As many of you will be aware, Microsoft has recently released a tool which can detect the presence of an illegitimate version of Windows. This tool (known as WGA or windows genuine advantage) sits in you system tray and continually prompts you in order to irritate you into paying for a genuine version of the software. There is also a countdown timer at the startup which prevents you from entering windows in a normal fashion and which forces you to wait 5 seconds before clicking "resolve later".

My point is that, genuine version of windows or not, this tool seriously invades the quality of your experience in Windows and causes activity similar to that experienced when your computer contains spyware/malware. In addition to the activity mentioned above, the tool now reports back statistics to Microsoft without the users consent. This activity is generally halted in its tracks by a decent firewall. The tool doesn't even appear to be a proper update for windows; it's basically a poorly finished bolt on.

I think Spybot should contain a rule to remove this tool; there's certainly a demand for it.