Free Computer Consultant ………. Daily Insights

Windows Live OneCare is a $49.95/year security suite from Microsoft. And Performance Tune-ups. And Backup and Restore. And I think I’m gonna be sick.

I was reading an e-newsletter this morning detailing that Live OneCare was turning on Windows Update to download, install and, if necessary (isn’t it always?) reboot the PC at the default time of 3am. Live OneCare was doing this without telling the user. Some users had wisely turned off auto download and auto install.

Even if you had DISABLED the appropriate services, Live OneCare was turning them back to “automatic” which means they startup when the PC boots.

People who had been finding this out (the hard way - they wondered why their PC’s were rebooting) seemed shocked.

The average user I will give a small break to; maybe they don’t read much - or watch any news. But any PC professional using Live OneCare instead of a competent security suite (no, not McAfee or Norton) like Trend Micro or ZoneAlarm needs to stand back and think for a moment.

Microsoft? Security Suite?
Microsoft? Performance?

Isn’t that an oxymoron of some type? Multi-Oxymoron?

Here is my email that I sent to the writer of the e-letter:

Why anyone would trust Microsoft for a security package is beyond me.
Microsoft cares about themselves only, and to find that they make changes to your PC that you don’t want made does not surprise me one bit. And their security reputation is so tainted, nay bludgeoned, that it just doesn’t make sense to pay them almost $50/year to screw up your PC.

Do you want me to tell you how I really feel?

Most people use Windows because it’s defacto, or because they can’t afford a Mac.

More people are moving to Linux (like Ubuntu) everyday. I don’t think that trend is going to change, and Vista is just speeding it up.

A lot of people are frustrated with Windows bloatware, and Vista seems to share a quality with Hillary Clinton - Love / Hate relationship. It is said with Hillary that you either love her or hate her and I’m hearing the same about Vista.

For those of us who know what we are doing, we are frustrated by all of the “security” pop ups of Vista. (And no, I can’t just turn them off on other peoples computers.) Some find all of their applications to work just fine under Vista, others find that few work without a lot of legwork finding patches and drivers.

InfoWorld has a nice write up called “Windows to desktop Linux in three easy steps”. I think it’s pretty well done.

I think Ubuntu has a lot of promise. Many people want everything on their PC; and most of them suffer for it.

Others just want to get their work done. And done quickly, please.

At least one person at Microsoft gets it and is trying to change the perception of Windows as bloatware, starting with Windows 7 due in 2010. Here is another InfoWorld article about that here. It’s apparently being referred to currently as MinWin.

About 2 weeks ago I had to clean a client’s home PC. AOL 9 would not run at all (no loss in my mind but…), Internet Explorer would lock up.

This machine was protected by Norton 360, however it appears that the malware was imitating Norton 360 pop up boxes to coerce the user to actually install more malware.

The user had decided not to install the WiFi router on his cable modem since he didn’t need the wireless currently and he apparently forgot that sending out a wireless signal is not the only use for the router!

I cleaned the PC up, installed Firefox, reinstalled AOL 9 and it appeared they were good to go.

Long story short, junior was home alone all day on Wednesday and by Thursday it was malfunctioning again - big time. Junior claims he spent the day only on Facebook. Hmm. (Like that’s a wise use of time.)

Maybe a solution is at hand.

Virtual Machine (VM) software has been around for quite a while. In a nutshell, Virtual Machine technology allows you to run a copy of Windows (like XP) inside another copy of Windows (XP, Vista). Anything that happens to the second copy is trashed as soon as you are done and exit.

So if junior surfs the web, I mean, spends all day on Facebook using a Windows XP Virtual Machine, and loads up all kinds of malware, all he needs to do is exit when he’s done and Dad’s PC is right back the way it started when he fired up the VM Copy of Windows.

Sounds cool, but what’s it cost and where do you get it? Well, Microsoft offers Virtual PC free to anyone. Then you download an appropriate “image” of the “guest” PC you want to run inside of your “host” PC and you’re ready to go.

You are safe while surfing because the Virtual Machine technology builds a barrier between the guest PC running inside of your host PC platform. Changes to the guest do not affect the host.

If you want more robust Virtual Machine technology, including some real cool server options, VMWare is the answer. VMWare, however, is not free. But they do have a free player.

VMWare can be considered superior to Microsoft’s Virtual PC due to its ability to run other operating systems. Want to try KUbuntu? Download here.

Virtual PC 2007 is now available from Microsoft. Get a VM Image of XP with SP2 and Internet Explorer here.

This is great technology and can save you time, money and headaches. Check it out.

Windows Vista is so secure, you can’t use it. At least not without Microsoft’s permission.

On August 24th and 25th, 2007, a software failure in Microsoft WGA caused many Windows Vista users, including myself, to receive a message like this when booting up:

Beautiful, eh?

With Microsoft, paying for the software just isn’t enough. You have to keep proving to them, over and over, that you paid for it. (In the first revision, I wrote own it. But we all know you don’t own any software, right? You license it.)

In current internet parlance: This SUCKS!

I don’t know to what degree this may have hampered businesses, but I hope that if it did a class action lawsuit against Microsoft ensues.

For me it was on a dual boot machine where I had been in XP for a couple of weeks testing some Axis Camera software and I didn’t feel like being a beta tester by using Vista. Since it’s only a test machine it had no real ramifications for me, I just booted back to XP. My time available to screw around with Microsoft problems is limited, you know.

Apparently the fix comes from entering slui.exe -4 at a command prompt and calling a phone number to manually validate Vista. I repeat, this sucks.

Microsoft should eliminate WGA (Windows Genuine Authentication) immediately and guarantee that nothing of this sort will ever happen again.

Email Steve Ballmer (steveb at microsoft dot com) and tell him what you think.

Then check into Ubuntu.

I was cleaning out my bookmarks and came across this great post from John C. Dvorak at PCMag.com. It’s titled Is Vista a Dead End?

I tend to agree with what John is saying here, especially the part about Apple running out of ideas for Microsoft to try to copy (some would say they aren’t very good at it either). It brings to mind the old golf course joke, one guy bragging to the other about all of the things his new copy of Windows 95 would do. The other golfer said that all sounded great; in fact, he had been enjoying all of those features on his Apple since 1985!

The underdog that I have found myself rooting for is Ubuntu. This Linux flavor is gaining lots of momentum, including from Dell Computer.

If I had more time, I’d spend it on Ubuntu. Looks promising. For now, it’s more promising for individuals than corporate desktops, but who knows - in time.