Does anyone still use Windows Genuine Advantage these days? Okay, granted that it used to be required to do any useful automatic updating on Windows machines, these days you could update away without WGA (not via Internet Explorer, though). Then there’s the recent issue that Microsoft was nuking all copies of Windows that aren’t legit via WGA.

As for me, I have automatic updates enabled, but only to notify me of new patches. I manually select which ones I actually install, and so far the only one I haven’t installed is the WGA notifier. What hits me as really cunning (and funny, too) is the way they word the description of the WGA notifier in the auto updates installer.

The Windows Genuine Advantage Notification tool notifies you if your copy of Windows is not genuine. If your system is found to be a non-genuine, the tool will help you obtain a licensed copy of Windows.

More information for this update can be found at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=39157

I understand that this system was intended to be helpful to those of us who do have legit copies of Windows. But if my Windows were fake, are you sure you’ll be helping me obtain a licensed copy? What if the user don’t want one? The wording might as well say “If your system is found to be a non-genuine, we will go after you and sue you for everything you’ve got,” or “we’re nuking your PC,” whichever’s better.

What’s bad is that even some legit copies of Windows have been detected by WGA as non-legit, much to the chagrin of users. And the notification isn’t that much helpful, as well. It says something short of go to your local PC retailer and shell out a hundred bucks (or two) for a legit copy.

At any rate, it still is a bad idea to turn off updates. Your computer would be a security risk to yourself and to other people in your network or the Internet-at-large. Just make sure you do review and understand each update that goes your way. For all you know, you might be downloading that time bomb waiting to screw your system at a moment’s notice.