Windows Geniune “Advantage” workarounds
This is old news, but it’s still relevant today as XP isn’t exactly “being left in droves” for Windows Vista. Hopefully these tips help some of those that are less technically inclined, but not complete newbies either. Either way it’s for people who want their Windows machines patched without being nagged with this “feature” bestowed upon us by the folks from Redmond.
For the more advanced users, you can always run your own WSUS server. This lets you control exactly what does and does not get installed, and WGA isn’t even available through WSUS (although Office Genuine Advantage is). If you have more than two computers running Windows 2000 or later, WSUS is a big help for saving bandwidth and assuring you get patched up-to-date quickly. It can be (sort of) compared to your own linux package repository.
Unfortunately, it requires Windows 2003 Server to run, but it is completely free (as in beer). So yeah, sort of pointless, but it will satisfy your inner geek who likes to tinker 
The easier WGA workaround:
This is actually pretty easy to defeat. Just boot into safe mode (XP Home) or regular mode (XP Pro or Media Center). Find the files in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 called ‘wgalogon.dll’ and ‘wgatray.exe’. Bring up the file properties, go to the security tab and remove the inherited permissions from the files (don’t copy them, strip them completely). Answer yes when it asks if you’re sure about this. Reboot and WGA will never bother you again. I’ve done this on dozens of machines and it just skips the update because its too stupid to fix permissions. The only exception to this is the Service Packs or repair installs.
Of course nobody should have to do it in the first place but this is an example of corporate-think at it’s best from our fiends in Redmond. If XP is so dead why should they be developing new WGA tricks for it anyways? Sounds to me like its them getting a bit nervous about how many people are jumping ship from Vista and pointing at ‘hackers’ as the problem. Again. =)
Dell actually uses a different key on their recovery discs than the one that’s on the side of the computer.
If you open d:\I386\winnt.sif The key is listed in there somewhere. That key also works, and I believe that in the past when I rolled my own discs, that was the one I’d use. IIRC I took the disc from my brother’s computer and enter Dell’s registration key. That generally worked just fine.
But that was years ago, and I don’t really deal with Windows much these days.