Windows secret updates affecting "repair" function
Thursday, September 27, 2007
I blogged some time back about Microsoft installing stealth updates on people's computers, even if the computer user has disabled Windows' automatic updates feature.
Well now, Windows Secrets is reporting that these stealth updates are seemingly now stopping the "repair" function on Windows from working properly. However, all is not lost as Windows Secrets offers a workaround by making a batch file to register the missing DLL's yourself. The article offers a step-by-step easy guide.
What other damage have these stealth updates wreaked on people's PC's? I shudder to think.
Microsoft releases Service Pack 3 for Microsoft Office 2003
Today I was prompted by Windows Automatic Updates to download "Service Pack 3" for Microsoft Office 2003.
Clocking in at 114MB, this service pack seemingly contains "security enhancements and stability improvements" for the Office suite, so in other words, it fixes security vulnerabilities and bugs. So you won't see any differences in the appearance of your office programs but behind the scenes, some holes and bugs have been zapped.
Just go to Microsoft Update and start the scan. The service pack appears under "important updates" and once downloaded and installed, you'll be asked to re-boot your computer. So make sure you're not in the middle of anything important when you do this.
I've been spending some time today, as I always do, doing upgrading and patching of my PC and the installed programs therein. It's really important to keep on top of upgrading and patching and so I have been upgrading Adobe Flash Player, Sun Java and there is a small patch for Skype (just click the "check for updates" button on your Skype app) and AVG Anti-Virus users note that AVG today released three urgent updates, one of which was so big that AVG had to be shut down and re-started for the changes to take effect. But please also note that AVG only downloads one update at a time so you will have to press the "check for updates" button three times to get them all.
A lot of my upgrading and patching is set to be done automatically (such as Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Windows) but it seems that even if you have switched off automatic updates from Windows, the Redmond Goliath will act as a hacker and still covertly download them on your computer regardless of your wishes. Most people are not aware of this as Windows does not ask your permission by displaying any kind of dialogue box but I was alerted to the situation by a blogger friend who checked his system logs. I subsequently found out that a computer newsletter also reported on the situation as well.
Why is this bad? Well because some people, such as myself, like to check on each patch to make sure that it is not causing anyone any problems BEFORE we download it. Some patches are just rushed out half-cocked and it's only when the thing is installed that problems start happening. So I have begun to investigate each patch by its reference number and I have started to search online on the Microsoft website and also other people's blogs to see if anyone has been reporting any strange occurrences with that particular patch. So for Microsoft to take that freedom out of our hands and covertly install the patch against our wishes is a blatant invasion of our computers and a demonstration of supreme arrogance on the part of Microsoft.
The patch version number is "Windows Update Software 7.0.6000.381" and the only place where this patch is explained is on a Microsoft Communities forum. According to that forum, the patch is "an update to Windows Update itself. Unless the update is installed, Windows Update won't work". Which is all well and good but why did Microsoft not build in a dialogue box into the Windows OS to tell people this update was being downloaded? Or announce it publicly on their website? Why the sneaky underhanded method by pushing it at us unannounced and under the radar?
Apparently in Vista, the following files are updated :
To check to see if you have the stealth patch (and there's no reason why you shouldn't have it if you're running Windows), just open the Windows Event Log by going to the start menu and then "run". Enter eventvwr.msc and press Enter. Choose "System" in the left window and go to the Windows Update Agent entries for August 24th 2007. If you have entries like these, you have the covert patches.
But do NOT uninstall them. They are perfectly fine functioning patches. The issue here is the lack of transparency on the part of Microsoft in not announcing what they were downloading onto our machines. I would call that kind of behaviour unethical and I'm sure you would too.
I am a total fanatic about speed. I want computer / internet things to go fast. To quote Top Gun, "I feel the need, the need for speed!".
Nothing aggravates me more than something going as slow as a 56k modem. Since I have DSL broadband, I figure it isn't asking much for my Firefox browser to open within the next century or for Gmail to load before it gets out of beta. So I am constantly looking for hacks and tweaks to make things go faster. I am constantly tweaking the Windows Registry to disable non-essentials and to make other things go faster. When I re-boot the computer, I am sitting there with a stop-watch timing how long it takes for the PC to re-boot fully.
As a result, I have noticed the Windows OS speeding up more but three programs are still refusing to speed up for me - Firefox, Gmail and Microsoft Word (Word being the biggest offender). But I have found a few interesting tips that have helped to a certain degree :
Firefox : strip down all non-essential extensions first of all, including any unnecessary Greasemonkey scripts. This includes anything that has no real practical use but only makes the browser look pretty (such as Color Tabs). Once that's done, right-click on the Firefox shortcut on your PC desktop and in the target box (where it says "C:\Programme\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"), put /prefetch:1 at the end to now make the link "C:\Programme\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" /prefetch:1 . What does this do? It makes the Windows operating system cache the Firefox browser to make it open faster (Windows normally does this with Internet Explorer so you're basically switching it around so Windows does it with Firefox instead). You will need to open and close Firefox a few times though to see any change but eventually I HAVE noticed Firefox speeding up slightly.
I also found this which is a tweak to the about:config browser feature. I did what the author suggested and nothing appears to be going wrong as a result!
Another thing which has helped is uninstalling any unnecessary toolbars and browser buttons. So choose your one favourite toolbar (mine is the irreplaceable Google Toolbar) and disable the rest. I strongly recommend avoiding the Yahoo toolbar which in my opinion is bloated and not as flexible as the Google Toolbar.
Remove any buttons from your browser which you don't need (right-click on the bar and choose "customise"). I eventually managed to get everything I needed onto one bar and the difference in speed is noticable. The appearance of the browser is also nicer and sleeker. Less really is more.
Gmail : This is a tough one which has annoyed me for ages. I love Gmail but its loading speed is embarrassingly long. But some things I have picked up in my speed quest. In the "settings", choose 25 conversations for your main view (you can choose to have up to 100 conversations in your main view which REALLY slows things down). Disable any unnecessary Greasemonkey scripts and any other unnecessary features in the Gmail settings. Install the Better Gmail extension and in the options, remove the invitation box (remove the labels box too if you feel you don't need it). The key is to not give Gmail too much to load up and to strip it down to the bare minimum that you need. Even with these changes though, it COULD be a lot faster.
Microsoft Word : I have NOT found anything about speeding up MS Word. If anyone can provide any tips on how to make MS Word open faster and load "doc" files faster, I would be grateful. I use MS Word a lot and so far it is really annoying me when it can take up to 15 seconds to open a document (which might not sound a lot but you sit at your PC for 15 seconds and you'll realise quickly what I mean). At times I am seriously tempted to install Open Office which does the same job as MS Office and is free.
Oh and before I forget, the award for the slowest installation ever goes to iTunes. I installed the upgrade to iTunes yesterday evening and it took a staggering 16 minutes to upgrade an already-existing program. It refreshed "registered components" 6 times, removed "security features" 5 times and by the time it announced to great fanfare that it was finished, I was blinking unbelievably at the PC clock, trying to work out if I had got the 16 minutes time wrong. But nope, it started at 21.41 and ended at 21.57. Then when I opened iTunes, I couldn't see any difference between that version and the last version!
Any other speed freaks here with tips on making the computer go faster? Put them in the comments!
Shutting down, rebooting and aborting from the desktop
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Has it ever irritated you that when you want to shut down your PC, you have to go to the "Start" menu? Well I found an easy way to make a shutdown button which sits on the desktop along with a "reboot" button and an "abort" button which cancels the shutdown or reboot if you change your mind.
Just follow the instructions here. Normally I would post screenshots but since I use a German computer, I figured it was pretty useless showing German language screenshots if you don't know German. But I think the following instructions are clear enough :
1) Right-click on the desktop and choose New then Shortcut. 2) When the box comes up, browse to the file C:\Windows\System32\Shutdown.exe, click Next, name the shortcut, and click Finish. 3) Now right-click on your new shortcut and choose Properties. In the Target box (the box which shows the location of the Shutdown.exe program), attach one of the following commands at the end : -l (to log off), -s (to shut down), or -r (to reboot).
If you also add the command -t xx (where xx is a number of seconds), your shutdown procedure will display a warning and countdown before activating. I chose 10 seconds which is more than enough time.
You can also specify a comment to be displayed with the warning by adding the command -c "Your text". This is quite amusing as you can give yourself a personalised shutdown message such as "Goodbye Mark!"
Once the shutdown / reboot button is activated, the only way to stop the computer from shutting down / rebooting is to launch the shutdown program again with the -a (for abort) command in the target box of the shortcut. So it would be best to repeat the above process and also make an "abort" button for your desktop too.
I even gave my new buttons nice South Park icons :
During one of my many computer spring-cleaning sessions, I discovered you can uninstall Windows components you may consider unnecessary using the "Add or Remove Programs" option from the Windows XP Control Panel.
Launch it and click the "Add/Remove Windows Components" button at the left of the box and choose what you want to remove. However some Microsoft programs installed on your computer (such as MSN Messenger) are deliberately hidden from this list. Here's how you tell Windows not to hide those components and how to make them appear in the list when you click on "Add/Remove Windows Components".
In Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\Windows\Inf and make a copy of the file Sysoc.inf. When you double-click on Sysoc.inf, it will launch in MS Notepad. Press Ctrl-H and replace the string,hide, with ,, and save the file.
Now you'll find that all the hidden Microsoft components appear in "Add/Remove Windows Components" and you can delete what you don't want or need.
One of the websites I monitor by RSS every day is "Giveaway Of The Day" where you can get for free a piece of computer software which you normally have to pay for. But you have to download it, install it and enter the licence key number within the 24 hour time period, otherwise it reverts back to being a paid program. But if you jump through the hoops before the time is up, the software is yours for free forever.
But recently most of what GOTD offered to their visitors has been screensavers and screensavers suck. But a few months back, I got something free from GOTD which is truly wonderful and should have pride of place on any computer (in fact, EVERY computer should have this program by default). It has made my life easier, it has made my blogging easier and with lots of plug-ins, it is an absolute dream to use. It's called SnagIt (and not ShagIt as I saw someone call it in their blog one time!).
SnagIt is basically screen capturing software. Now I can hear everyone saying "ah but we have the screen print button on the keyboard for that!". Well let me be the first to say that the screen print button sucks big time compared to SnagIt. Using SnagIt, you can either make an image file of part of the screen (such as an error message) or the whole webpage. You can then use SnagIt to instantly drop that image into an email message, Word document, Excel document, Powerpoint presentation, or even a Skype chat window (using the great plug-ins available). This is especially useful if you are discussing something which you can see on your computer screen and the other person needs to see what you see. Just snap a quick picture and email it to them within minutes. You can also make crystal-clear copies of embedded images from documents such as a Word file or an Adobe PDF file.
What I also especially like is the Firefox extension which allows you to run the program from your Firefox browser toolbar. Just a couple of clicks with the extension and the photo is taken. Easy. Even a little kid could do it.
SnagIt is also great for bloggers because it makes clear beautiful screenshots. All of the webpage pictures on this page were made by SnagIt and making each picture only takes less than a minute.
The Giveaway Of The Day free offer is long finished so anyone wanting SnagIt now has to pay for it. But I would say that this is a program that I would have been more than willing to pay for. I don't normally say that but SnagIt has the "WOW!" factor that mostly eludes me. I have never had any problems with SnagIt and I don't anticipate any in the future. Plus all future upgrades are easy to install.
In fact this program is so great that Microsoft should buy them and have the SnagIt software pre-installed on every new computer along with the Windows operating system. Who needs a crappy little screen print button if you can have SnagIt instead?
