Fix: How To Remove Office Genuine Notification (OGA Update)

Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) is another initiative by Microsoft to stem the piracy and counterfeit copy of Microsoft Office business producitivity suite and applications. Since April 15, 2008,Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) Notifications was pushed to client computers installed with Microsoft Office XP, Office 2003 or Office 2007 as “Important” or “Needed” update, and is not removable or uninstallable after installed.

After installed, OGA validation component will perform a check on install Office software, and OGA Notifications notifier component will display various “This copy of Microsoft Office is not genuine” message if the Office software is determined as not genuine or not legitimate.

Although officially Microsoft prevents and disallows end-users from removing OGA Notifications (KB949810), there are several workarounds or hacks to remove Office Genuine Advantage Notifications. In fact, as it’s a MSI (Windows Installer) package which installed the OGA, the KB949810 OGA update can be removed and completely uninstalled properly and completely by using MSI uninstall string.

How to Uninstall Office Genuine Advantage Notifications (KB949810)

Open an command prompt window with elevated privileges.

Depending on the version of OGA (Office Genuine Advantage) installed (can be view from properties of %SystemDrive%\Windows\System32\OGAAddin.dll or DEL %SystemDrive%\Windows\System32\OGACheckControl.dll), run following commands below (see Tip below if you only want to run one command):

MsiExec /X {049F2E8F-D5EC-4133-87FA-8E94837D8D0C} /QN /NORESTART ALLUSERS=1
MsiExec /X {B148AB4B-C8FA-474B-B981-F2943C5B5BCD} /QN /NORESTART ALLUSERS=1
MsiExec /X {DB427EF6-F13E-4AA6-9D40-5D962394774F} /QN /NORESTART ALLUSERS=1
MsiExec /X {B2544A03-10D0-4E5E-BA69-0362FFC20D18} /QN /NORESTART ALLUSERS=1

Note that the GUID identifier for OGA application may vary from system to system, depending on version and language installed. Generally, it works for OGA v1.7.0102.0, OGA v1.7.0105.35.0 and OGA v1.7.0105.35.0 v2.0.48.0.

Tip: To determine which is the exact application ID for Office Genuine Advantage installed on your system, run registry Editor (RegEdit), and navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurentVersion\Uninstall

There are many registry sub-keys that resembles the product ID above. Go into each and everyone of the registry sub-branches to look for and locate DisplayName REG_SZ value data which matches or similar toOffice Genuine Advantage or OGA.

After uninstalling OGA properly, it’s wise to clean up and remove all trace of OGA from the system. Run the following commands to delete all registry entries and system files, if still present:

REG DELETE HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins\OGAAddin.Connect /f
REG DELETE HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins\OGAAddin.Connect /f
REG DELETE HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Powerpoint\Addins\OGAAddin.Connect /f
REG DELETE HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\OGAAddin.Connect /f
DEL %SystemDrive%\Windows\System32\OGAVerify.exe
DEL %SystemDrive%\Windows\System32\OGAEXEC.exe
DEL %SystemDrive%\Windows\System32\OGAAddin.dll
DEL %SystemDrive%\Windows\System32\OGACheckControl.dll

User who want an automated solution to remove Office Genuine Advantage can download the OGA Uninstaller, a batch script that automatically run all of above commands.

Download this batch file

Tool: Easily Diagnosing Bios Beep Codes

The first wake-up process of a computer is called POST (Power On Self-Test).
This test is run by the motherboard. Hardware devices such as memory, PCI, AGP and more are being checked. the BIOS system is also checked for normal functionality.

in case of an error, the result is heard as a set of beeps in different frequencies (like Morse codes).
the beeps differs between different Bios manufacturers.

To understand the meaning of the beeps you can read the following sites:

BIOS- Understanding the BIOS Beep Codes 1

BIOS- Understanding the BIOS Beep Codes 2

BIOS- Understanding the BIOS Beep Codes 3

or use this nice tool that sums it all in one place:

Download: Beeping Bios Codes Tool

Some more helpful information about Bios can be found in these guides:

BIOS- A guide to optimize your BIOS

BIOS- A guide to get to know your BIOS

Fix: Office 2007 Setup Error 1406 on Vista

Symptoms:

While installing Office 2007 you get error 1406 saying:
"setup cannot write the value to the registry key"
if you click on Ignore it can popup up tp six times during the installation.

The error message that you receive lists the registry subkey that is causing the error to occur.When attempting to install Microsoft Office, it will often reference one or more of the following keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software > Classes > HWXInk.E-Ink

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software > Classes > HWXInk.E-Ink.1
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software > Classes > SketchObj.SketchInk
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software > Classes > SketchObj.SketchInk.1

In order to resolve this, we need to give the installer permission to write to these keys.

Solution:

Launch the registry editor by choosing Start > Run (or Windows Key+R) and typing REGEDIT.

Locate the first of the above-listed registry keys. Right-click on the key and click Permissions. In the list of groups or user names, see if “Everyone” is listed. If the group exists, skip to step 5. If the group does not exist, begin with step 1:

1. Click the Add button below the “Group or user names” box.
2. Click Advanced at the bottom of the next window.
3. Click “Find Now” on the right side of the next window.
4. In the list of results, choose the “Everyone” entry, click OK, and then OK again.
5. In the “Group or user names” box, be sure Everyone is highlighted, and check the box to allow Full Control.
6. Repeat for the next registry key in the list.

Once permissions have been adjusted for all four of the listed keys, reboot the computer and attempt to install Office.

Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/838687