Best Anti-Spyware Remover

I deal with spyware on a daily business. There is hardly a PC that I see that does not have spyware installed on their PC. Some are small easy ones to remove but lately I have seen a lot of fake antivirus programs that have infected the PC. The first program I go to is Malwarebytes. They make a great product that comes in a free and a paid version. The free one will remove the spyware. You just download it, update it manually and run it manually. This is great to remove one BUT to really be protected you should install the Paid version. This will then stay resident, update automatically and even scan automatically. This way you are protected BEFORE you get infected. I highly recommend Malwarebytes. It scans fast, it takes little system resources and its the best remover for those fake AV.

Logmein Free Change Remote Type

I have used logmein for a long time. Mostly my sites I control are the free version because all I need is to remote control the PC. A few months ago Logmein had changed their free version and removed some of the stuff I was normally use to. One is the groups are gone. Even PRO does not even have the groups. You either have to use Ignition or $300 a year option that I really don’t think its worth. The other thing that I can see from Free to Pro is to change the type of remote connection (this is either Java,ActiveX and HTML). Some of my sites would not work with activex so I had to set to java. Now the site does work to use activex so I wanted to change. The free version does not show this anymore in the GUI. What you have to do is change the registry on the host PC. Here is the change you need to do:

Open the registry on the remote computer. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\LogMeIn\V5\RemoteControl and change the ControlType string to either activex or java. You don’t even have to reboot. Just change the registry and then logout and login remotely.

Excel 2007 Slow To Open Files

I googled this and found that sometimes its related to add-ons. The add-on that I believe I was having issues is the Adobe PDF Creator add-on. In order for me to remove the add-on I had to run the Excel 2007 as administrator. To do this go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12 folder. Right-click on Excel.exe and specify Run as Administrator (Only have to do this for Vista or Windows 7).

Then once in Excel click on the top left main button and then select the Excel Options.Click on the add-ons on the left. Then select Manage COM add-ons at the bottom. Deselect the Adobe PDFMaker and then select OK. Close Excel and restart and see if it fixes the speed of opening Excel files.

Also found this on the Internet:

Excel 2007 Bug Identiified

Since the upgrade to Office 2007, a bug has been identified on some computers that are running the new Excel 2007.

The issue that some people are experiencing:

Excel files are not opening (or taking a long time to open) when double-clicking on the file or opening it from an e-mail attachment.

There is a very simple fix for this.

Open Excel
Click the Microsoft button (Round button top left)
Click on the Excel Options button
Select Add-ins on the left menu
At the bottom of the screen make sure the pull-down window says excel add-ins
Click Go
Enable the look-up wizard
Put a check mark beside Lookup Wizard
Click OK

Please Note:
In some cases, Microsoft might mention that the add-on is not installed and ask if you want to install it. Select Yes and let it run through the installation. When it is finished, you will not get a confirmation, but the installation window will be gone.

Alternatively, a temporary fix is to minimize your Excel Window when it opens up blank. Yes, that’s right! Simply hit the minimize button and your Excel file will magically appear with the document fully loaded. Don’t ask us why, this is just another Microsoft issue.

AMENDMENT:

After doing the stuff above I found another possible solution. Changing the file type association by adding a %1 after the /e. Thats fine if you are using Windows XP but Vista and Windows 7 does not allow detail changes like this in the file association. For me to do this I had to download a powertool that lets me do this. DOWNLOAD Installed it, restarted the PC and ran it. Went into the edit file type associations and ran the File Type Doctor. Looked for the .xls (using older 97-2003 files) and then added %1 after the /e in the open configuration.

AMENDMENT:

A newer blog I posted also has a fix if the files are located on a server (my example is a 2008 Server)

Upgrading XP To Windows 7 At Work

Well I decided to change my 3 year Windows XP installation to Windows 7. My XP was getting very SLOWWWWW!!! The usual bit rot!! I switched from Office 2003 to 2007. Installed the new MS Search. Installing and uninstalling applications. It would take like minutes for it too boot and have Outlook to run decently. Now after a fresh install of Windows 7 and Office 2007 everything is going well. Seems that a fresh install of Windows after 3-4 years is normal. Unless you just install Windows and a few applications and thats it then you don’t have to do this but most people will have to do this.

Extract Offline Files From PC That Won’t Boot

I found this on the Internet to help me retrieve data for a client that needed to restore data worked on a laptop that could not boot that needed to sync the data back to the server: The file needed CSCCMD 1.1 can be downloaded here.

If you’d like to extract the unsynchronized offline files from the cache of
another machine, you can copy that cache over and point CSC at it.

The following are the detailed steps:

1. Disabled the offline caching on the current box from Tools -> Folder
option -> Offline files

2. Rebooted the machine

3. Moved the original CSC folder from C:\Windows (%windir%\CSC) directory
to another location

4. Copied the CSC folder from defunct PC to C:\Windows (%windir%\CSC)
directory.

5. Enabled the Offline file caching on the box

6. Ran the extract command at
csccmd /EXTRACT /RECURSE /TARGET:c:\csc-files

The data should be extracted successfully then.

As the Original CSC folder has been moved to another location we had to
move it back to C:\Windows

To do this, please do as follows:

1. Disable the Offline file caching under Tools-Folder option- Offline files

2. Rebooted the client

3. Moved the Original CSC folder to C:\windows after moving the copied one
to another location

4. Enabled Offile caching

Moreover, the following information regarding CSSCMD command is for your
reference:

Features and functions in version 1.1 of the Client-Side Caching
Command-Line Options command-line tool
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884739

Upgrade To Windows 7

Well I decided to upgrade my Vista Ultimate 64-bit to Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. ( I only went with Ultimate because my MAPS included 1 license. If I was going to purchase a license I would go with Windows 7 Pro).Everyone says you really should do a fresh install rather than upgrade. I agree and the fresh install would probable only take 20 min. I just wanted to see how it would be. It should be a straight forward upgrade. Its only been a 3 month install of Vista. The upgrade took 2 hrs. I expected this. Its a pretty good PC (Core 2 Duo 3Ghz,6 gig RAM, 1 Terabyte WD Black SATA 3G drives RAID1, Nvidia 9600GT). Things that I had to do to get it working properly after the upgrade were as follows: Reinstalled my new HP Photosmart printer drivers. Reinstalled Vmware. Remove ASUS Probe software and manually remove another ASUS utility that kept up popping an error message. The VMware still won’t give me a network in my XP guest but will for my 2003 guest. For the sleep to work and get my network back when coming out of sleep I had to change the network to not be disable when conserving power. I have found that boot time is about the same. Going to sleep is about the same. Coming back from sleep is faster. On the whole the PC runs about the same so far as when I was using Vista. I know if you have a less powerful PC (say P4 with 1 gig of ram) that there will be a greater performance from Vista to Windows 7. Vista on a netbook was not possible but is with Windows 7. My PC performance under Vista gave me a 5.9 out of 5.9 for everything except my CPU was a 5.4. Under Windows 7 I get 6.5, 6.5, 6.8, 6.8, 5.9 for CPU,MEM,Video,Video,HD. From what I have read this is decent for the equipment. To get a higher HD (my lowest) I would have to go with fast SSD drive and even then you won’t get near the 7.9 max. I don’t know what you can do to get 7.9 for HD. This would always be the slowest thing in your computer.

The only advantage with Ultimate over PRO for Windows 7 is Bit Locker and multiple languages. On Vista was this plus Media Centre and extra Ultimate stuff like dreamscape. When upgrading to 7 it strips the Ultimate extra stuff. Probable to keep the performance.

My experience with Windows 7 has been OK. Nothing supper exciting over my Vista 64-bit. My friend at work switch from Vista to Windows 7 and his Canon printer worked under Windows 7. Could not get the drivers to work with Vista. He also had better experience with Windows 7 on a few other things also. Each person will get different responses. My observation with Vista and Windows 7 has always been. If you have a slower PC with little ram then Windows 7 will make a big difference but if you have a fast PC with lots of ram then the differences won’t be as dramatic.

AMENDMENT:

I removed and reinstalled the network driver in the XP guest and my VMware is working. Also I updated my network driver in Windows 7 and now when I awake from sleep the network is working. (Before I had to disable and renable the nic).

Windows VS Apple

When I read a review comparing Windows vs OS X I just think of many differences. One of the biggest differences is that Apple is a Hardware company and Microsoft is a Software company. This is has been the way for a long time. Since the beginning of major personal computing. When I see the TV ads of Microsoft VS Apple I enjoy the competitiveness between the major two rivals BUT I also look at the deeper part of the companies. Microsoft (Windows) have gone through major changes. When it was Windows 3.X to Windows 9X it has been basically Windows on top of DOS. Very old and archaic. OS/2 and other really shined over MS at this time. Its when Windows 2000/XP started to be the dominating OS that things changed. The whole memory architecture and NTFS really changed the structure of the OS. Now Apple and its OS is totally different. Its based in Unix/Linux. A very old BUT very secure and structure OS. From the fundamentals of the OS security was built into the OS. The login root structure and the other factors made the OS very easily secure and robust compared to Windows OS. Even if there were hackers hacking on Linux and Apple OS X all day long ( I am sure there are lots of patches needed BUT not like Windows) that in the end over the years, Linux/Unix and Apple OS X will easily win the hack war over Windows. Look at the Network structure and can see the major differences. Windows network OS always had an open architecture that you have a share its open to everyone. Then you had to change the security to give restrictions. Novell (very good OS at the early time), Linux/Unix and part of Apple OS X gives the impression of secure NOW and then change the settings later to better suite the user.

One major thing that has made me NOT switch to Apple is the proriatary part of the OS. I can install Windows OS on almost any PC and change how the look and feel very easily. Try doing a 1/4 change on a Apple computer. NOT. You just don’t have the flexability in Apple OS that you do with Windows XP. BUT this is probable why Apple OS is much more stable than Windows OS. I am sure if you installed Apple OS and Windows OS on the same PC and did not mess with to Windows OS that both would be very stable and compatible with most things. Its the options that Microsoft produces that lets the OS give you both the good and bad parts of the OS. The fact that most virus and spyware companies go after the Windows OS makes my job very easily and profable. If it were not for them that my company would not be the way it is now. If I switched to Apple only then I would not be the company that I am. BUT if the hackers change and start to hack the Apple OS then maybe I should consider adding Apple to me company. Only time will tell.

NTBackup Gives BSOD (BAD_POOL_HEADER) On Shadow Copy

I recently Imaged a drive for a client using Acronis Home Backup Software and after this when they run the NTBackup software it would give a BSOD. I found the following on the Internet:

Cloned system disk ntbackup now BSOD if using shadow copy

Gary Newman found the following fix — and it works for me as well:

I’ve found a working solution to the BAD_POOL_HEADER BSOD crash. After much going
back and forth with Acronis (I wish they’d read the case log before asking for info they
already have been given) they finally came up with this:

1. Go to windows Device Manager
2. Click “view” and select “show hidden devices”
3. Scroll down to “storage volumes”
4. Click on the plus to expand.
5. Click on each one listed and right click and uninstall. (you will get a
message on some staying to reboot before it takes effect. Select no until
you do them all.)
6. Reboot.
7. Wait till windows automatically reinstalls devices. Will prompt to
reboot again.
8 Reboot.

In step #5 I found that the only storage volume listed had “garbage” characters in its name,
whereas after step #8 reboot it has no “garbage characters in its name.

Can’t Print to XP PC From Vista PC

On Vista PC go to “Control Panel” – “Printers” – “Add printer”.
– Believe or not, click “Add a local printer” (I know you want to add a network printer but that way it doesn’t work).
– Click “Create a new port” – “Local Port” – “Next”
– In the next box you have to enter a port name like this:
\\PC name\Printer name
where “PC name” is the network name of the XP PC or Network Share where you have the printer and “Printer name” is the network name of that printer. Be careful with this names. Check in your XP PC “Control Panel” – “Printers and faxes” – “your printer” – right click – “share” – “share resources name”
– Choose the manufacturer and printer model of the printer you are adding.
– Now the printer will be added and you can print a test page or print something to test it.

Opening Files In Office 2007 Very Slow

I recently upgraded my MS Office from 2003 to 2007. I then started to experience that when I started to open files from Word or Excel that it was very slow in response. I would first get a box saying “Initializing the root folders to display” and then when I clicked onto folders it would freeze for a min or so.

What I found out was that I had an old mapped drive pointing to a computer no longer connected to the network. It was a disconnected drive. Once I removed the disconnected drive from My Computer everything was normal.

Steve the IT Tech Guy

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Best Anti-Spyware Remover

Logmein Free Change Remote Type

Excel 2007 Slow To Open Files

Excel 2007 Bug Identiified

Upgrading XP To Windows 7 At Work

Extract Offline Files From PC That Won’t Boot

Upgrade To Windows 7

Windows VS Apple

NTBackup Gives BSOD (BAD_POOL_HEADER) On Shadow Copy

Can’t Print to XP PC From Vista PC

Opening Files In Office 2007 Very Slow

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