Consider It Fixed

Microsoft Security Essentials: Reasonable Security for Free

I'm awfully sick of bulky security products.  You know, those do-anything-anti-everything products from Symantec, McAfee and the others.  Over the last 6 months, my client call volume increased dramatically with complaints of slowing computers.  My customers were not be assaulted by spyware and adware.  They were under assault from their trusted security vendors raising pigs - bloated anti-everything products.  If you have a 3 year old PC with a 2 GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, you may find the machine nearly useless overnight due to the latest antivirus update.

So, I began a quest to find a great security product based on new criteria – it must be small and use limited system resources.  As well, it must install in under 5 minutes.  Anything that takes longer is such a dead giveaway that it’s bloatware.  I started looking at the options and spent time with a number of products including Kaspersky, Viper from SunBelt Software, and ClamWin, an open source antivirus program.  I started installing Kaspersky on a number of client PCs with good results.  

However, there was a downside to this choice.  Most PC users now have access to ‘free’ antivirus software from their internet service providers.  Comcast and AT&T, my 2 providers, offer McAfee to their users at no additional cost.  It’s quite a tempting offer until it renders your PC somewhat useless.

Now enters Microsoft to offer Microsoft Security Essentials.  I have been testing the product on 4 of my PCs, and I must admit, Microsoft has done a decent job on this product.  So far in my testing, I have not seen any problems.  In fact, it’s proving to be a great product.  I'm especially pleased with its performance on my netbook.  Most netbooks are optimized for long battery life – the opposite of performance.  Most antivirus suites kill any remaining performance in a netbook.  But Microsoft Security Essentials' small profile is perfect for these low performance computers.

Here is what I like about Security Essentials:

• It’s readily available at no cost
• It installed very quickly
• It’s small and doesn’t have much overhead
• It installs on Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7
• It can catch most common virus and malware problems

If you are interested in trying it, you can download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials.  Just remember to remove your old bloated antivirus software in the add/remove programs section of the Control Panel before installing it.

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The Dependency Service or Group Failed to Start

In the past week, I encountered a curious problem on 2 clients' Windows Vista PCs.  The symptom are:

• A red "X" on the network icon in the tray displaying the pop message - Connection status: Unknown The dependency service or group failed to start
• The PC is able to see available wireless networks
• The PC connects to available wireless networks but the status is limited and cannot connect to the Internet
• Both systems are running Windows Vista and Trend Micro virus protection

I spent a lot of time researching this problem and found that the error message "The Dependency Service or Group Failed to Start" is a somewhat generic message addressing Windows services issues.  I also found that many Internet help sites are littered with tons of bad information on this issue.  I tried many of the 'fixes' without success.  Then I found a thread on Microsoft's TechNet Forum that correctly identified my clients' problem and offered a fix that worked.  So, I give credit to Terry Downing for the fix. It worked like a charm. 

The problem:  Trend Micro's virus protection is getting confused and mistakenly identifies a Windows file as being infected with a virus.  In its efforts to remove the supposed virus, it corrupts the Windows Network Location Awareness service.  This service collects and stores network configuration information for the network and notifies programs when this information is modified.  If this service is stopped, configuration information might be unavailable.  If this service is disabled, any service that explicitly depends on it will fail to start.  The Network List Service will not run when the Network Location Awareness service is disabled.  Hence, the error message that a dependency service failed to start.  The Network Location Awareness service is found in nlasvc.dll which is located in the system32 directory.

Above is a screenshot of the Services window in the Computer Management window with Network Location Awareness service highlighted.

The fix: The corrupted system file, nlasvc.dll, needs to be replaced with a working version of the file.  For your convenience, I have put a copy of it here.  Click on the link to download the file:

nlasvc.dll

If you need to delete or overwrite a system file in Windows Vista, you'll quickly notice that you cannot delete system files, even as administrator.  This is because Windows Vista's system files are owned by the TrustedInstaller service by default and Windows File Protection will keep them from being overwritten.  Thankfully, there's a way that you can get around this.  You need to take ownership of the files, and then assign yourself rights to delete or modify the file.  For this, we'll use the command line.

First, open an administrator command prompt by typing cmd into the start menu search box, and hit the Ctrl+Shift+Enter key combination.

To take ownership of the file, you'll need to use the takeown command.

At the command prompt type: takeown /f c:\windows\system32\nlasvc.dll

That will give you ownership of the file, but you still have no rights to delete, move and rename it.  Next, you need to run the cacls command to give yourself full control rights to the file:

At the command prompt type: cacls c:\windows\system32\nlasvc.dll /G your username:F

Make sure that you replace "your username" with your username exactly as it is spelled for the currently active user account on your computer.

At this point, you should be able to change the file.  Rename the file from nlasvc.dll to nlasvc.dll.old.  Next, copy the new source file that you downloaded from above to c:\windows\system32.

Once the file has been replaced you need to set the permissions back to its original state.  Locate nlasvc.dll in c:\windows\system32 in the Windows File Manager.  Right mouse button click on the file and choose Properties.

Click Security tab; Click Advanced button; Click Owner tab; Click Edit button; Click Other User or Group and type in NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller.

Press Ok on all dialogs until all property dialogs are closed.  Restart the PC and you should be back in business.

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Computer repair in West Hartford, Computer repair in Avon, Computer repair in Simsbury, Computer repair in Farmington, Computer repair in Newington, Computer repair in Canton, Computer repair in Hartford, Computer repair in Bloomfield, Computer repair in Unionville, Computer repair in Wethsfield, Computer repair in Glastonbury

Is LastPass the Last Password Manager that I Will Ever Need?

I have been using a password manager for a long time.  My first was Roboform on the PC.  When I moved to the Mac, it was 1Password.  Both password management programs are excellent.  In fact, many would say 'best in class'.  But, and this is a big BUT, neither program is cross-platform.  By my viewpoint, that is unacceptable today. 

In an effort to find a strong, cross-platform solution, I turned to my blog and wrote, Password Managers with Cross Platform Support: Where Are They?  The next day, a reader commented, "LastPass.com is what you are looking for."  So, went to check it out.  I now use it on all of my computers including Windows XP, Vista, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu.

Screen shot of LastPass Vault

Screen shot of LastPass site sidebar in FireFox OS X

The program has a wide range of capabilities, but it is well constructed and installs easily so you don't need to be a nerd to use it.  It works in IE and Firefox browsers.  It synchronizes information between machines and my LastPass Vault is available to any computer on the Internet.  It recognizes webpage logins, autofils forms, manages scraps of data, displays logins effectively as a sidebar in the browser, and much, much more.  If you are looking for a better way to manage your passwords and fill forms, LastPass may be it.  You can check it out here: lastpass.com

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                     860-985-7300

Computer repair in West Hartford, Computer repair in Avon, Computer repair in Simsbury, Computer repair in Farmington, Computer repair in Newington, Computer repair in Canton, Computer repair in Hartford, Computer repair in Bloomfield, Computer repair in Unionville, Computer repair in Wethsfield, Computer repair in Glastonbury

Microsoft Windows 7: Vista 2.0

Before you read on, you need to understand that I spent the best years of my career life working for Microsoft.  I started evangelizing Windows to corporate America in 1989.  I lived, breathed and knew everything about Microsoft Windows.  I recently began evaluating Microsoft Windows 7 in a most unorthodox way.  I'm evaluating it on a MacBook Pro.  Oh, shame on me!

Here is what I did.  I started a virtual machine (VM) running Windows XP on my Macbook Pro.  I opened Internet Explorer, connected to the Windows 7 download page and downloaded the WIndows 7 image file (ISO) to my desktop.  Next, I opened up Parallels Desktop for Mac version 4 (build 4.0.3810) and setup a new VM using the Parallels profile called 'Windows 7 (experimental)'.  I simply pointed the VM wizard at the ISO file, allocated 2GB of RAM and 32GB of hard drive space, and that was it.  Installation completed without a problem, I restarted the VM, installed Parallel Tools, restarted the VM, and Windows 7.0 came to life in a Window on my Mac desktop.

First impressions are very important.  People adopt or abandon products based on this.  My first impression of Windows 7 was that it looked an awful lot like Windows Vista.  The only immediately noticeable difference was in the look of the Windows Taskbar.  Windows 7 looked good, ran very responsively, and I immediately noticed that it didn't appear to suffer from the lag in performance that Windows Vista did under Parallels.  I do have Windows Vista installed on my Mac, but I rarely use it because I think that the performance is poor.  I use Windows XP under Parallels, because it runs much better and lets me run the same Windows applications as Windows Vista.  So, it's sort of a 'no brainer' to select Windows XP over Vista.  I played around with Windows 7 for a couple of hours, installed Kaspersky's virus protection, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Money.  All went smoothly and I continued to like what I saw.  The performance combined with the user interface refinements looked good.  You could sort of say that Windows 7 is really Windows Vista 2.  Too bad that Microsoft seems to want to forget Windows Vista.

Next, I started to test some of the settings in Parallels to see how Windows 7 would integrate in the Mac environment.  Parallels offers a few different way to run VMs.  They are referred to as Coherence, Full Screen, Window, and Modality.  I typically use everything by Modality as I still haven't figured out what it's for.  Running Windows 7 under Coherence really caught my attention.  Coherence runs Windows applications in individual windows on the Mac desktop.  It's pretty cool.  But in previous builds of Parallels, there was a rather awkward Windows menu bar that hovered just above the Mac Dock bar.  It was odd and didn't look too good.  In the new build of Parallels, the Windows Taskbar is hidden by default.  So, you start with a very clean,  highly integrated look.  To access the Windows menu system, you can simply click on the Parallels icon or the icon for any of the Windows applications that are running.  I found this to be very cool and totally enjoyed the level of integration and performance that I was seeing.  I found myself marveling at the combined level of integration between the 2 operating systems.  It looks like the computing world will have something very nice to use from Microsoft by the end of this year.  Running it on a Mac makes it even better as you can choose the best of class applications from both worlds.

This image shows Windows 7 running in coherence mode under Parallels running Internet Explorer beside Apple Safari with a Windows Gadget sitting on the desktop.

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Black Screen of Death

Does your display suddenly go black and your computer shut off?  If it does, you may be suffering from what I call the black screen of death.  When this happens to most people, they simply restart their computer and move on.  When it happens again, they get confused and often think that they have a virus or spyware infection.   After scanning, and usually not finding much, the computer goes black again. 

Fixing computers requires a fair amount of detective work.  It's very helpful to look closely at the computer's behavior,  and to identify any patterns that appear to repeating.  In this case, the screen usually goes black and the computer powers off.  However, sometimes the screen goes black and there is a small flashing cursor in the upper left corner as the computer does not power off.  If this is the case, the computer doesn't easily restart and unplugging the power cord or holding down the reset button may be the only way to get it to start again.  Another telling bit of information is if the computer is making loud fan noise.  Users often complain that their computers are making a lot of noise.  The typical 'noise' is that of cooling fans blowing continuously, never cycling down.

These are the signs and symptoms of an overheating computer.  Nearly all computers built today have a thermal switch.  When the computer reaches a certain high temperature, it shuts itself down to prevent heat damage.  Without this switch, the computer could be irreversibly damaged, and at high temperatures, become a fire risk.  Computers accumulate a lot of dust and hair around their fans and vents.  This is especially the case with computers that are left powered on for extended periods of time and/or are used around pets that shed.  As the computers collect dust and hair, their cooling systems need to work harder.  So, the fans work harder and stay on longer as they can never reduce the temperature to the point where the fans are instructed slow down or power off.  Hence, the increased fan noise.

Dust and hair are not the only causes of overheating.  Here is a simple list of other causes:

• Defective cooling fans
• Blocked airways and vents
• Unseated or underpowered heat sinks
• Dust and hair accumulations that physically stop cooling fans
• Laptops sitting on pillows and blanket that block their cooling vents

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                    860-985-7300

Insidious MS AntiVirus 2009

In the last month, 5 customers have called me about a parasite called MS Antivirus 2009.  MS Antivirus 2009, and others in its sick family tree like XP Antivirus 2008, are infecting Windows computers at an alarming rate.  All of my customers had modern, up to date antivirus programs installed and they still got it. Ouch!

The first sign of an infection by MS Antivirus 2009 is usually this: a window opens on the  computer that looks just like the Windows Security Center and it claims that you have no virus  or spyware protection installed.  This usually gets the user's attention and leads to the opening of a scanner that tells the user that they are infected with a number of things.  This is usually followed by an offer - give some money and this software product, MS Antivirus 2009 will remove the problem.  Two of my customers believed this ruse enough to offer up their credit cards.  And guess what - the problem didn't go away.  It actually got worse.   The result was a computer with disabled menus, no access to utilities in the control panel, the deletion of system restore saved states, popups, and system reboots.  So, you just can't use your computer.

In my experience, one of the best sources of information on a virus or parasite is a Google search.  I can often find loads of useful information very quickly and be well on my way to removing a pesky varmint.   This was not the case with MS Antivirus.  A Google search does lead  to several pieces of information, but many of the hits end up on web sites claiming to be able to remove MS Antivirus but for a fee.  They offer a download link to a free scanner, but when you want to remove the pest, they want money.  Gosh, doesn't that sound an awful lot like the parasite that we just discussed?  Call me paranoid, but doesn't it make you wonder that the vendors detecting this parasite and selling a solution to its removal may just have something to do with the problem.  The availability of these solutions is just too convenient, and for me, hard to trust.

Here's my recommendation:  In the business of fixing computers, I've learned that customers want simple solutions - keep the cost down and guarantee that the pest is gone.  I can't trust these no name spyware scanners.  I can't trust registry hacks and file deletions.  My approach is to fix MS Antivirus infections the old fashion way.   Remove all important data from the PC; format the hard drive; reinstall the operating system, applications, and virus protection; and then put the data back.  All in all, it takes about 2 to 3 hours of work, but I can guarantee a good result.

One additional note: If you see the first signs of an infection which is usually a popup window that looks like Microsoft's Windows Secutiry Center claiming that you don't have virus protection, don't click on anything related to it.  Go right to system restore and restore your PC back to a previous date.  If you can do this, you will be one of the lucky ones like my friend David. 

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                    860-985-7300

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Cheap Laptops Are Finally Good

In my business, I help clients select new computers.  Until recently, I told my clients that they should expect to pay about $1200 to $1400 for a decent laptop.  I typically steered them away for the advertised 'cheap laptops' from Dell and the like.  In my experience, they were underpowered, lacked adequate RAM to get real work done, and left the user regretting the purchase as they were just too slow to enjoy using.  Today, I'm pleased to report that is no longer the case.  The low end laptop, when picked properly,  now has serious power to do serious work.

Here are a few examples of laptops that I found at a few reputable web-based computer sellers:

From Best Buy's Outlet Center at $599 each:

Laptop #1: Gateway - Model: T-6836 | SKU: 8892861; Intel® Core™2 Duo mobile processor T5750; 4GB DDR2 memory; DL DVD±RW/CD-RW drive; Labelflash technology; 14.1" widescreen; 250GB hard drive; built-in webcam; Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit with SP1

Laptop #2: HP Pavilion - Model: dv6835nr | SKU: 8780125; Intel® Core™2 Duo mobile processor T5550; 3GB DDR2 memory; DL DVD±RW/CD-RW drive; 15.4" widescreen; 250GB hard drive; built-in Web cam; Windows Vista Home Premium with SP1

From eCOST.com at $509:

Laptop #3: HP Pavilion - Model: DV6915NR eCOST.com Part #42260062 2.0GHz AMD Turion X2 Dual Core TL-60 Processor, 3GB RAM, 200GB Hard Drive, DVD+/-R/RW DL w/ LightScribe, Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG, NVIDIA GeForce 7150, 15.4" WXGA HD Display, Webcam, Windows Vista Home Premium (HP Recertified)

From Circuit City Outlet at $579.96:

Laptop #4: Toshiba Satellite L305D-S5881 15.4" Widescreen Laptop Model #: TOS L305DS5881 - AMD Turion 64 X2 RM-70, 3GB of DDR2 memory, Built-in webcam, 200GB hard drive, Burns DVDs and CDs, Windows Vista Home Premium

From Newegg.com at $599.99:

Laptop #5: Acer Aspire AS5730-4163 NoteBook Intel Pentium dual-core T3200(2.00GHz) 15.4" Wide XGA 4GB Memory 320GB HDD DVD Super Multi Intel GMA 4500M

From Geeks.com at $599.99

Laptop #6: Dell Inspiron 1525 Core 2 Duo T5750 2.0GHz 3GB 250GB DVD±RW 15.4" Vista Home Premium (Brown) (Refurbished)

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Carbonite - Good Backup Cheap

Backup is something that you do after you lose your data. It's the truth. Your Mother can't teach you about backup. You simply learn about it after you crash, or delete, or overwrite. And it hurts.

Every week, I get a call from some freaked out user. The common complaint, "I turned off my  computer last night. This morning I turned it on and it says something about not being able to find the operating system. Does this mean that I've lost my files?"

It's important to understand that hard drives crash. They are mechanical devices that are measured in an honest statistic call mean time between failures (MTBF). It's not mean time between successes. While the MTBF continues to increase with the release of new hard drives, which is good, in any production run of hard drives, some are going to last 5 seconds and others will last 10 years. So, which one did you purchase?

Enter the need for backup. There is a program available that will automatically backup the data on your hard drive over the Internet. It simply works reliably, and get this, you can get unlimited data storage space for $49.95 a year. Now you have to trust me on this – I've tried nearly all of the Internet-based backup systems available. If you have a large amount of data as I do, they cost a lot, and don't work well. The secret to successful Internet-based backup is to be able to first make a complete backup of all data and then backup only changed or new data. If you try to do this with a large amount of data, most of these programs fail miserably. Some companies even resort to suggesting that you send your data to them on an external hard drive to create the initial backup. Humm… doesn't sound like the Internet-based services that I want.

The program that I am talking about is called Carbonite - www.carbonite.com.  Check it out.  You will be impressed.  Now you can Consider It Fixed!

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                     860-985-7300

Printer Sharing Problem in Windows Vista

My overall experience with Windows Vista release code has been very favorable. I'm now using it on all of my PCs that are capable of running it successfully. Windows Vista has allowed me to do everything I used to do with Windows XP and much more.  However, I had one lingering problem that I wasn't able to resolve until today - accessing a Windows XP shared printer from a Windows Vista PC. I searched for a solution and tried every recommendation without success but I always got the same message - "Windows cannot connect to the printer.  Access is denied."  In searching for a solution on the Internet, I encountered several users who were just as frustrated as I was.  I knew I wasn't alone.

I give credit to no@email.com who posted the following fix on microsoft.public.windows.vista.networking_sharing.

Here it is:

Problem: A Windows XP PC on the network has a shared printer attached that other PCs running Windows XP can use. However, Windows Vista PCs on the network (even though they can connect to and access files on the Windows XP PC) get an "Access is denied" message when they try to connect to the printer.

Fix: Add the printer to the Windows Vista PC using the Control Panel and set up the printer (the one that you want to access as a network printer) as a local printer - Control Panel/Printers/Add a Printer/Add a Local Printer/Use the existing port LPT1:, etc. Do not set up the new printer as a network printer yet.

After the driver in installed, go to Printers, right click on the new printer and select  Properties/Ports/Add Port. Make sure that Local Port is selected from the list and then select New Port. When the Enter a Port Name field comes up,  manually add a new Local Port as follows: \\computer_name\shared_printer_name as the port name. For example, if the computer name for the Windows XP PC sharing the printer is "johnPC" and the shared printer is "HP LaserJet" enter \\johnPC\HP_LaserJet then select OK. Now return to the port list and select the newly created post as the active port for the printer. To test the printer, open Word and print to the newly created printer. Hopefully, you will be as happy as I was. Now you can Consider It Fixed!

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                     860-985-7300

Computer repair in West Hartford, Computer repair in Avon, Computer repair in Simsbury, Computer repair in Farmington, Computer repair in Newington, Computer repair in Canton, Computer repair in Hartford, Computer repair in Bloomfield, Computer repair in Unionville, Computer repair in Wethsfield, Computer repair in Glastonbury