Well, it seems that Microsoft wisened up and "tightened" security for Windows Genuine Advantage... Yes that's right, you can no longer just disable the ActiveX Plugin via plugin settings...
Well, the next trick isn't much harder lol...
Well, go ahead and create a new text document and name it "wga.reg" and insert below:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Ext\CLSID]
"{17492023-C23A-453E-A040-C7C580BBF700}"="0"
Go ahead and save and run the new registry script, welcome back to the land of optional updates for Windows XP

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Note that this will only apply this to the user account that you are logged into; if you apply it to the "local" system itself (vs the current user) it will prompt you each time you run windows updates that WGA needs to be re-installed.