Often when you’ve got updates on, there comes a time when your desktop background disappears, and you keep on getting errors and popups saying that your copy of windows is not genuine, and stuff like “you might be a victim of software counterfeiting.” The reason behind is that you are using a pirated version of Windows which you didn’t obtain the legal way._ _Now the point is that these errors and popups can be annoying, and people would always welcome a cure, and well here’s one. I’m not encouraging anyone to go for pirated software, but i’m still posting the solution cause not everyone can afford to buy their own licensed copy of windows.;-)

So getting rid of the error is quick, simple and clean though a bit annoying as you need to restart twice in a row.

  1. Goto Windows update and click on the link on the bottom left corner, saying “installed updates.”
  2. Look for the update KB971033, and uninstall it (right-click>uninstall,) and reboot.
  3. Run Command Prompt as Administrator. To do so, just press start, type cmd, and on the first link, right-click>Run As Administrator.
  4. In the CMD window, type the following command: slmgr.vbs -rearm, and press enter.  At first, nothing would happpen, but this is normal, but after a few _seconds, _a box would pop up, saying that you need to reboot for the changes to take effect. Well, do as it says.

Note: This would only rid you of the WGA notifications and popups, but remember, this wont fool it into believing that you are using genuine windows, means that you’d still be unable to use the Security Essentials.