delete the OGAAddin.connect registry value.
Method 4
Remove or rename the OGA components physically
Find the OGA component files in the following location: %SystemDrive%\Windows\System32 (%SystemDrive%\Windows\SysWow64 for 64-bit). These may include OGAAddin.dll, OGACheckControl.dll, OGAEXEC.exe, OGAVerify.exeDelete, rename or move these files so that MS Office can't find them
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