Free Computer Consultant ………. Daily Insights

Software as a service is a generally bad idea that I have written about before.

For those who don’t value my opinion, perhaps you will listen to security expert Bruce Schneier or Marcus Ranum. In Bruce’s most recent Crypt-O-Gram he and Marcus mention how Software as a Service is really a trick that allows businesses to lock up their customers indefinitely.

He specifically mentions the phenomenally popular iPhone which allows only certain companies to provide software for it. And on the other side of the PC - Mac gulf, Microsoft’s Trusted Computing initiative is really another lock-in measure, one touted as a security measure.

Nice to be in good company.

I think it’s the current version of Windows Installer. Microsoft has never been known for cleaning up after themselves after installs, but come on, guys.

Every time I do anything that involves Windows Installer I have all of these language .bin files left behind in my temp folder (which for me is C:\Temp, nice and easy to get to - not C:\Documents and Settings\%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Temp).

These files are, to name a few,  Turkish.bin, Norwegian.bin, Hungarian.bin, Hebrew.bin; useless files for an American speaking English thank you very much.

Some poor, understaffed, not-too-bright software publishing company I might give a pass to, but Microsoft? How many of you still have directories on C: root that look like a random character string? Those are probably from a “much needed” XML Parser update.

Happy Pet Peave day.

The easy way to install Windows Recovery Console is to have the i386 directory already copied to your C drive.

1. Get to a command prompt. Start | Run , type: cmd
2. type: Cd \i386
3. type: winnt32 /cmdcons

After it installs (do be connected to the internet when it installs, it may download updated files), you will want to reduce the prompt time at boot up by right-clicking your My Computer icon, select properties, click on the advanced tab then click the settings button under “Startup and Recovery”.

Reduce “Time to display list of operating systems” to somewhere between 3 and 5 seconds. Depending on your PC, 3 seconds might not give you a chance to see the menu and 5 may just delay boot time.

You aren’t done yet..

Test. Reboot and test.

Some PC’s require a driver in order for Windows Recovery Console to be able to read the hard drive. If the PC won’t boot to the console, then you likely need a driver. This is done by pressing F6 when prompted and having the proper driver on a floppy disk in your A: drive.

Don’t have an A: drive? (besides on a laptop). Then you have succumbed to the stupidity of the PC makers/sellers who think they are outdated but don’t know squat about the behemoth from Redmond still relying on them.

Why does Microsoft INSIST on that driver coming from the A: drive? I have no idea.

But if you have a laptop or a desktop with a floppy drive, about $30 bucks will buy you a USB floppy drive.

Just what I needed. BOClean’s update on or about 12/18/2007 misidentified userinit.exe as having malware. And if you either have BOClean configured for “unattended cleanup and removal”, which I no longer recommend, or answered “yes” to delete the file when prompted, then next time you tried to logon to Windows XP it would logoff immediately. Userinit.exe was gone.

Ok, how to fix?

Well, I always install Windows Recovery Console when I setup a new PC; and I always copy the i386 directory from the Windows XP CD to the C drive. That lets me boot to the Windows Recovery Console and execute the command:

Expand C:\i386\UserInit.ex_ C:\Windows\System32

then reboot and problem solved.

Otherwise, you get to boot from your Windows XP CD and get into the Windows Recovery Console that way and expand the file on the CD.

Microsoft never misses a chance to really torque me off with their “home” versions of Windows. Windows Vista Home Premium is fine for most people - at home, but it lacks two features that I see no justification in leaving out.

Vista Home Premium does not allow remote control via remote desktop. This is an exceptionally handy feature, especially for someone trying to help you out (potentially) and becomes a real advantage if you buy a Windows Home Server.  Why leave this feature out (other than to torque me off)?

And Windows complete backup and restore. Come on, even if you don’t like it as a tool, doesn’t it sound good to say that you have included a complete backup and restore utility in your product? Seems like good PR to me.

If it weren’t for the price issue, and it is an issue - you don’t get much extra for the price, I would just load Ultimate on everything. Ok, so Bitlocker is a valuable feature; most won’t use it anyway, so why not just give it to them?

Microsoft needs ONE version of Windows for the workstation. Price it to sell, not be stolen. Then watch your customers line up to buy it with a smile on their face. That would be something new for Microsoft, wouldn’t it?

Windows Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1) is being released in stages, which is good. Otherwise we would have to wait until the entire service pack is ready before receiving certain fixes.

Many IT professionals will refuse to use a new release of Windows until SP1 is available - as it’s always needed it seems.

One aspect of Vista has received perhaps more angry accusations than any other. WGA (Windows Genuine Authentication) is touted by Microsoft as being anti-piracy, but is really more of an anti-fair-use policy.

True software pirates have ways of making their pirated software work long enough to collect the money. It’s the people who own legitimate copies of Vista who are being hurt the most.

WGA in Vista as it stands can potentially “kill” or severely limit Vista if it feels you don’t have a genuine version. Usually, a waste of time call to Microsoft in India will get you going if you truly own your software. But forcing that phone call justifiably angers many honest Microsoft customers.

Customers who then look for alternatives to Windows.

Microsoft says it has done away with the “kill switch” in Vista SP1 in favor of a more friendly message telling the user how to get genuine or at least appear like it to Vista.

At the same time, they say they have plugged a couple of holes that let hackers fool Vista into thinking it doesn’t need to check.

It’s a good thing. Too bad so many honest customers have had to pay the price for Microsoft’s draconian policy.

A new PC that a client wanted me to setup came with IE7 already installed. Not my choice.

But they wondered where the familiar Internet Explorer desktop icon was. If you customize your desktop, the checkbox is gone from that screen also.

Well, it turns out that this is not a bug, but by design.

If you want the IE7 Desktop Icon, the simple instructions are found here.

It requires a registry change, if you aren’t comfortable with the registry, get help. And always backup the registry first before making any changes to it.

Then right click the desktop and select refresh when done.

A couple days ago my wife got one of those annoying emails warning of the “Life is Beautiful.pps” powerpoint attachments which, if opened, it warned, would wipe out your entire C: drive. And, and this is the good part, they get your PASSWORD too!

Just so you don’t check it out yourself, at the bottom of the email it says “verified by Snopes.com”. Which of course, it isn’t..Snopes exposes the hoax. So does TruthOrFiction.com. But people don’t check things out for themselves.

It’s a hoax that dates back to 2002.

Your first clue is the “it will wipe out your hard drive”. Very few viruses ever did. Why would they? They want to profit from their work and wiping out your hard drive just doesn’t pay. They want to turn your machine into a spam bot that they control. At least nowadays they do. There have been some malicious, destructive viruses, they just aren’t that prevalent.

My wife of course sent that family an email with a link to both snopes.com’s review of the hoax and truthorfiction’s with the suggestion that they send out a correction to everyone.

With one BIG difference.

We suggested they use BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) instead of the CC that they used on their email. Why? We sent this link also:

Why and How to use BCC.

Bottom line is that not using BCC exposes our email address to spam and gives our address to everyone they know. Sorry, but our email is kinda private - primarily because we don’t like spam.

Making that person look bad

We chose not to make that person look bad and sent our email to just them (She replied instead of “reply to all”). But you know what? They never did send out a correction. Probably didn’t read about BCC either. That’s just rude, IMHO. If I ever send out faulty info, I send a correction as soon as I’m made aware of it. Everyone should.

The next day someone else did a “Reply to All”. Another reason to use BCC. This other person pointed out the hoax for them to everyone else. Makes them look kinda stupid. Much more so than if they would have sent the correction themselves.

But even this second person used CC instead of BCC and the resulting email was such a disaster that I didn’t even look at it the first time. Only when I wanted to blog about how bad it was did I see, clear at the bottom, the purpose for their correspondence.

Folks, I know it sounds like I’m just trying to generate sales, and yes, I do appreciate the sales, but take a look at my email etiquette ebook - I’m still selling it for less than 10 bucks.

Is it worth 10 bucks to not look so inept? Is it worth 10 bucks to have people read your email instead of deleting it on sight?

Check out my email etiquette ebook here.

Want to see what this disaster of an email looked like? Get your barf bag ready…

(intentionally blurred to protect the innocent)

Then, eventually..

here’s the original message: (Direct from Microsoft & Norton! - rrriiiiight!)

>
> Many of you may have already received this – but am passing it along.
>
>
>
> Anyone-using Internet mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on.
>>>
>>> This information arrived this morning, Direct from both Microsoft
>>> and Norton.
>>>
>>> Please send it to everybody you know who has access to the Internet.
>>>
>>> You may receive an apparently harmless e-mail with a Power Point
>>> presentation ‘ Life is Beautiful’
>>> If you receive it DO NOT OPEN THE FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and
>>> delete it immediately.
>>>
>>> If you open this file, a message will appear on your screen saying:
>>> ‘It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful.’
>>>
>>> Subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC, And the person who
>>> sent it t o you will gain access to your name, e-mail and password.
>>>
>>> This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon.
>>> AOL has already confirmed the severity, and the anti virus
> software’s are
>>> not capable of destroying it.
>>>
>>> The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself ‘life owner’.
>>>
>>> PLEASE SEND A COPY OF THIS E-MAIL TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS, And ask them
>>> to PASS IT ON IMMEDIATELY!
>>> THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BY SNOPES
>
> ———————————————————————-
> –

Then a signature block here with a favorite quote (omitted)

>
>
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.6/1150 - Release Date:
> 11/24/2007 5:58 PM
>
>———————————————————————–
>-
>
>No virus found in this incoming message.
>Checked by AVG Free Edition.
>Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.8/1154 - Release Date:
>11/27/2007 11:40 AM
>
>

Then FINALLY, we get to the message that the sender wanted us to know:

This email has been circulating for a long time. Click on the Snopes check below

Snopes.com <http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/life.asp>

How many people will scroll that far down (past all of that GARBAGE) to read what you have to say?

Which is why I prefer to put my reply at the top, and if the person needs to read the history, they can keep reading.

But do you see what I mean?

Enough said.