Festive greetings from South America

Hello and good morning (or afternoon for those elsewhere in the world).

I just thought that I'd wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. I'm really going to miss the UK since this will be my first proper Christmas away from home. All that turkey and all the trimmings, alongside meeting up with the relatives and of course the legendary Boxing Day down at John and Jacqui's.

Tonight we're off to Ale's sister's house for a knees-up. although I don't think it will quite match what I've come to expect of Christmas. Here, there is more of a tendency to celebrate on Christmas Eve (BuenaNoche) rather than Christmas Day as we do in Blighty.

I've not been able to send any presents this year due to a) JB still being out of work and b) not having the necessary faith in Uruguay's postal system and/or Customs (Aduana).

I sincerely hope everyone has a great Christmas, and as you all know - I am ready to field any support calls over the festive period. I'm sure people will be getting lots of tech gifts ;-)

Skype uid is johnnyboydotcc

Cheers!

JB

Sneaky Windows - automatic updates turned back on?

I note that a few of the PCs that I support have had their Automatic Updates turned back on to fully automatic recently. They were then hit again with the nonsensical WGA (Windows Genuine DISAdvantage) tool that incorrectly declares that the PC in question has non-genuine software installed.

Now I know this to be false, and have been able to remove this heinous piece of nagware from the PCs, only to find out it gets installed again. Automagically - good old Microsoft.

So a word of advice - if you do need to use the removewga.exe tool, first check that Automatic Updates aren't set to full autopilot or you will end up going round and round in circles.

Virus on your PC? Stuck for ideas??

Install AVG8 first

http://free.avg.com/ww.download?prd=afe#tba2



Then install Spybot S&D:

http://projects.securitywonks.net/projects/details.php?file=2

Make sure you update first BEFORE running a scan.

These two superb programs should be able to help!

JG

AVG8 not working properly?

Something about Invalid CTF file?

Please do the following:

Click on Start, then Run

Type cmd in the box and press return.

Copy the following text and paste it into the box:

del "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\avg8\update\download\*.ctf"

Try running the update again and it should now complete successfully!!

JB

ACL permissions - unable to delete file?

I recently came up against a problem after backing up a client's PC to an external HDD. I use this storage for my Ubuntu (Intrepid Ibex) system, and after doing some file maintenance, I saw that there was a folder that couldn't be deleted, even by root.

Permissions were set correctly but that wouldn't have mattered anyway since I was logged in as root. I couldn't remove the file by using the INODE trick so I ventured back into the world of Windows XP.

After some rooting around hehe I managed to find a forum post detailing a very quick 2 line cmd file that reset the permissions on the file/folder from a Windows perspective. This led me on to an improved version of similar software that had been written by a guy named Chieh Cheng, released under the GPL:

http://www.cynosurex.com/Software/TakeControl/

His scripts enable you to simply drag and drop a file/folder on to the script and then gain control by changing/resetting the permissions. His scripts were an absolute godsend and enabled me to reset and delete the folder in question. I have a feeling that the folder in question may have been created by a trojan/virus on the client's PC.

Hope this helps if you get stuck in the same situation.