Andy's Technotes and commentary

XP SP3 broke Windows Update

admin — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:39:58 +0000

More precisely:
IE7 install breaks Windows and Microsoft Update after install of SP3 on a clean OS install of XP SP2

Fix is here:

http://download.windowsupdate.com/WindowsUpdate/redist/standalone/
7.0.6000.381/WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe

From CMD prompt:
net stop wuauserv
“%userprofile%\Desktop\WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe” /wuforce (don’t forget the quotation marks)
net start wuauserv

http://msmvps.com/blogs/markd/archive/2008/05/09
/windows-xp-sp3-breaks-windows-update.aspx

I tried this and it works.

For search engines:
Windows Update does not work after installing XP SP3
SP3 damages Microsoft Update.

More Vundo

admin — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:29:42 +0000

I ran yet another malware detector on the drive mentioned below.
Microsofts Live scanner:
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-au/default.htm?mkt=en-au

detected 8 more VUNDO infected files.

The Live Scanner is a nice tool.

Vundo and fake anti-malware software

admin — Sat, 10 May 2008 19:58:18 +0000

By far the number one consumer/home user problem I see is fake antispyware/antivirus software that holds a system hostage.
At the core of this problem is the VUNDO trojan. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vundo_trojan
In my tests this Medusa’s head malware infestation is best remedied by zero filling the hard drive and installing from a trusted source.
In past tests the popular countermeasures Ad-Aware and Spybot were useless as was Norton’s Vundo removal tool.
Today we tested Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. After five passes the product declared the drive clean and indeed the symptoms were gone. I removed the drive and mounted it in a test machine and ran Avira Antivir against it and found three more instances of Vundo.
To me this confirms that you cannot be confident that malware has been removed even if your tester shows a drive clean and confirms that the best approach is wipe and reload.

Scary Vista

admin — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:53:46 +0000

Scenario:
Vista Business on a brand new Dell desktop hosting a network share of a HP 8100 USB printer.
One of the networked computers is Windows 98 and there is no 98 driver for HP 8100.
I tried the tried and true old trick of loading a Generic driver for the HP8100 and sharing it so the 98 machine would have at least basic printing abilities until it gets replaced in a few days.
Bad idea.
I ran a test print from within the Windows Vista printer wizard dialogue. The printer printed correctly but the wizard app stopped responding. The error cascaded to an open instance of Open Office and to Windows Explorer.
I shut down through Task Manager and after an extrodinarily long shutdown process, restarted the machine.
After a long wait, Vista came up in a crippled state. I could not start Control Panel, could not start System Restore (well I couldn’t find it…Why did Microsoft move everything in Vista?) , could not start Open Office. I started Task Manager but could not see anything amiss.
After another 5 minute shutdown sequence I booted to Safe Mode.
I opened the System Restore FAQ in Help which answered many questions but not “Where I can I click to start System Restore?”. One of the FAQs near the bottom of the page offered a way to start from the command line. I rolled back two days and my problem was fixed.
My advice :
DO NOT TURN OFF VISTA SYSTEM RESTORE !

Bad caps in gx270

admin — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:08:51 +0000

Dell GX-270 motherboards frequently have bad capacitors that cause erratic system performance and system failure. Avoid.
The problem undoubtedly exists on Apple HP and other computers based on the Intel D865GBF motherboard.

Seagate discwizard fails to detect drives

admin — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 22:49:35 +0000

Seagate discwizard 10 (Acronis) appears to be incompatible with Dell Vostro 200 SATA drives. The program aborts after an error indicating it cannot detect any drives.
Thsis model uses the Foxconn G33M motherboard with Intel G33 chipset.

Extract Windows Product Key from scrambled drive..key “recovery”tools fail

admin — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:34:50 +0000

The new version of Magic Jellybean Keyfinder 2.0 beta (not 1.5) supposedly allows one to recover the Product Key from a hard drive that is no longer bootable.
The test was done when a 1.5ghz PIV 845 chipset motherboard died. The computer had been running a Nobilis XP Home.

The hard drive would not boot into windows on any of the three new motherboards tried. It would just BSOD briefly and reboot.

Initial tests were done using a Windows 2000 machine as a host. It didn’t work. The host machine OS version must match (at least to some degree) the OS on the drive from which you are attempt to retrieve the key else you get an error something like “Hive Load Failed”. When tested on another XP Home machine the MJBKF worked for installation however activation failed and Microsoft refused to activate the product installation.

Update Jan 19 2007: I found the original key for the install described above and it does not match the keys generated by MJBKF or Dagon. Maybe these guys are not “recovering” the keys but are generating new keys that will allow installation but not activation.

DagonDesign.com has a similar technique for “recovery” of the Product Key. The technique described there created a different Product Key which Microsoft also refused to activate.

compaq srx5210sx

admin — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:09:34 +0000

Brand new from Wal Mart.
Slow celeron 1.6 and 1 gig ram with Vista Home Premium.
Lots of crapware HP/Yahoo search, Norton Security trialware.
Cannot access internet through dial up modem. Cannot remove Norton crapware. Norton will not uninstall because AV is running, but AV is turned off in Norton. You have to reboot after turning off.
Got rid of Norton. Modem connection now works.
Pretty slow computer.

Wintv-hvr-1600

admin — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 20:51:36 +0000

Tested out WinTV=HVR-1600 today.
Using Gigabyte GA-M61P-31 motherboard with built in 6150 graphics 256 motherboard video ram allocated to video, 1gig DDR2 RAM on motherboard, AMD XP+ 4600 cpu chip.
Quality of reception varies greatly with aiming of my little Radio Shack indoor UHF antenna that I got on closeout for $2.
I am getting 1041 WDAF, 1051 KCTV, 1061 KTAJD1, 1062 KTAJD2, 1063 KTAJD3, 1064 KTAJD4, 1291 KCWE , 1501 ION, 1502 qubo, 1503 IONLife, 1504 ION Worship, 1621 KSMO using the ATSC antenna in.

Reception on none of these is flawless but all are BETTER than the corresponding analog channels with the same location, antenna and tuner.

Would like to add KCPT and KMBC and I am not sure why I cannot receive these.

The idea that over-the-air digital reception is all-or-nothing is misleading. It is true that in any one instant of time you either get reception or not. You will get a momentary freeze or audio loss if the signal is lost briefly.

Easy way to fill in a .PDF or other form using OFFICE

admin — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 21:05:46 +0000

“Print” the PDF file to the MDI (Microsoft Office Document Image Writeer) virtual printer that installed when you installed Microsoft Office.
The resulting file will be a .MDI or .TIF file. Open the file with the Microsoft Office Document Imaging application. Use “Tools”, “Annotations”, “Insert Text Box” and fill in the text boxes to complete the form.
To add a signature just scan a copy of you signature and save it as a .jpg or other format and insert it using “Tools” “Annotations”, “Insert Picture Box”