I have had experienced an instance when my preloaded Windows XP did not respond to the activation key and made life difficult when Microsoft introduced the WGA (Windows Genuine Authentication).

Without the authentication of the "legal" operating system, usually happens after a full reformatting is done, I get annoying reminder balloon on my desktop (which I managed to rectify, but I cannot share this here) and I am not entitled to the latest patches and updates from Microsoft.

There is a way to have the updates process by-passed (only if you are a legit Windows user and experiencing the same issue that I have - but then again, who am I to judge :-P) from an alternative site. To obtain all the patches an update, visit windiz. I advise using Mozilla's firefox for this.

There will be a small application that you need to download, after having it installed, click on the site again and you will have a scan option. Click the scan button and choose your updates... :-)



In addition to the windows update, you can also get update on drivers and get a look into your system set-up... just explore the options on the page.

Have fun...