Remove “This copy of Microsoft Office is not genuine” notification

Brief:

After installing Office Genuine Advantage Notifications (OGA KB949810) from Windows Update, OGA Validation will perform genuine test on installed Microsoft Office XP, Office 2003, Office 2007 and Office 2010 software. If Office product is validated as not genuine, “This copy of Microsoft Office is not genuine” notification message will be displayed on notification area (system tray), at splash screen during Office program (i.e. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook) startup, and at Office’s toolbar or ribbon with extra “Get Genuine Office” tab or element.

KB949810 OGA Notifications update is designed so that end-user cannot uninstall or removed the update using “Add and Remove Programs” or “Program and Features” in the Control Panel, in a bid to encourage end-users to buy genuine Microsoft products. But, if you’re a legit Office users, and the OGA validation has returned false-positive result, use the one of the following hacks to disable and remove Microsoft Office not genuine notification messages displayed by OGA Notifications.

How to remove:

Hack 1: Disable OGAAddin.dll from Loading with Office Applications

OGAAddin.dll (and OGAVerify.exe) is a few files that been installed by OGA Notifications. OGAAddin.dll allowed OGA Notifications to install as an add-in to applications in Office productivity suites to display not genuine reminder message to illegitimate and illegal copy of Office. By stopping the OGAAddin load behavior and preventing OGAAddin.dll from loading, the Office Genuine Advantage Notifications message can be suppressed.

1. Run Registry Editor (RegEdit.exe).
2. Press Ctrl-F to open search box, and search for OGAAddin.connectregistry key.
3. In the right pane, right click on Load Behavior and select Modify.
4. Change the value data from 3 to 0.
5. Repeat for each and every OGAAddin.connect found.

With this hack, Windows still treat OGA as installed, and will not prompt user to install again.

Hack 2: Disable and Remove OGAAddin from within Office Applications

1. Run one of the Office app such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher and etc as administrator.

   Note: Open Windows Explorer, go to %SystemDrive%\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12 (may be different depends on version of Office installed and x64 OS uses Program Files (x86) folder), and right click on Office app executable, e.g. winword.exe, excel.exe, powerpnt.exe and etc to run as administrator.

2. Go to Options (at the bottom of menu triggered by Office button) ->Add-Ins.
3. Select COM Add-ins under Manage drop menu list, and click Go.

   




4. Disable or remove the OGAAdmin.
5. Repeat above steps for each and every Office applications installed.

Hack 3: Delete and Remove (Uninstall) Office Genuine Advantage Notifications Components

Although Microsoft does not allow OGA Notifications to be uninstall, but that does not mean that individual file components of OGA Notifications cannot be deleted, removed or uninstalled manually.

To disable OGA Notifications and uninstall KB949810, close and exit from all Office applications (including Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Publisher, Visio and etc.), and search for the following files in%SystemDrive%\Wndows\System32 folder and%SystemDrive%\Windows\SysWow64 folder (for 64-bit OS x64 only).

OGAVerify.exe
OGAAddin.dll

Delete the above files. It’s also possible rename the files so that system cannot find them.

Hack 4: Remove OGAAddin.connect Registry Key in System Registry

Pretty much similar to method 1 and 2, but it’s quicker and will complete remove trace of OGAAddin.connect from registry. Unlike hack 1, Windows Update may prompt you to install again.

1. Run Registry Editor (RegEdit.exe).
2. Go to each and every of the following registry keys, and any other which contains OGAAddin.connect registry value sub-key:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Powerpoint\Addins
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins

3. Delete the OGAAddin.connect registry value.