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How To Download And Install Windows Media Player 11 Bypassing WGA


Posted by Artem Russakovskii on July 9th, 2007 in Technology

Let's say you want to upgrade to Windows Media Player 11 or just accidentally upgraded and are now presented with the WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) prompt to verify how legit that Windows copy of yours is. Hypothetically speaking, something is going wrong and Windows Genuine Advantage isn't able to verify the validity of the Windows license but you still want to use WMP 11. Here is the easiest way to do this (wtf exactly were the MS programmers thinking?!):

Step 1. Install WMP11. The Windows Genuine Advantage check is built into the program and will show itself once installation is complete. You will possibly need to reboot.

Step 2. Quit the Windows Genuine Advantage prompt.

Step 3. Go to the directory where WMP was installed into (most likely C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player) and rename the file LegitLibM.dll to LegitLib.dll.

Step 4. Start WMP 11, click Validate and ignore any warnings.

Step 5. You're done, WMP 11 is validated.

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Artem Russakovskii is a San Francisco programmer and blogger. Follow Artem on Twitter (@ArtemR) or subscribe to the RSS feed.

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