Annoyances-Resolved

How To Remove XP Antivirus 2012 Virus For Free

2012-01-09T01:57:00.000-08:00

If you think that your XP computer might be infected with the XP Antivirus 2012 Virus, you are probably right! You will see notices like these:

Alerts trying to get you to buy, download and install Full version of XP Antivirus 2012 (don't do that, it is a virus!)
Alerts warning you of visiting dangerous sites (such as google.com etc)
You will have problems even controlling your computer programs with Task Manager, it just won't work properly.

It is possible to remove XP Antivirus 2012 virus for free. Here are the exact two steps to accomplish this. I was able to do it on a case of a XP netbook that was infected with XP Antivirus 2012 virus.

Step 1: Follow the directions at http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-xp-antivirus-2012.

Step 1 requirements are: a second computer that will allow you to download files to a USB stick, or a SD drive, then transfer these files to the infected XP computer.

Step 1 has substep 1 of running FixNCR.reg (find this in the directions, link above) which fixed parts of the registry so it becomes possible to run programs. Substep 2 involves downloading and running Rkill which stops all running malware programs, including the XP Antivirus 2012 virus. Substep 3 (which might be optional for you, it didn't do anything for me), is to remove google redirects with TDSSkiller. Again, the download location is on the page linked above.

At this point, the malware XP Antivirus 2012 virus has been removed. But, the computer still is unable to access the internet. Step 2 takes care of that.

Step 2: Follow directions either from http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1165500 or http://titlerequired.com/2011/11/25/quick-fix-afd-sys-afd-service-is-missing-windows-xp/ (this last post exactly describes the symptoms which were the "nonexistent service" Afd, upon which the DHCP and the internet connectivity depends.

I was fortunate to have another XP computer running, and I used regedit to navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\] Where the Afd key was located, export that key, transfer the exported file, say AFD.reg, to previously infected computer and import it through regdit to the same place [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\] on the infected XP, where it was missing.

Probably the last Easter egg remaining from the XP Antivirus 2012 virus!

Indeed, after reboot, the internet connectivity is back, and the XP netbook was working like new!!!

If these directions helped you, let us know by leaving the comment below.

Also, you can follow the blog through RSS or through Google Friends (or Google Plus?) if you want more helpful tips on keeping your computer healthy.

Finally, if you want to prevent future virus infections, download my favorite Antivirus program, Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware Lifetime. While the free version (available through the link abobe) will remove viruses already creating havoc on your computer, the paid version (only 20 bucks or so) will have REAL TIME shields which will prevent viruses from ever landing on your computer in the first place.

You can get my favorite *REAL* antivirus software, the Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware through my Amazon affiliate link: Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Lifetime

Pandora Stops Playing - Fix For "Pandora Randomly Stops Playing"

2011-06-05T17:09:00.000-07:00

This is driving me nuts. While I am listening to Pandora, instead of it moving to a new song, Pandora stops playing abruptly before the end of the song.

While I like Pandora, this is happening more and more often lately, and I am thinking of switching to Spotify or Slacker!

The official Pandora FAQ is less than helpful, it does not solve my problem:

Why do other web pages stop the music?

This behavior is the result of settings within your web browser program. Here's how to ensure best results.

1) Always open Pandora in a new browser window (Ctrl-N or File -> New Window). Do not re-use a browser window or browser tab for listening to Pandora.

2) Make sure your web browser is set to use a new window or a new tab when clicking a link: a) In Internet Explorer 7, if you are using 'Tabbed Browsing,' then be sure to set Tools -> Internet Options -> General -> Tabs -> Tabbed Browsing Settings so that "Open links from other programs in" is set to "a new window" or "a new tab in the current window." b) In Firefox 3, no changes are necessary, but under Tools-> Options -> Tabs, you will have the option to open links in a new window or a new tab. c) In Safari, no changes are necessary, but under Edit -> Preferences -> Tabs, you will have the option to open links in a new window or a new tab by default.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-> If none of the above steps resolve your issue, please contact Pandora Listener Support.

What does solve my problem is to keep the Pandora Tab on top. So now I have to watch Pandora in addition to listening???

Even better, I now start Pandora in an stand-alone Internet Explorer window, and minimize it to the bottom right. I open another browser window if I need more tabs.

Pandora stops playing problem solved! -- Of course, after about an hour of so of not interacting with Pandora, it will still stop and ask "are you still listening?"

Blogger Comments Not Working? Fix Here

2011-05-31T14:26:00.000-07:00

Hi, My Blogger Comments were not working lately. I have a rather old blogger blog from around 2009, and in 2011, May the comments stopped to work.I found many complaining in the forums about blogger blog comments not working.

The symptom is that the sentence "post a comment" appears, but there is no link to allow you to open the comment box.I don't know about the solution, but here is the workaround:

Go to blogger.com,

to Dashboard/Design,

then to Settings,

then Comments,

and use one of the two:

Pop-up window

Full page

Do NOT use Embedded below post type comment!Comment below if that helped you (and to prove that now the comments are working)!

Firefox Memory Problem Solved? Or, Rather, Workaround For Firefox 4, Others!

2011-05-31T12:44:00.000-07:00

So I was telling you about the problems I had with ever increasing memory consumption in my Firefox 4.

I thought Memory Fox was going to solve the problem and I installed it. However, the problem is still there. With Memory Fox, the memory gets apparently reduced, however the responsiveness of the system is still not great after a while.

So I kept on searching, and found a better solution, here at Browser.sessionhistory.max total viewers.

It turns out that Firefox will by default automatically adjust the number of history pages PER TAB. The adjustment is such that for most of the modern computers, you will store 8 history pages PER TAB. This is clearly not appropriate for people like me who like to have upwards of 20 tabs up in Firefox.

The solution/workaround is:

Type about:config in your Firefox address bar.

Scroll down until you find the variable Browser.sessionhistory.max total viewers. You will probably find the value of (-1), which is automatic adjustment to up to 8.

Right click on the value and modify to 0 or 1.

This will be the number of history pages per firefox tab that you will store. I have used 1 for a couple of days now and Firefox worked much better than with Memory Fox, yet, the memory consumption is still outrageous after a couple days.

You can play around with this number, and let me know your situation, and how the fix worked for you.

Just leave a comment below.

Mozilla Firefox 4 Memory Use Leak Fix

2011-05-27T13:22:00.000-07:00

I like to have upwards of 20 tabs open in Mozilla Firefox. Lately I've upgraded to Firefox 4 and, after some initial adjustments, things were going swell.

But then, suddenly, Firefox started hogging more and more memory, to the extent that my laptop became unusable due to no memory.

[UPDATE: While the workaround below might still work for you, I found a better solution here: Firefox Memory Problem Solved?]

The mozilla.com site is not very helpful when you search for the solution to the problem. Instead of providing suggestions or collections of solutions that people have used (given the imperfect descriptions of the problem that people invariably come up with), they bicker back and forth with the Mozilla Firefox users.

So I had to look further for the solution.Enter

Mozilla Firefox 4 Memory Use Leak Fix

Finally, I found a possible solution to the growing Firefox Memory at this site:

http://www.browsermemory.com/

Here, a Firefox Add-On is offered, called MemoryFox, and I tried it out! The guy was able to do more in terms of analyzing Firefox memory usage than the entire team at mozilla.com, seems like.

My result after install of the MemoryFox plugin? From 700 MByte of memory, shown in Windows Task Manager, Firefox memory use goes down to 134 MByte? Sounds good.

Well, the jury is still out and the plug in does show fluctuations in memory. But, with the same tabs open, at least the machine is not freezing up.

So far, thumbs up for the MemoryFox.

Let me know your experience in the comments below. Follow this blog for updates. I will post after a week or so after the dust has settled. So far, it looks promising.

Vista Reboot No Password Prompt

2011-04-14T22:39:00.000-07:00

Vista is still prompting me to reboot on most updates which is quite annoying. So I decided I wanted at least to skip the ...waitey... password prompt. I typed "vista reboot no password prompt" in the search box, and got two pieces of advice. The first was to simply remove the password from my administrator account. That didn't fly well with me... what about the network risks?So the second had an answer. I quote from http://jsbi.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-to-easily-bypass-windows-vista.html:

Additionally, even if you are the sole users, you still might have set up a password just to have access to added functionality like remote connections. You wouldn't be able to connect remotely to a Windows Vista account that is not password protected.Anyway, if you were expecting a hack I have to disappoint you. This is nothing more than simple account management. You will have to click the Start sphere, then enter “cmd” in the search box. In the Command Prompt window write “control userpasswords2” and hit enter.Windows Vista will now ask you to elevate the privileges of the process so do it and you will be face to face with a window for User Accounts. Toward the top you will be able to see the option “users must enter a username and password to use this computer.” Select the account you wish to alter and then uncheck the option. You will then be prompted with an Automatically Log On window, in which you will have to enter your name and password.

There, shaved up to a minute from the lenghty signon procedures... let me know if that help ya, leave a comment.

firefox 4 search box not working -suggestions -searchbox -drop -map

2011-04-14T18:19:00.000-07:00

This is the exact search I did to find out what to do when my search bar in new firefox 4 was not operating. The solution was, for me, for now:

cor-el: You can try to delete search.sqlite and search.json in the Firefox Profile Folder See also: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Search_Bar ... Read more...2 out of 2 people found this reply helpful

Taken straight from http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/763904The location of your firefox profile folder may vary, but it usually ends with .defaultComment below if this helped ya.

Zune Slow On Vista, Win 7, Cursor Slow When Zune Up [SOLVED]

2011-04-12T03:44:00.000-07:00

Are you wondering why your Zune is slow on Vista? I was wondering why my Zune causes slow cursor movement whenever I bring Zune up. I read up on the subject, and, if you have current Zune software, and your Zune is still running slow, on Windows 7 even, and with a quad processor, know this:

"Zune design was future thinking"

There is a whole bunch of graphics effects, etc. So what helped me (thanks for the tip on one of the Vista forums), is the following. Start up Zune and go to

SETTINGS/DISPLAY/SCREEN GRAPHICS section

Then change the slider from the middle (where it was for me) to leftmost position, toward BASIC.

This was counter intuitive as the left most position is no-frills WITHOUT graphics acceleration, and a bit to the right is no-frills WITH graphics acceleration, and acts like a hog.

Must be my old graphics card!?

Anyhow, having slided this all the way to the left, Zune software became really really swift, and I have not seen any loss of functionality, go figure!

Zune, I was told, is one of the best music management software, better than iTunes. I could believe that as I uninstalled iTunes soon after I installed it. It was awkward back then.

With this tweak, it became usable for me again. Yay!

Please COMMENT if this helped you too. Follow my blog for more revelations!

Vista, Windows 7 Taskbar Wont Hide, Successful Workaround

2011-04-10T02:17:00.000-07:00

Suddenly, my trusty taskbar on Vista, which was set to auto-hide (very handy for saving space on laptops), has stopped to auto-hide. It just sticks, regardless of the other settings under Taskbar Properties/Taskbar/. Even tried checking and unchecking "Auto-hide the taskbar" several times, to no avail.

Having recently played with placing making my second display a primary display inside Control Panel/Appearance and Personalization/Personalization/Display Settings, this might have been the cause. Dunno.

I first found the solution to be TaskbarSlapper (downloadable program, works fine, no spyware as far as I know), but that only worked one time, and now, it doesn't work anymore.

So I dug deeper, and here is an inelegant solution that, however, worked for me:From: http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winvista/1189550818.

To solve your problem: Open Task Manager (Ctrl-Shift-Esc), select the ^Processes page, highlight 'explorer.exe' and click the 'End Process' button.

The Taskbar will vanish.

Now go to the ^Applications page and click the 'New task...' button. Type "explorer" and click OK.

The Taskbar will return and behave correctly. Until the next time.

One downside of this fix: some apps which insert their icons into the Systray at boot time may not do so again. The app will still be still running -- it's just that it will have no Systray icon.

As I say, it worked for me, with the above mentioned side effects. Beats rebooting Vista, at least for me.

If this works for you, or not, leave me a comment.

If you have a better solution, leave me a comment below.

Firefox 4 Status Bar Restored

2011-04-10T00:38:00.000-07:00

[UPDATE: The next day... see below]

Frustrating when upgrading to Firefox 4 and, for simplified user interface/other reasons, suddenly the status bar is missing.

Especially critical when you are using Firefox for work!

Fortunately, there is a solution Firefox addon status-4-evar. (let me know if the link doesn't work for you, it is a https)

*** STATUS-4-EVAR !!! ***

A rave review by Noodnik @ addons.mozilla.org:

Yessss!!!

Rated 5 out of 5 starsby Noodnik on April 7, 2011 #

Thank you a lot, I was really missing the status bar!

[UPDATE, The next day...]Unfortunately, the very next day I saw something unusual on the bottom right of the Firefox 4 window, and it didn't look like status-4-evar at all.Status-4-Evar statusbar was gone. As were all my visual results that I saw there. Disable/Enable status-4-evar did not work. Neither did uninstall/reinstall status-4-evar extension work... Oh well...Come to think of it, upgrading Firefox is not much different from upgrading Microsoft Windows. MS will change the default locations of documents, user data, etcetera... and Firefox will change the things that I like...Come to think of it, Firefox 3.?.15 was the last version that worked good for me.. I can still downgrade![UPDATE, The same day...]Found out that for some reason, probably related to the RAM disk I am using, most of my extensions were wiped out, but not status-4-evar. So that is why I thought status-4-evar did not work. It apparently did, if there simply was something to stick in it?! Backed up my settings from a few days back. Lost a few tabs, but gained my beloved status bar, as well as some much missed buttons... So far so good. The saga may continue. Stay tuned. Comment, subscribe to the blog for more!COMMENT if you have similar issues. We'll find the solutions somehow.

Windows Taskbar Repair - Start Button Blinking, Taskbar Hides Only Partially

2010-10-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

Windows Taskbar Repair - Mission Accomplished. Okay so I had this problem with Windows Taskbar. Vista Desktop Taskbar that is. Suddenly I noticed with my laptop (Acer 5570Z) that the start button was blinking occasionally and that the windows taskbar would not fully pull out. I had previously set the taskbar to auto hide to save valuable screen space when not needed. This feature worked beautifully with Windows Vista.

Well all was fine until the day the Windows taskbar started being annoying with the Start Button blinking when the taskbar was pulled off screen. Sometimes, the vestige of the taskbar would stay on screen and I would have to pull the taskbar back from hiding to restore a good screen picture. Annoying.

But I found the solution. Okay again, here are the symptoms:

1/ Windows Vista on a laptop, the desktop taskbar set to autohide.
2/ Suddenly the start button starts to blink (in place)
3/ Suddenly the taskbar does not pull out of the screen fully like it should. This is random, sometimes it pulls out partially, sometimes more other times less. Creates ugly image when not pulled out.

And the solution? Simple. Well, really this is not a solution, but a workaround. I will leave the solution to Microsoft.

THE WORKAROUND - Windows taskbar repair

I noticed that the above desktop taskbar problem only happens when the taskbar is set to autohide AND the network icon is DISABLED. So the workaround is simple. ENABLE the network icon. To do that,

1/ Right click on taskbar, select Properties
2/ Click Notification Area tab, make sure you CHECK Network
3/ Click OK

Problem solved. The problem is repeatable for me, I can go back to the problem whenever I uncheck Network. And now that I know Network is the problem, I remembered I wanted to take that off... I hardly have network disconnects, and the icons were taking up valuable space on the taskbar...

What about you? Has this solved your problem? Find the comment area below and let me know if this solution helped. Even if it didn't, let me know anyways. Maybe we can figure something else out.

So go ahead leave me a comment!

GoToMeeting Problem -Starting GoToMeeting Downloading G2MCoreInstExtractor.exe

2010-10-06T18:47:00.000-07:00

Then getting a message "The installer could not locate a suitable directory to install" or such.It was reported before here:http://annoyances-resolved.blogspot.com/2010/09/g2mdownloadexe-installer-could-not-find.htmlYet it happened again. I was running as an admin under the UAC and it took me 15 minutes or more to follow directions, restart the computer and get back to the GoToMeeting. By that time, I got another message:The Meeting is Full; Please contact the organizer.This is starting to affect my business! Citrix, take note!

[SOLVED] Google Wonder Wheel Disappearing?

2010-09-08T12:16:00.000-07:00

Is Google Wonder Wheel disappearing?

[SOLUTION] I just learned today that the Google Wonder Wheel will come back if you disable Google Instant. Disable Google Instant by going to Settings (top right), select Search Settings, then Disable Google Instant toward the bottom of the settings. Who knew!

[ORIGINAL POST CONTINUES] Just did a Google search today and the link to the Google Wonder Wheel doesn't show in the left hand side column options. The Related searches link is there, and that is where the wonder wheel link used to be.

I should say that I upgraded the Firefox today to 3.6.9, and not sure if this has something to do with it.

Strange enough, when I did the same Google search on my Opera browser, the Google Wonder Wheel still appears under the options in the left hand side column.

Does anyone know what might be going on with the Google Wonder Wheel? Comment away!

P.S., As a side note, Google Wonder Wheel Problems occurred before and I reported the problem and the Firefox plugin related solution here: http://annoyances-resolved.blogspot.com/2010/02/wonder-wheel-of-google-search-not.html. But this looks different as even the link to wonder wheel does not show in Firefox, on the left hand side after you do the Google search.

g2m_download.exe the installer could not find suitable folder to install to

2010-09-01T14:21:00.000-07:00

Situation with Citrix GoToMeeting:

The invitees are getting an error message when they try to join that says "Installer could not locate a suitable folder to install into".

Got this error message, quite annoying, when trying to start a Citrix GoToMeeting software, for the first time. Tried several attempts, nothing worked. After 1/2 hours total, I fixed the problem which included the following found on fixya: http://www.fixya.com/support/t1551225-not_able_install_citrix_gotomeeting

It is crazy that I had to end up with UAC turned off on Vista, but here is the solution anyways:

THE SOLUTION WAS THIS
(I already had Java, latest version installed, so skip pts 1, 2)

3) Go to gotomeeting.com->Login->re-install software->download manually and save g2m_download.exe file;

4) Now do Unblock and Apply in g2m_download.exe file property General tab;

5) Then Vista users need to disable UAC, I suppose this is the same as "Uncheck the “Protect my computer …”" (Go to "Control Panel" and type "UAC" into the search box. This will bring up the link: "Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off." Click it. Uncheck the box next to "Use UAC to help protect my computer" then click OK. Restart.);

6) After restart right click on g2m_download.exe and "run as administrator".

Thats it!

[UPDATE] This problem with Citrix GoToMeeting has still not been solved. Between disabling the UAC, and restarting your computer, this "workaround" can take 15 minutes! What a waste of time. See the newest report about this here: http://annoyances-resolved.blogspot.com/2010/10/gotomeeting-problem-starting.html

Sluggish Mouse on Vista - Model 3000 by Microsoft

2010-08-20T06:08:00.000-07:00

I have previously reported sluggish mouse on Vista. The symptoms were 3-5x slower mouse cursor movement on screen. Another symptom was high CPU usage of wdm.exe, Windows Display Manager.

http://annoyances-resolved.blogspot.com/2009/09/windows-vista-annoyance-sluggish-cursor.html

Today, the same problem occurred. Sluggish mouse. Mouse by the way is the Microsoft model 3000 about three years old. Really works well, you can see it here: http://mouseforlaptop.org. That is, it works well when it is not sluggish.

The main symptom today was the same - sluggish mouse cursor. However, inspecting Windows Task Manager, the dwm.exe was not using extraordinary amounts of cpu time, and neither was any other process. Also, the computer did not come out of hibernate. The sluggish mouse appearance DID coincide with a large download (11000 items) of email from an IMAP server.

However, the latest solution, http://annoyances-resolved.blogspot.com/2009/11/sluggish-pointer-on-windows-vista-and.html
worked this time as well. All I needed to do is bring the laptop back to sleep (not hibernate) and bring it back up. Mouse sluggish no more!

If you had similar experiences, please let me know in your comments below!

AR

LogMeIn Plugin Crashes Firefox, Demands Upgrade, Upgrades In Wrong Directory

2010-08-14T17:09:00.000-07:00

Now that is a handful.

Finally, I found a solution, I posted it on LogMeIn knowledge base forum, it looks like this:

I had version 1.000.526 or so of logmein for firefox. The new version was supposed to be 1.000.608.

I'm running Firefox 3.6.8 and I was prompted several times to install new logmein plugin. After doing so, it turns out (had to check extensively the file system for this) that:

*** logmein downloads and installs the new plugin files into a directory

xxxxxxxx.default\extensions\LogMeInClient@logmein.com\plugins\npRACtrl.dll

This is the directory on a faster disk where I moved my xxxxxxx.default firefox directory.

However, mozilla firefox 3.6.8 looks for the plugin in the directory

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins\npRACtrl.dll

I had to go in and manually copy the new 608 npRACtrl.dll into the C:\... location above for the new plugin to be used and for the nagging to upgrade to stop... and for the firefox crashes to stop... looks like... for now.

Please advise how we can do upgrades in the future... without messing with the filesystem so much... and doing it the RIGHT way!

Thanks LogMeIn!

Oh, I'm posting this on http://annoyances-resolved.blogspot.com so you can add your solution in the comments there if you will!

Acrobat Failed To Connect To A DDE Server - Fatal Error When Opening a downloaded PDF file

2010-07-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

Today I'm getting a FATAL ERROR - Acrobat Failed to Connect to a DDE Server on Windows Vista SP2.Just trying to view a downloaded PDF file.Searched the web, a lot of folks have the problem.No time right now.Just downloaded Foxit Viewer: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/addons.phpThis worked! I'm now reading the PDF in FoxIt!Anyone has a better solution that could work with Adobe Reader? Comment, let me know!---update---I saw this:

Generally this error comes from an anti-virus program blocking the software from connecting. Check McAfee for any type of Software blocks or firewall issues. If that doesn't work then uninstall and reinstall the program and see if McAfee then pops up with a message asking you for permission to let it access the internet.

at http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/cant-open-pdf-files-in-windows-7/so I stopped real time blocking with Avast. Result:Adobe Reader still not working with this file...

[SOLVED]Firefox, Vista Internet Shortcut Problem

2010-07-29T02:33:00.000-07:00

[UPDATE 8/17/2010 - see below]
Recently, I have been having a lot of annoying problems calling up Firefox from a variety of programs. Like Windows Mail, when I click on an internet shortcut link, I get an annoying [and bogus] message like "Windows cannot find ...URL... Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again."Mozillazine at http://kb.mozillazine.org/Windows_error_opening_Internet_shortcut_or_local_HTML_file_-_Firefox suggests that a misbehaving plugin might be a reason for the problem and suggests eliminating one by one to figure out which one might be the culprit!This can take hours depending on how many plugins you have.I tried setting Internet Explorer as a default browser, which made the links in Windows Mail, etc, work, but I do not want Internet Explorer to be my default browser! So I switched back to Firefox to be my default browser and the problem reappeared again!I do have a workaround for this, but I would like to hear from YOU, if you have a similar problem or if you have a true solution. So here is my workaround.

Simple workaround:

EXIT FIREFOX
START FIREFOX IN SAFE MODE (ALL PLUGINGS WILL BE DISABLED)
EXIT FIREFOX
START FIREFOX NORMALLY

This makes my internet shortcuts from various programs such as Windows Mail, Xenu, and others work again, and I get the links show up in Firefox.So let me know if you have a true solution, better than that from Mozillazine. Thanks!

[UPDATE 8/17/2010] I found that: 1) The solution above is not permanent - I kind of suspected that 2) Just restaring Firefox in a regular normal mode helped as well. So definitely try that first. Any more permanent solutions, let me know in the comments. Thanks!

[SOLVED] Internet Connection Down After Combofix Run

2010-07-05T01:48:00.000-07:00

I had a nasty Google Redirect Malware on my Asus 1101HA netbook. So I installed Avast Antivirus (paid version).

Yet still, I had the Google Redirect Malware operate in my Firefox and couldn't get rid of it. So I decided to run Combofix. The reasoning was that Combofix has successully removed Google Redirect Malware on my other laptop computer.

So I finish the Combofix scan, look at the Log File, let's hope for the best.

Yet now after running Combofix my internet connection is not working! Neither on IE nor on Firefox! Ping still works!

Rebooting the Asus 1101HA netbook did not help.

Rebooting into Safe Mode with Networking (using the F8) worked, the internet was back, but my only option was to use the 800x600 screen. A bit smallish! I want 1344x768!

Luckily, after a bit of search I find this suggestion from bleeping computer.com, a guy by the name Computer Masochist!

Log on as an administrator, go Start > Run and type: "cmd". In the window that appears type: "netsh winsock reset". When the program is finished, you will receive the message: "Successfully reset the Winsock Catalog. You must restart the machine in order to complete the reset." Close the command box and reboot your computer.

Go Start > Run > type: "cmd" In the window that appears type: "ipconfig /flushdns". Close the command box.

Go Start > Control Panel > Network Connections. Right click on your default connection, usually Local Area Connection or Dial-up Connection if you are using Dial-up, and and choose Properties. Double-click on the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) item. Select the radio button that says "Obtain DNS servers automatically". Reboot.

Did that, and all the above quoted commands seemed to work.

After reboot, still no internet connection!

At this point, short of uninstalling Avast completely (turning it off previously did not work), I tried the last thing - I disabled then enabled the Avast Network Scan, and disabled then enabled the Webshield in Avast.

This finally worked like a charm! Internet is back!

Apparently, for now, no Google Redirect Malware either.

Good job. Hope it saves someone an hour of figuring out what is going on. Remember, after running Combofix, my internet connection was not working and the above fixed it.

[SOLVED] Google Pac Man Keeps Going And Going And Going

2010-05-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

Just did a search on Google.

Noticed the 30th anniversary of Pacman tribute with an interactive game on top. Played with it for a while. Had to get back to work. Needed to restart Firefox (Adobe update, separate story!) Gotten Firefox back up... and the sound of Pacman keeps coming up! There is no window open in Firefox with google.com page on it..... yet, the pacman sound keeps going and going and going..Drives me crazy.Anyone got a solution? Restarting Firefox did not help.Thanks!

[SOLVED?] Wonder Wheel of Google Search Not Working in Firefox - Please Help Find the Interfering Add-On

2010-02-21T20:16:00.000-08:00

[UPDATE: A more recent problem with Google Wonder Wheel is reported here: Google Wonder Wheel Missing]

PROBLEM: After you perform any search on Google with Firefox on Vista/other, click Show Options, and click Wonder Wheel, you get the first wheel. Then you click on one of the related searches, you get a nice rotating circle, and no related searches for that circle. You're stuck. Wonder Wheel does not work properly.

THE STEP TOWARD SOLUTION: Run the same Firefox in Safe Mode. The Wonder Wheel works as it should. It must be one of the Add Ons?

[SOLVED?] See the comment below: "Ok I got a hunch, Google Enhancer - True Knowledge 0.2.3 is theculprit. I got the Wonder Wheel to work after disabling True KnowledgeAdd-On and restarting Firefox! Anyone who sees the same, pleaseconfirm, give us a comment! Thanks!"

SOMEBODY HELP INVESTIGATE THIS FURTHER? WHAT ADD-ONS/OTHER may be interfering with the Wonder Wheel?

Here is the list of my add-ons. If you are experiencing the same problem in Firefox, please publish:

1) Your list of Add-Ons in the Comments (I'll publish that in a minute)
2) Your version of Firefox (mine 3.5.8)

and we'll quickly find the offender.

Thanks!!

Editing a Large Cell in Google Spreadsheets with Firefox 3.6: Impossible Task [Workaround]

2010-02-06T13:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was trying to edit a large cell in a spreadsheets in google docs. I was using Firefox. I double clicked on the cell. However, the cell is long and only the right hand side is visible. Trying to push the cursor to the left, the cursor disappears from the screen. If I wanted to edit the left hand side (beginning) of the long text, I'd have to edit blindly. Not fun.Workaround? Use Google Chrome Browser instead. There, you can double click on a cell, and a little triangle appears on the bottom right of the cell which allows you to pull the cell border down thereby resizing the height of the cell.I searched help on google docs and I couldn't find a real solution for firefox. So let me know if you find a better solution. Cause this is clearly just a workaround.

Vista Startup Repair Can Not Repair This Computer Automatically. Part 4 of 4. Solution to Recover My Hard Drive Data.

2010-01-13T00:08:00.000-08:00

If your Windows Vista is booting into Vista System Recovery and your Startup Repair Tool fails with the message "Startup Repair Can Not Repair This Computer Automatically", then you will find a treat here by reading on. You'll find several possibilities to restore your Vista system and recover your Hard Drive Data. One of them just might work for you!

After two (2) of the Blue Screen of Deathcrashes, my Vista will not boot properly. My laptop consistently refuses to boot Vista and goesinto Vista System Recovery mode. This is preventing me from recovering my hard drive data or using Vista in general.

I tried all possible options thereand found out that the hard drive seems in good shape and the laptopmemory seems in good shape. But the Vista Startup Repair Tool which is an optionin Vista Startup Recovery mode failed to fix the Vista system and therefore my laptop will not boot to Vista.

I looked into the details of the Startup Repair log I found after I gotthe "Startup Repair Can Not Repair This Computer Automatically" message. The Startup Repair logreported that "Boot critical filec:\windows\system32\drivers\euqvfx.sys is corrupt" and that theattempted file repair failed.

Curiously, I did find an article athttp://ocmodshop.com/ocmodshop.aspx?a=1372 . This looked like somegreat and simple advice on how to fix driver files manually afterStartup Repair failed with the dreaded "Startup Repair Can Not RepairThis Computer Automatically" message!

Following ocmodshop.com advice I changed directory from X:\windows to c:\windows

cd c:\windows

andsearched for OTHER (spare?) copies of euqvfx.sys in ALL subdirectorieswith the option "/d". If you follow this step, you need to replaceeuqvfx.sys with the system file that your scan found corrupt.

dir euqvfx.sys /d

Well..surprise! dir command finished but NO other copies were found, and thesingle euqvfx.sys in c:\windows\system32\drivers\ had size 0 (ZERO).

I searched the X: disk as well, nothing, no euqvfx.sys found!

Hmm, how important can this file be for boot if it has no spare copies? And is not present at all on the Recovery Partition X:?

SoI decided bravely to simply delete the file:

del c:\windows\system32\drivers\euqvfx.sys

And guess what, after areboot, sfc /scannnow ran to completion successfully and I was lateralso able to boot into Vista proper. My files are ALL restored back in placeswhere I left them, and I have normal access to everything! Even now,after three days (probably many more as you read this), typing this on the same laptop, I see NO problemswhatsoever with my system. My problem solved! My hard drive data recovered!

To summarize Part 1 to Part 4, You have seen that when Vista computer crashes with several Blue Screens of Death it does cause trouble with system boot and Vista in general. You've seen that the system might repeatedly boot into Vista System Recovery. You've seen that checking the disk and memory might show nothing is wrong. You have seen two ways of using Vista Startup Repair Tool, automatic and manual. Even if automatic Startup Repair fails, you still have a chance. In case of a corrupt file, you can replace that file, or, like I did, remove it (take a deep breath before you to that!)!

My problem solved. Maybe this will help you too?

Letme know what are the symptoms of the problem you have. Did you find thesolution above helpful? Mind you, if you repeat what I did or dosomething similar, you are on your own. I can not accept anyresponsibility for the potential damage.... But since you can not startVista anyways, how much damage can there be....? Well, before doing anydeletions and such, I suggest to at least copy the data you need fromthe C: drive and the D: drive to the DVD or CD drive in your laptop.You should have no problem doing that if you know how to work thecommand line tool.

The above solution may not help you. Still,realize, going into vista System Recovery options screen is not the endof the world. A good computer repair shop in your town can very likelyhelp you recover hard disk data first before fixing or reinstalling theWindows system. Professional help will, however, cost quite some money.But it may save you a lot of time and frustration.

Good luck!

Let me know in the comment if you had any of the symptoms I describedhere and in the previous 3 posts. Also please let me know whether any of the possible solutions were helpful to you.

Just leave me a comment, will you?

Vista Startup Repair Tool Saves The Day? Part 3 of 4.

2010-01-13T00:00:00.000-08:00

If you followed me from Part 1 of 4, How to Fix a Crashed Computer, you know that after the computer crashthe laptop was persistently booted into Vista System Recovery. Is thathappening with your computer too? The System Recovery Options screencame up every time for me and I tried all options available thereexcept one, Windows Vista Startup Repair Tool.

I launched Windows Vista Startup Repair Tool. That looked like the only promisingsolution. I clicked on Launch Startup Repair. That "Startup Repair is CheckingYour System for Errors" phase and especially the "AttemtpingRepairs..." phase seemed like it took forever. It took maybe 20 minutesto complete, maybe 30 minutes.

Result?

Dang!

The message ensued: "Startup Repair can not repair this computer automatically."

I did run this repeatedly... with a bad hard disk you never know... But I always got the same message.

I started checking "Show Problem Details" report and I started taking notes. It showed a "corrupt file" problem.

I looked into "Diagnosis and Repair Details" which seems to be the detailed log of what the Startup Repair tried.

Byscrolling through a lengthy report I found most of the tests passedwith error codes 0x0 which is good. But one test stuck out with anon-zero error code:

System files integrity check and repair. Result: failed. Error Code 0x2, Time taken 762175 ms.

Boot critical file c:\windows\system32\drivers\euqvfx.sys is corrupt.

Repair action: File repair.

Result: Failed.

Error Code: 0x2.

Basedon some advice on the internet, I tried running sfc /scannow from theSystem Repair Command Line. That gave "There is a system repair pendingwhcih requires reboot to complete. Reboot Windows and run sfc again".Sure enough, after reboot, sfc gave the very same answer... That iscontradicting and definitely useless in this case!

I didnumerous searches on the web to find out what else I could do. I even inserted the Acer eRecovery DVD Disk, getting ready to reinstall theentire system to factory default. I changed my mind in the last minute.The exercise with inserting a recovery disk while in System Repair washelpful though because I realized the entire file system is availableto me. The C: drive was available, the D: drive was available, and the DVD E:drive was available... so if I just had a good copy of euqfvx.sys,maybe copying it to the C: drive could do the trick.

By the way, the disk name that comes up by default when opening the command line window was called the X: disk, itprobably refers to the hidden Vista Recovery Partition. Well at leastthe solid 8 Gbytes of hard disk space are good for something in a situation likethat!

But I had no copy of Vista handy. What now? A Google search for euqvfx returns absolutely NOTHING!

In Part 3 of 4 you have seen how to use Windows Vista Startup Repair Tool inside the Vista System Recovery. You have seen that the dreaded "Startup Repair can not repair this computer automatically." message appeared, repeatedly. You have seen that maybe not all is lost as there was plenty of diagnostic information in the Windows Startup Repair Tool Log. In Part 4 of 4 you will see what else you can do if you get the message Vista Startup Repair Can Not Repair This Computer Automatically. Part 4 will show you the solution that worked like a charm for me!

Vista System Recovery. How To Fix a Crashed Computer and Recover Hard Drive Data. Part 2 of 4.

2010-01-12T23:48:00.000-08:00

If your Vista will not boot and goes into Vista System Recovery everytime on boot, pay close attention. You may just be able to fix the harddisk, boot normally, and recover your hard drive data after you arefinished reading this post.

We talked about the BSOD crash. It was causing my laptop Windows Vista will not boot properly but instead consistently booting into Vista SystemRecovery. We asked How to fix a crashed computer? What to do when you are persistently booted into yourVista System Recovery and System Recovery Options screen comes up?

I have ACER Aspire 5570Z laptop by the way, with 2 Gigs of RAM and Vista Home Premium.

What to do while in Vista System Recovery?

Itried the option: Restore to an earlier point in time. It did not workas the computer declared there was no restore point available! [What? Ithought I made several restore points. In fact everytime I do a VistaAutomatic Update the computer creates a restore point. Why was noneavailable?]

Inside Vista System Recovery I went into the commandprompt known as cmd.exe when Vista is up fully. The command prompt isavailable as the last option in System Recovery. I did a thorough DiskCheck using dskchk. It showed everything was fine with the hard drive,it found NO errors. Still, something is preventing Vista from booting.I still need to fix the hard disk to fix the crashed computer andrecover data on the hard drive.

I ran the memory test that was available as one of the options in Vista System Recovery, and that ran just fine too. So memory is fine and the hard drive is fine. What now?

Theremaining options in Vista System Recovery Options looked destructive.They would wipe out my data. Even though I do backup some of my mostimportant data, I knew I would have lost some data on the drive D:,some recent photos and settings of my Firefox. So while I could havegone with the ACER e Recovery Disk 1 and e Recovery Disk 2 that I had,that would mean installing Vista to factory settings and not recover myhard drive data.

This would be like going back in time 2 years. Scary. It would takeanother day to get it all together to roughly the present state as faras software installations.

So far, Part 1 and Part 2 of this four part Series, we found that, after the bad system crash, none of the options available through F8 worked. Also, all options in Vista System Recovery either failed or failed to find any errors. All options but one.

There is another option in Vista System Recovery that I was able to run. Vista Startup Repair Tool.

Read more in Part 3 of 4: Vista System Recovery: Vista Startup Repair Tool Saves The Day?

How To Fix A Crashed Computer? Windows Vista Will Not Boot, Part 1 of 4. Need Hard Drive Data Recovery?

2010-01-12T23:32:00.000-08:00

If your Windows Vista Will Not Boot, then you will definitely want toread this post. Information on how to fix a crashed computer whenwindows vista will not boot is right here. You can use this informationto avoid buying a new hard drive and to avoid expensive hard drive datarecovery service. Or, worse, losing all or some of your data on yourcomputer or laptop.

It was scary. I thought I was going tolose my precious data and Vista settings on my hard drive! Or payhundreds for hard drive data recovery service!

I experienced twoBSOD (blue screen of death) crashes in a row with my Vista laptop. Notsure why yet but I have an idea. I do get concerned when BSOD crashhappens because I feel BSOD causes damage to the disk and you may endup having to try to recover your hard drive data. Especially becausethis time it was a really bad BSOD crash! Really bad BSOD crash!

Afterthe second BSOD I ended up with a Laptop on which Vista Will Not Boot.It was unlike any boot problem I experienced previously. There was nota black screen as before. The computer would boot okay, to a degree.The symptom was quite simple and kept repeating itself over and overagain. I tried ten times at least. Here's the symptoms:

Uponpressing the on button after the second BSOD crash, everything wouldseem normal, the computer would go through the Power On Self Test(POST) phase showing on the screen for a few seconds. You may not havethis show on your computer. You may just see a blank screen for a whileinstead of the POST report.

Then the hard drive light would go on for a while and ... BLINK.. the hard drive light would come off and simultaneously, the NUM LOCK and the CAPS LOCK lights would light together, briefly.

Ashort pause, then Vista would end up in the System Recovery. I neededto enter the Language, then pick the Administrator from the pull-downmenu and then enter the Administrator password. The exact boot sequencemay be different for you (let me know about it in the comment) but ifyou too end up with Vista System Recovery, keep reading! You are in theright place! We'll see if we can recover your hard drive data.

First I decided to press F8 upon reboot and picked the variety of startup optionsthere one after the other. All of them. Result? Nada. Zero. Everysingle option, Safe Start, Safe Start with Networking, etc, all endedup in booting into Vista System Recovery. Windows Vista Will Not Boot.

In this post, Part 1 of the series of 4, you have witnessed an initial attempt at how to fix a crashed computer. You've seen F8 options not helping. You've seen that sometimes, Windows Vista Will Not Boot no matter what and keeps going into Vista System Recovery. Read on. If your Windows Vista will not boot either, you will find out how to get out of the Vista System Recoveryprison. You will find out how to fix a crashed computer and recover your hard drive data and operating system when Vista will not boot properly. Part 2 of 4: Vista System Recovery and how to fix a crashed computer.

How To Speed Up Firefox Tab Switching

2009-12-28T05:14:00.000-08:00

This tip will help you switch the tabs in Firefox much faster.

Especially if you, like me and many other users of this site, have many tabs open at the same time, possibly many windows in Firefox.

What you do is you reduce the minimal tab width in Firefox thereby allowing more tabs in one window. This reduces the number of windows needed. It also removes the need to "scroll tabs" left or right in Firefox.

How? Simple.

Start by typing about:config in your Firefox address bar. Locate item browser.tabs.tabMinWidth and set its value to 50 or some value smaller than the original value. Mine was 100 to start.

That's it!

There are indications that having fewer windows open in Firefox on Vista will reduce problems with blinking buttons and unresponsive behavior!

Let me know if this small change helps you navigate your Firefox tabs faster, and if it prevents Firefox from becoming unresponsive! Please leave me a comment with your observations!

Acer Touchpad Not Working

2009-12-10T01:17:00.000-08:00

PROBLEM: ACER TOUCHPAD NOT WORKING

This is a funny story. I have today upgraded Vista through Microsoft Upgrade. However, the required restart didn't work. I had to turn the laptop off as it was stuck in the "Logging Off" screen.

Everything turned out fine after restart, except -- The Synaptics TouchPad did not work. Neither the Pad to move the mouse pointer, nor the Left and Right Buttons.

Luckily I had the external Microsoft wireless mouse attached. The USB wireless mouse worked, so I was not impaired.

Tried rebooting to no avail. Looked for the new driver on manufacturer's website, uninstalled, installed again (it was the same version anyways), no change. Touchpad is still not working!

A quick search on the web revealed what the solution is:

SOLUTION FOR "ACER TOUCHPAD NOT WORKING" SOUGHT

It turns out that, while trying to restart laptop after the software upgrade, I was pushing various buttons that I knew not what they were for. In the top row of the keyboard. Such as turn off screen, the ZZZ button that put laptop to sleep (but after coming back still ended in the "logging off" mode). etc. One of the infamous buttons was the Fn-F7. That one's pic has something that looks like a hand over a square - the Touchpad. It's an on-off switch for the Touchpad! Who knew! I played with this only as the computer was shutting down. I did not need touchpad at that time to find out it was disabled. Funny.

SOLUTION FOR "ACER TOUCHPAD NOT WORKING" FOUND

So press Fn-F7 and your touchpad is back. Simple as that.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Did you have a similar problem? Where is the touchpad on/off button on your laptop? Leave me a comment, would you? Thanks!

Firefox Unresponsive Workaround #7 for Flashing Minimize, Restore, Close Buttons

2009-12-07T22:23:00.000-08:00

PROBLEM

We had a lengthy discussion previously about the problem with Firefox 3.5.3 - 3.5.5 about the situation where Firefox Minimize, Restore, and Close Buttons in the window frame start to flash and Firefox becomes unresponsive. For long periods of time. There is more discussion about this problem here.

I found yet another workaround (numbered #7) for this problem. There are six(!) other workarounds presented here. I am curious how this workaround #7 works for your guys. We still do not have the solution.

I found this to be the least painful workaround so far. What you do when you have Firefox Flashing Buttoms on Vista or Windows 7:

WORKAROUND #7

Go Start/Control Panel. Go Systems and Maintenance, then Performance Information and Tools. Go Adjust Visual Effects in the left pane. Then under the Visual Effects tab, unselect Enable Desktop Composition and hit Apply. I bet it was selected originally! That's it, wait maybe 30 seconds. Blinking should go away. Now you can select Enable desktop composition again, hit Apply, and wait another 30 seconds. No more blinking with fancy windows.

THIS WORKAROUND WORKED FOR ME, WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Let me know in the comments below if this worked for you. It is the quickest and least destructive workaround yet.

P.S.: FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT HERE:

How To Change Firefox Location Bar Search Engine

2009-11-28T23:30:00.000-08:00

One last remnant of StopZilla's system modifications during install that it won't fix by uninstall: It changed the Firefox location bar search engine from google to ask. Thanks, but I didn't want that when asking for help with my malware. And I didn't mean uninstall everything you installed, StopZilla, except the Firefox Toolbar, and the Firefox Location Bar Search Engine, you see?

I meant uninstall Everything you installed, StopZilla! (You're not making any friends, have you noticed?)

Well this last piece is really easy to fix: How to change the Firefox Location Bar Search Engine. I found this on http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/how-to-change-your-firefox-location-bar-search-engine/ and modified it from "I'm feeling lucky" display to regular google search:

Perform this simple steps:
1. Type about:config in Firefox location bar and press Enter
2. Type keyword in Filter textbox and you will see only the preference keyword.URL.
3. Double-click on keyword.URL and change the value to: http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=
That's all it takes to restore default keyword search functionality in Google.
Note: You can use this to change to any search engine for keyword search

Voila! Hopefully this concludes the "How to completely uninstall Stopzilla" series ;)

Remove "Security Tool" a.k.a. SecurityTool Malware, Finally! (Uninstall Guide)

2009-11-28T15:36:00.001-08:00

Finally I found the solution for the original "Security Tool" problem, and it is FREE! Read on!

BACK TO THE ORIGINAL PROBLEM

So by the end of the day I was able to remove all traces of StopZilla. It took me hours, but it will take you only minutes if you heed my directions here.

I was able to finally download McAfee virus scan and start the full scan which however found nothing.

I made the full circle and the "Security Tool" nagware is popping up again. This time I looked at exactly how much money they wanted (they would not reveal what website I was connecting to to pay, everything was done on their screen, not in the browser - awesome!). They wanted a total of $129.85 if I wanted to pay the full "protection package". I'm paraphrasing here.

FINALLY, WHAT LOOKS LIKE A TRUE SOLUTION

So I look into other solutions. I finally found one over at bleepingcomputer.com. This one worked, their recommended malware removal tool apparently got rid of my "Security Tool" and for one - time removal they charged nothing. Nada. Very nice gesture.

SOLUTION SO GOOD I'M CONSIDERING A PURCHASE!

For their capabilities I'm strongly thinking of purchasing them for ongoing protection if I ever feel I need one!

There are 4 pages of directions on how exactly to remove "Security Tool":

Automated Removal Instructions for Security Tool using Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:

Print out these instructions as we may need to close every window that is open later in the fix.
Before we can do anything we must first end the processes that belong to Security Tool so that it does not interfere with the cleaning procedure. To do this, download the following file to your desktop.

rkill.com Download Link
Once it is downloaded, double-click on the rkill.com in order to automatically attempt to stop any processes associated with Security Tool and other Rogue programs. Please be patient while the programs looks for various programs and closes them. When it has finished, the black window will automatically close. While rkill is running, if you get a message stating that rkill, or another executable, is an infection, ignore it, and let rkill.com finish. This is just the infection trying to stop rkill from disabling it. Please note, you may have to attempt to run rkill quite a few times before the malware process is terminated.

Do not reboot your computer after running rkill as the malware programs will start again.
Now you should download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, or MBAM, from the following location and save it to your desktop:

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware Download Link

Once downloaded, close all programs and Windows on your computer, including this one.
Double-click on the icon on your desktop named mbam-setup.exe. This will start the installation of MBAM onto your computer.
When the installation begins, keep following the prompts in order to continue with the installation process. Do not make any changes to default settings and when the program has finished installing and is at the last screen, make sure you uncheck both of the Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware check boxes. Then click on the Finish button. If Malwarebytes' prompts you to reboot, please do not do so.

If you receive a code 2 error while installing Malwarebytes's, please press the OK button to close these errors as we will resolve them in future steps. The code 2 error will look similar to the image below.
As this infection deletes a core executable of Malwarebytes' we will need to download a new copy of it and put it in the C:\program files\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\ folder. To download the file please click on the following link:

Malwarebytes' EXE Download
When your browser prompts you where to save it to, please save it to the C:\program files\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\ folder. When downloading the file, it will have a random filename. Please leave the filename the way it is as it is important that it is not changed. You may want to write down the name of the file as you will need to know the name in the next step.
Once the file has been downloaded, open the C:\program files\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\ folder and double-click on the file you downloaded in step 8. MBAM will now start and you will be at the main program screen as shown below.
Before you can perform a scan, you must first update the program. To do this click on the Update tab, and that at the new screen click on the Check for Updates button. Malwarebytes' will now check for new updates and download and install them as necessary. When the update is completed, you will be prompted with a message stating either that you already have the latest updates or that they have been updated. Either way, you should now click on the OK button to continue.
Now click on the Scanner tab and make sure the the Perform full scan option is selected. Then click on the Scan button to start scanning your computer for Security Tool related files.
MBAM will now start scanning your computer for malware. This process can take quite a while, so we suggest you go and do something else and periodically check on the status of the scan. When MBAM is scanning it will look like the image below.
When the scan is finished a message box will appear as shown in the image below.

You should click on the OK button to close the message box and continue with the SecurityTool removal process.
You will now be back at the main Scanner screen. At this point you should click on the Show Results button.
A screen displaying all the malware that the program found will be shown as seen in the image below. Please note that the infections found may be different than what is shown in the image.

You should now click on the Remove Selected button to remove all the listed malware. MBAM will now delete all of the files and registry keys and add them to the programs quarantine. When removing the files, MBAM may require a reboot in order to remove some of them. If it displays a message stating that it needs to reboot, please allow it to do so. Once your computer has rebooted, and you are logged in, please continue with the rest of the steps.
When MBAM has finished removing the malware, it will open the scan log and display it in Notepad. Review the log as desired, and then close the Notepad window.
You can now exit the MBAM program.
Due to the fact that this infection deletes certain MalwareBytes' files, and we had to work around this, if you wish to continue using MalwareBytes' Anti-Malware, which we suggest you do, then you should uninstall and then install it again so that the files are created properly.

Your computer should now be free of the SecurityTool program. If your current anti-virus solution let this infection through, you may want to consider purchasing the PRO version of Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware to protect against these types of threats in the future.

MY ORIGINAL "BLACK FRIDAY" PROBLEM SOLVED

This solved my Black Friday "Security Tool" Malware problem. I'll let you know if I have another appearance of "Security Tool" or StopZilla in my laptop. Just stay tuned in. Bookmark this page or subscribe to the feed.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Have these last three posts been helpful to you? Have you found in this post exactly how to remove Security Tool? Do you have any other spyware or malware on your computer? Let me know, maybe we can create another post with the solution. Just leave a comment. Thanks!

Stop Zilla To The Rescue? Maybe Not! How To Remove StopZilla Toolbar

2009-11-28T02:52:00.000-08:00

Has your computer been plagued by Stop Zilla or its notorious toolbar? Not able to remove either the software itself or the Stop Zilla toolbar? This post contains the solution! Read on!

BLACK FRIDAY SECURITY TOOL ATTACK

So I was telling you about the Black Friday attack of the "Security Tool". I therefore downloaded and installed Stop Zilla, an alleged malware removal program.

It turns out Stop Zilla itself justifies the adjective "mal" = bad... keep on reading.

I STEP INTO... STOP ZILLA

I installed and ran Stop Zilla. After a few hours it came back with seven potential threats:

Agobot.MG, Worm,Critical Severity
VX.Game.Temp_044, Trojan, High Severity
A Better Internet.Clean Get-Away, Adware, Moderate Severity
System Security, Rogue Adware, Moderate Severity
PromoReg, Worm, High Severity
SystemPolicies.DisableTask, Hijacker, Moderate Severity
SystemPolicies.DisableRegistry, Hijacker, Moderate Severity

Didn't look exactly like what I was trying to get rid of (C:\Windows\Temp\_ex-08.exe, see my previous post). Still, I go ahead and hit the Remove Button. When I hit the button Remove to remove the malware found, Stop Zilla wanted money from me (9.95, $30 off of the regular price for the whole year, a Black Friday Special - what a coincidence!? or $79.95 lifetime support). So typical. Everyone is willing to tell you how they found malware on your computer, noone is willing to remove it for free. I'm not surprised, this is how softwares like that make their money. But I decided to uninstall Stop Zilla. Another reason - I just remembered I have a free McAfee download available through my DSL provider AT&T (Thanks Mama Bell).

ON TO REMOVING STOP ZILLA - EASIER SAID THAN DONE

Easier said than done. Stop Zila uninstalls to the degree, and then stops and waits, doing nothing apparently. Waits for 10-20 minutes! Really slow uninstall! I ended up killing all Stop Zila processes and doing the uninstall manually through the Vista system. Job completed? Not really. A nasty surprise awaits...

BUT WAIT - WHAT IS THIS PESKY STOP ZILLA FIREFOX TOOLBAR DOING HERE?

It is impossilble to uninstall the "Stop Zilla Toolbar" bot for the Firefox 3.5.5 and for the Internet Explorer 8! The Stop Zilla simply doesn't clean that "detail" after itself. The Stop Zilla refuses to remove the (useless and disfunctional in my opinion) toolbar. When you go to Firefox Tools, Add-Ons section, Stop Zilla Toolbar is NOWHERE to be found, neither under Plug-ins nor Extensions! So how to remove the toolbar? This annoyance took me a few hours to figure out but I found a solution.

OTHER PEOPLE COMPLAINING TOO

I found a suspiciously similar complaint on this website http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/and-yet-another-security-vendor.html. There is a rebuttal by an officer from Stop Zilla... And now a rebuttal of the rebuttal of yours truly:

And yet another security vendor succumbs to temptation
12/3/2008Correction/Clarification: This is not technically the Ask Toolbar. It'sactually a STOPzilla toolbar that uses Ask search results. More here.
Yet another security vendor succumbsto bundling the Ask Toolbar with their product — and again,pre-selected (and when you go to uninstall the STOPzilla, you’re stillleft with the Ask Toolbar to uninstall).

This is getting gross.

AND HERE IS THE SOLUTION. IT WORKS FOR ME.

So, long story short, it is possible to easily remove Stop Zilla Firefox and IE8 toolbars by

uninstalling Stop Zilla as directed under Stop Zilla/Uninstall Stop Zilla -- you really need to kill all other processes for this to work, or just use the Windows Vista Uninstall Program feature.
going to C:\Program Files\Stopzilla!\ and removing all files from there. The Firefox won't find the extension there, and you won't see it in the Firefox frame anymore. A Big annoyance resolved! As for IE8, even with Stop Zilla installed, you could always disable the SZ toolbar.

Big toolbar annoyance resolved. Can we please get back to the "original" malware, the one that started this whole story?

[Update: Turns out this was not the last change Stop Zilla instigated and not reversed during uninstall. Find out how to restore google search in your Firefox Navigation Bar, if you notice the default search was changed to Ask...]

MCAFEE NOT DOING MUCH BETTER... TOOK FOREVER JUST TO INSTALL...

Talking about the "Security Tool" malware. Stop Zilla apparently did not take it out but I did delete some files as instructed. Has that been able to take it out? I was only able to run the McAfee "quick" virus scan with the updates. McAfee gave me a lot of grief just installing itself, and I had to install McAfee Virtual Technician too just to get the Virus Scan going. But I digress.....

STOP ZILLA PROBLEM SOLVED FOR ME, MOVING ON TO THE ORIGINAL PROBLEM

Well, at the end of the day, Black Friday, the Security Tool popped up again, this time just the "Red" shield... I'm running McAfee again overnight. The battle of security tools... I'll let it run overnight.. If you don't hear from me tomorrow, my laptop's in trouble!

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Did you find the directions above useful for removing Stop Zilla AND its pesky toolbar? Let me know! Just leave a comment below. Or bookmark the page below. If you have questions let me know also!

Remove "Security Tool" "Anti-Malware" Popups

2009-11-28T02:11:00.000-08:00

Black Friday: A Day Wasted on "Security Tool" removal.

BLACK FRIDAY, AM

Black Friday, what an appropriate name. Having woken up this morning and for some reason having rebooted my laptop, I find the reboot proces is utterly slow...

"SECURITY TOOL" GREETING

Finally the laptop comes to life, I log on, and a software named "Security Tool" starts popping up, letting me know I have several worms, trojans, and other malware and that I need to download "Security Tool" of sorts ... One Blue and one Red icon appear in the system tray. With popups.

SOMEBODY WANTS ME TO BUY

It really looked more like a hard sale/marketing approach wanting me to go and visit an anti-malware site. Not buying into the suggestions, it gives me the only option to "continue unprotected" just to bug me again in a few minutes. I suddenly felt a strong urge to remove the "Security Tool".

I WANT TO REMOVE "SECURITY TOOL"

A quick search for "remove security tool" yields a site offering a purchase of anti-virus program. Here is the page: 2-viruses.com. The best part was a comment posted there by Philly Keith:

Philly Keith
October 9th, 2009 at 21:04

forget all that… try this move, it worked for me
after going nuts over this for a whole day.

Reboot in safe mode browse to
C:\Documents and settings\all users\ application data

There will be a folder in there that has
eight numbers as a name (ex 91908431)

Delete this bad boy, empty recycle bin
Reboot normally, delete all left over shortcuts,
empty recycle bin again and you are home free.

FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS

Except that these directions look like they're from Win XP, so I found the offending directory in C:\Users\All Users\00854623 and the other place is C:\Program Data\00854623\00854623.exe . I noticed the 00854623.exe was running in the Task Manager. That was suspicious indeed.

ANOTHER BUGGER

So I followed directions but, I also noticed another bugger in the Task Manager/Processes: _ex-08.exe. Searching for this string led me to virusremovalguru.com/?p=3623 where I found advertising for Stopzilla.com. You are beginning to notice how these "helpful" sites always have something in store for you that will cost ya?!

STOPZILLA TO THE RESCUE?

[UPDATE: Please do NOT follow these directions to download StopZilla. If you do, you will have to go to the very next post and learn how to completely remove Stop Zilla and its toolbars. It ain't easy! You've been pre-warned! However, if you have downloaded Stop Zilla already, that post will save you a ton of time]

Long story short, I download StopZilla in hopes it will remove the _ex-08.exe bugger. FYI an independent search using Windows Explorer found two files: C:\Windows\_ex-08.exe-311C6F9.pf and C:\Windows\Temp\_ex-08.exe . I wanted these removed.

FOLLOW THIS LINK TO GET TO THE NEXT STEP IN REMOVING "SECURITY TOOL"

If you installed StopZilla: More on removing "Security Tool" in the next post: Adventures in the StopZilla land.

If you did install StopZilla like me: You need one extra step of removing Stop Zilla here, and then proceed from there.

ARE YOU HAVING FUN YET?

Has the adventure helped you in any way so far? Let me know, leave me a comment!

Vista: No Sound. Problem Solved. Sound On and Off? Problem Solved.

2009-11-24T15:58:00.000-08:00

I will explain how to fix your problem if your Windows Vista has no sound. Or if the sound on Vista comes on and goes off. Read on.

Remeber not too long ago I had a strange event happen: I had the sound coming out of my Laptop's speakers and out of my headset simultaneously.

THE PREVIOUSLY "RESOLVED" PROBLEM REPEATS ITSELF...

That was kind of weird but I resolved this strange sound problem then. It repeated yesterday. Hmm.

...AND GETS WORSE

Then today, while I was watching a video about making money with your blog the vista sound went away, totally. No sound on Vista! That was very annoying!

My laptop with "Windows Vista, No Sound" version is not much fun. I'm not very good at reading lips! Anyhow I played around a bit and I found a couple of weird things going on.

The headphones and the speakers playing simultaneously. Basically, the speakers wouldn't shut off when the headphone jack is inserted. This could be a jack problem, but it didn't look like one!
(later) No Sound from Vista. Pressing Fn Up Arrow showed the Volume Bar, and it was at its max, but no sound. The Video Player (Flash Video Player) sound button was at 100%.

I went in decided to go deeper than last time where reboot fixed the problem for the time being. I opened the Sound Driver Manager (Start, Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, Sound), looked at Configuration and Properties. Everything looked fine initially.

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED

Except this: Pressed on Speaker, Properties, again Properties under "Controller Information, High Definition Audio Device", clicked the Driver Tab on Top and pressed Disable to turn off sound! As soon as I confirmed the delete, the sound came on! I rejected the next popup suggesting to reboot to complete the changes. I liked having sound! This lasted for about 30 seconds and then the sound shut itself off again. Funny enough, I was able to repeat this procedure 3-4 times which repeatedly gave me sound for 30 or so seconds at the time. So let's add another "weird symptom" bullet:

the sound came on after hitting the "Disable" in the sound driver and confirming!

I searched for Vista No Sound type problems and indeed, I found a web site http://www.filecluster.com/reviews/102008/realtek-cards-no-sound-in-vista-problem-fix/. They suggested to reinstall the sound drivers and offered (a certain) driver download. I agreed with the reinstall part and decided to download vista sound drivers from the manufacturers site instead.

The strange behavior really ruled out any obvious hardware problem such as speakers or headphones or headphone jack switch. So next thing to think about: maybe the Realtek driver went bad. OK.

DOWNLOADING FRESH DRIVERS AND REMOVING THE INSTALLED DRIVERS

I proceeded to download the driver from the Acer (manufacturer) website acer.com. Selected my country, laptop model and Voila, there it was. It was a Realtek High Definition Audio Driver which seems quite common on Vista these days. About 37 Mbytes zipped. I placed it on my hard drive and proceeded to uninstall the existing driver as directed. Start, Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, Sound, Playback Tab, Speakers, General Tab, Properties, Under Controller information, High Definition Audio Device, Properties, Driver Tab, Uninstall Button (advanced). Agreed (checked) Delete the Driver Software. Click OK.

UNINSTALL SUCCESSFUL. HERE NOT FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS PROVES BENEFICIAL

The driver uninstalled successfully and Vista offered a reboot. I agreed contrary to the directions from the above filecluster website. This proved successful. It turned out, it removed the need to actually install the downloaded driver as Vista found (the old?) drivers and installed them during the restart process. Mind you, I feel the "old" Vista drivers were up-to-date.

VISTA NO SOUND PROBLEM SOLVED

The sound came back. Vista, No Sound Problem Solved. For now. I'll keep you posted.

MY PROBLEM SOLVED. WHAT ABOUT YOURS? LEAVE A COMMENT PLEASE?

Let me know if these directions helped with your sound or even if they didn't help you. Either way, leave me a comment, would you!

IF YOUR PROBLEM IS SOLVED, BOOKMARK THIS PAGE FOR LATER!

And if it did help you, I would appreciate your bookmarking this with your favorite service like Digg or StumbleUpon below. That way you can come back here when needed and others can find this solution more easily as well.

Sluggish Pointer on Windows Vista (And Win 7?) Reoccurred!

2009-11-18T19:22:00.000-08:00

Another sluggish pointer occurrence, another chance for a better answer!

I have previously reported about Vista coming up from sleep with an extremely sluggish pointer/cursor and page faulting WDM Windows Desktop Manager. Back then the solution was to reboot.

Is that really the best way around this? No!

PROBLEM REOCCURRED

Today, I put the laptop to hibernate, woke it up. Sluggish pointer! The symptoms were exactly the same as before: 3-5 times slower pointer, slow windows, and page faulting Windows Desktop Manager. What else can I do but reboot? This would take at least 5 minutes if I am lucky.

SOLUTION: ATTEMPT 1 FAILS!

One way to bring down WDM: Went to Control Panel (which now works flawlessly after fixing it yesterday, see Control Panel Not Working post), System and Maintenance, Performance Tools and Information, Adjust Visual Effects, $Visual Effects TAB, and went all the way down to uncheck Use Visual Effects on Windows and Buttons under Custom. Click Apply and wait, well 3 minutes.

The result? Nada. The mouse pointer, the windows were even more sluggish than before even though WDM wasn't even running.

SOLUTION: ATTEMPT 2 SUCCESSFUL!

Another way was to bring the whole system down to sleep, using the suspend button. Gues what, that worked like a charm, took maybe 20 seconds to suspend and maybe 5 seconds to get back and with no pointer or Windows slowness! So no reboot needed, just put your computer to suspend and back!

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Have you experienced slow or sluggish pointer on Windows Vista or Windows 7? Let me know, leave a comment! Thanks! If this page helped you, bookmark it!

SOLVED: Vista Control Panel Blank, Not Coming Up

2009-11-17T11:50:00.000-08:00

Shocking: Something or Somebody is trying to take control of my computer away from me.

PROBLEM: CONTROL PANEL NOT COMING UP, IS BLANK!

As you are beginning to notice I like to stay on top of things with my computer. So last night I was going to access Vista Control Panel (CP)on one of my laptops (Acer Aspire 5570z Vista SP2). I hit Start/Control Panel. The window pops up and the Control Panel does not get populated with graphics and options. Vista Control Panel stays empty, blank! I wait.

Nothing. The silly light green bar over the top of the window grows toward the right, almost reaching the right edge. As if there is progress made. You know better. Nada. Zilch. Blank white window. No control panel.

I left the computer like that overnight. No dice. No Control Panel.

WORKAROUND: CLASSIC VIEW

Luckily a click on "Classic View" brings up all the items in the Control Panel so I can do whatever I wanted. And, miraculously, I can click "back" to Control Panel Home, and the graphical, default Control Panel (CP)pops up! Problem solved?

WHAT OTHERS FOUND

A quick search for similar problems on the internet finds a variety of possible causes: Slowness caused by indexing of hundreds of thousands of files. This I excluded because my problem is not slowness, my problem is CP not working period. Ever. Plus I do not index anyways.

Another site http://forums.tweakguides.com/showthread.php?t=5228 suggests again that "slowness" of the Control Panel might be due to other applications such as Apple QuickTime. Indeed, I know that is a part of CP display. And, yes I remember, just yesterday Apple popup came up, offerin the upgrade of my Safari browser to 4.0 something. Which I declined. Is this Apple playing being offended?

Yet others http://forums.techguy.org/windows-xp/541064-why-does-take-control-panel.html suggest that control panes might take a long time because of lengthy registry searches. Could be but, this is not lengthy, this takes forever.

Finally, I came across a quite likely solution: Spicks and Speckled at whirlpool.net.au came up with the problem and the solution that will probably work, it just looks too good not to work http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/974866.html :

I came across this problem – but I'd been disabling lots of services as most weren't needed.
I found I couldn't open the control panel, or the power plan (power options) tool.
I fixed this with (from command line – i.e. start->run->cmd)
sc config SLUINotify start= auto
sc start SLUINotify
sc query SLUINotify
You can also fix with this command line tool to get into theservices control gui (since I couldn't start it with the control panel)
services.msc
look for> SL UI Notification Service
I found the service does not stay running, but my control panelworks now as well as the power plan changer. I guess it must start andstop as needed.

I also observed, like him, that the power button in he Vista Tray did not work properly. Left clicking on the battery button brings up the "Fully charged 100%" window, but I can not go into the power options, just like he describes. Well I was able to get into the "Classic View" in my case (see Workaround above) so I went there.

SOLUTION? EXPERIMENT WILL TELL

Went to "Start/Control Panel/"Classic View"/Administrative Tools/Services. Indeed I find SL UI Notification Service set to "Manual" and not started. Changed that to "Automatic" and started the service. By the way SL stands for Software Licensing Activation and Notification and UI maybe stands for User Interface? Sounds really like Apple was trying to do yesterday, install software?

Anyways, starting the SL UI works great. Does it solve the problem?? Let's see: NOT !! No Dice! I also restart Software Licensing service which in turn restarts SL UI. Still, no solution.

NO DICE, FOR NOW. STAY TUNED

No solution for now. I'll restart the laptop to see if that does it. Then maybe, Ill install Apple Safari version 4. In the meantime, you and I can use the Workaround above.

FIVE MINUTES LATER... PROBLEM SOLVED

Couldn't stay away with an unsolved problem... I restarted the laptop and Control Panel works like new. The solution therefore is: Set Service SL UI on Automatic. See EXPERIMENT WILL TELL above. Then restart Vista.

I SUCCEEDED WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Do you have the same problem? Let me know, leave a comment. Have you solved this or similar problem? Let me know, leave a comment. Do you know why I had to restart Vista to fix this? Let me know, leave a comment! Cheers!

SOLVED? Sound Output on Laptop From Both Speakers AND Headphones

2009-11-15T16:45:00.000-08:00

PROBLEM - BOTH SPEAKERS AND HEADPHONES PLAYING

I had a strange thing happen to me today. Almost as if taken from a zombie movie.

Laptop speakers came alive all by themselves!

[UPDATE: This now appears as an overture into Vista No Sound problem, sound drivers going bad, and having to reinstall them later]

I inserted a set of headphones in my Acer Aspire laptop front panel. I was listening to a webcast and I didn't want to disturb my friend. Shortly thereafter my friend alerted me however that my speakers are playing loud!

Crazy- it was hard to believe. Impossible to know by myself because the headsets are all I heard!

Normally I'd expect that when inserting the headphones jack the speakers would be muted. Not this time. Tried plugging and unplugging the headset. Regardless, speakers keep on playin'!

ATTEMPTED SOLUTIONS

What would you do to fix this? Well I tried a few things. Plug/unplug the headphone jack failed. Went into my Device Manager, under Sound, disabled my Realtek sound card. That cut off the sound completely. Turned it back on, still, both headphones and speaker keep on playin'!

FINAL SOLUTION?

Finally, decided to reboot the Vista laptop. That solved the problem and everything works as usual.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Till next time! What do YOU think was going on? What would you do? Please comment if you have a clue!

OTHER PEOPLE WHO COULD BE HELPED BY THIS

This guy with an Asus could be helped, possiby.
These guys at Tom''s Hardware think this is normal behavior. Well not for my laptop!
Some folks actually prefer to have sound from both speakers and headset simultaneously(Win 7)!

Laptop Shutdown Caused By Overheating?

2009-10-31T11:22:00.000-07:00

I was searching feverishly for possible solutions for the computer turning off and on repeatedly. I found that perhaps overheating was the reason!

I found this helpful advice by JimmyT1988 at kioskea.net:

-This is to avoid your cpu being damaged.

You can check if this is happening to you by downloading "coreTemp":

32Bit Windows http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/CoreTemp32.zip
64Bit Windows http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/CoreTemp64.zip

If the temperature is 90 degrees during your gameplay or infact ifit is around 75 degrees whilst just using your computer... This isprobably the issue you are coming across.

Laptop Solution:

Buy a cooler for laptop

Jimmy agrees with me that buying a cooler for a laptop is the way to go. If that was the reason for my laptop turning off and on repeatedly, the temperature must have gone up pretty fast! Maybe in a week's time, enough dust has collected to cause overheating??

Anyways...

I downloaded CoreTemp, the 32Bit Windows Version. I installed CoreTemp and it works superb. I keep it in my system tray. My temperatures vary between 56 C and 60 C and I set it so that it puts my laptop to sleep if the temperature reaches 90 C. By default it will not send computer to sleep or shut down in case of overheating. You can tweak the settings to change the display to Fahrenheit. If you just want to check the temperatures you do not need to change anything and just stick with the defaults.

RELATED LINKS

Laptop turning on and off repeatedly, won't boot. Solved!

Protect your laptop in style: Buy a cooler for a laptop.

I also found Speedfan, and I like that too. It can show and regulate fan speeds, and shows hard disk temperature as well.

Vista Laptop Not Booting - Again! (Part 2)

2009-10-29T15:47:00.000-07:00

CONTINUING SAGA...

As I was telling you earlier, I managed after a few attempts to get my laptop to boot and work just fine from the state of turning itself on, blinking and disk spinning, then turning itself off again! That was really weird. I also told you I did not run a disk check!

THE NEXT MORNING, A RUDE AWAKENING

The next morning I was up for a rude awakening. Previous night I left the laptop in the hibernate mode. I pressed the on button and, darn, it got even worse than last night! This time, the "on" light, and the "caps lock" light, and the "numeric lock" light came on, but not the disk light, and there was NO SOUND from the disk either! Wow. It got even worse than last night! The computer is not booting up! What to do?

COMPUTER WILL NOT BOOT, SHOWS BLANK SCREEN, NO DISK LIGHT

This time, computer did not get turned off by itself. It just stayed on, and on, and on, with the blank screen and disk not making any noises. Just silence. That was terrible. Luckily, I knew from past experience about laptop not booting and showing blank screen that patience helps and that I needed to wait until I hear the fan come on and I may be able to fix the computer not booting. Or so I hoped.

A HALF HOUR LATER, THE FAN!

It took over a half an hour before the sound of the fan announced something has changed. The DVD player ( with no DVD inserted ) started to do its light show with the DVD light. Best of all, the hard disk light came on! I pushed the DVD eject button and the tray did come out. So that's different. A positive change. What next? I turn the computer off and back on, still nothing, this Vista is not booting up.

IF YOU HEAR A CLICKING SOUND FROM A HARD DISK...

I keep it on and, lo and behold, 3 minutes later, the hard disk light and the sound of the hard disk came on. That was good as a sign of life, however the sound of the hard disk was like a click. That can not be good.

BACK IN THE SAME GAME OF TURN OFF TURN ON

In fact, I got back to the game reported earlier, computer shutting itself off, by itself! Then back on, just like last night! The DVD light was blinking, even though the tray was out. Wow. The F8 didn't help this time. Weird! Now, the computer turned itself off just about once a minute. Then right back on! I just let it be. Just let it be.

PATIENCE HELPS, AGAIN

Remarkably, after about one long hour of waiting, the laptop came back up, took up the hibernate file, and restored the Vista as if nothing happened in the last couple of hours! Quite amazing. Yet, not quite unexpected as such miraculous healings of my laptop occurred previously, just about a month ago. As you may remember back then computer wouldn't boot after I turned the computer off during a disk check!

LAPTOP IS BACK UP, WORKING FLAWLESSLY

After giving thanks to the lord of miracles, I immediately executed disk checks of both my C: drive and the D: drive. The checks showed nothing wrong. So far my computer is running flawlessly. Just another day in the la-la land of laptop happenings and just another simple yet exciting and quite miraculous resurrection of an almost dead computer.

WHAT ABOUT YOUR COMPUTER?

What about you? Did you have similar symptoms with your computer? I'd love to hear from you. Did the story above help you solve your "windows computer not booting" problem? As simple as it may be, it may not be the obvious choice of trying to solve the problem. As one of the younger commentators says, they TRIED EVERYTHING to get his laptop to boot ( and he really needs it as it's hard to NOT play a video game after playing for five years, pretty much daily ). And his mom won't call the HP as the laptop is out of warranty! This example, and others, show that instead of trying EVERYTHING, sometimes you must do almost NOTHING instead. To solve this problem I just listened to what was happening with the machine and allowed the computer to come back up. All I did was patiently wait. Hardly the stuff video games are made of. Let me know if you had similar symptoms and if this story helped you get your computer to boot! Just leave me a comment below, either way!

P.S.: Although I trust miracles will happen again and my laptop will be safe, I'm diving into the land of backups. I am starting to be serious about making backups. More later!

RELATED POSTS

Part One of This Post - Computer Not Booting, Turns Itself Off And On

Vista or Windows 7 Computer Will Not Resume From Sleep, Suspend or Hibernate

An excellent guide to POST (power on self test) and cleaning your computer to prevent boot problems

Computer Turns On and Off: Booting Problem Resolved! (Part 1)

2009-10-29T14:02:00.000-07:00

NICE TRIP TO MEXICO

I just got back from a super nice trip to Cancun, Yucatan, Mexico. The trip was about a week long. I really enjoyed the warm weather, much warmer than LA, and warmer Caribbean sea. I didn't take my laptop with me, I decided to travel even lighter than usual. The place where we stayed was pretty touristy, there were 3 Starbucks within walking distance, gosh! So maybe next time I will take the computer along. I wonder how high humidity would affect the laptop if the laptop was in Cancun?

BACK IN LA: LAPTOP AWAITS WITH A SHOW: TURNS ITSELF ON THEN OFF REPEATEDLY

As I landed back home in LA, I was in for a light show and an unpleasant surprise from my laptop. The laptop computer was in a very bad shape. As I pressed the "on" button, the "caps lock" the "numeric lock" and the "hard drive" lights, as well as the "on" light would come up, the hard drive would spin, and there would be a clicking noise from the hard drive. Then, suddenly, after about 5-10 seconds, the hard drive would spin and click for the very last time, and the computer would turn itself off. The screen never even came up. Then after a few seconds, the laptop computer would turn itself on again, and go through the same motions, again. And again! My laptop computer keeps turning itself on and off! There was no end in sight of this light show and the disk spinning and clicking show!

WHAT I TRIED, WHAT SEEMED TO WORK

I tried pressing F2, F12, and finally F8. Yeah! The F8 seemed to help and the laptop remained turned on but with a blank screen. I waited five minutes and the "Resuming Windows" sign pops up! Great! Not quite there yet! The computer won't boot up, it got stuck again! I turn it off again and back on. Now it comes up all the way. Started some programs, yeah! It works fine now! It was late, so I set it to hibernate and went to bed. Was that a mistake? Should I have run disk checks?

BUT WAS THIS A PERMANENT SOLUTION?

The next day: The saga continues...

P.S.: I keep wondering what could it be to cause this problem with my laptop just sitting on my desk for a week. There were some very strong winds in the area, probably low pressure... indeed on my way back to LAX there was some extremely strong turbulence in the air due to strong winds..quite scary. Was laptop feeling alone and abandoned? Did the temperature drop? Was there internal condensation? Who knows?

P.P.S.: Read on to find out if my Vista Computer was booting the next day!

RELATED POSTS

Vista Computer Not Waking Up From Sleep

The Battle of Two Softwares: Microsoft vs Firefox!

2009-10-17T13:58:00.000-07:00

[UPDATE: As interesting as the development between Microsoft and Mozilla Firefox may be, see below, it does NOT correct for the occasional blinking and dis-funcionality of the Minimize, Restore, and Close buttons in Firefox. Bookmark the page about workarounds for the Close Button Blinking problem or FOLLOW through Google Friends Connect below to stay updated.]

The plot thickens. According to the analytics data from this and a few other blogs, the usage of Microsoft Internet Explorer had another few % drop in September. Firefox is holding its ground while Chrome gained about 2-3%. It looks like a Battle of the Browser, the Battle for Your attention among the "giants"! But back to the case at hand:

Several Firefox users Matt, Jae, and Hanna among others have recently reported their Firefox browsers misbehaving badly. The symptom was a blinking (flashing) Close, Minimize or Restore Button in the window frame of Firefox. The blinking buttons flashed on and off upon pressing them. The functionality of the buttons was nil. They didn't work.

Today, a pop-up has appeared through my Firefox. I had never before received such a pop-up from Firefox! Quoting:

FIREFOX:

These Add-ons Have been blocked:
Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant 1.1 [Blocked add-on]
Windows Presentation Foundation 3.5.30729.1 [Blocked add-on]
These Add-ons have a high risk of causing stability or security problems and have been blocked. Restart is required.

Incredible! Ichecked and yes, I had .NET Framework Assistant 1.1 Extension installedin my Firefox. And yes, I had the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)Plugin installed in my Firefox. You can indeed find the .NET Framework Assistant and WPF in my original problem report to Firefox. I have yet to see if this will be a solid workaround for the problem described. Firefox is quiet about the details.

Let me know in a comment if you had a similar problem with your Firefox and if this workaround (Workaround #4) of disabling the two Microsoft Add-ons or if any other 3 workarounds given here helped you or maybe NOT! Let me know either way! Just leave a comment below.

Solved: Address bar not working in Firefox on Vista

2009-10-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

[UPDATE 11/6/2009: Today, I upgraded Alexa Sparky to Version 1.4.5 and re-enabled it. If there are no problems with the FireFox toolbar, it means that probably, Alexa fixed the problem and you can go ahead and do the same, update Alexa Sparky to 1.4.5 or higher and enable it. Let me know in a comment if that worked for you. I will keep you posted as well.]

[SOLVED: This is a quick, 2 minute solution. I found out that Alexa Sparky Version 1.4.4 Firefox Extension/Add On which I downloaded today was the culprit. Do you have Alexa Sparky AddOn? I disabled Alexa Sparky 1.4.4. under Tools/AddOns and the address bar in Firefox 3.5.3 works again. See details below to make sure your problem gets solved this way too!]

Previously, I reported blinking Close, Minimize and Maximize button in a Firefox 3.5.3 frame using Windows Vista SP3 . Shortly after I observed that problem, the address bar functionality has been severed. I can not navigate to any websites, not even google.com. I can not see the URL of any website in various tabs that I have open. That is true even after restarting Firefox. I am about to downgrade to Firefox 3.0.14. I've downloaded it and ready. I got importan work to do online! And Firefox is my main window to the internet. If you have found any solution to this, please let me know. I could not find a solution on the internet as of yet.

SOLUTION (SAME DAY IN THE EVENING)

I found out that Alexa Sparky Version 1.4.4 Firefox Extension/Add On which I downloaded today was the culprit for the problem with the address bar described above. I went ahead, disabled Alexa Sparky under Tools/AddOns and the fabulous address bar in Firefox 3.5.3 works again.

P.S. Before downgrading to 3.0.14. I will still see if closing some of the Firefox tabs might help. I have 2 windows open with Firefox with about a dozen tabs each.

P.P.S. For future benefit, I'll post a link to Mozillazine.org's Standard Firefox Diagnostics and Troubleshooting process. A bit over the top for this case. Especially as I wanted to retain the valuable tabs opened. Here is the link: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_%28Firefox%29

WORKAROUND for Firefox on Vista: Close, Minimize, Restore Buttons Blinking and Not Functioning

2009-10-13T16:10:00.000-07:00

Please see below for Six (6!) Possible Workarounds to this problem! #6 is the most promising so far.

[UPDATE: I have later on reported Firefox Address Bar not functioning. That problem was resolved, and the culprit was apparently Alexa Sparky v. 1.4.4 . I am waiting on further information whether the bug with blinking close, minimize and maximize buttons is going to reoccur or not. But we know now that this is an problem independent of Alexa Sparky]

PROBLEM

When trying to use one of the Minimize, Maximize (Restore), and Close Buttons in Firefox 3.5.3, these buttons start blinking erratically and do NOT function. When I click on all three, there is quite a display of blinking, seemingly somewhat correlated. However, the Firefox is hosed and needs to be killed and restarted. Still seeking solution for this problem. Let me know in a comment if you found a solution or at least a workaround!

[UPDATE 2: Previous claim that changing Windows Personalization Properties solves the problem was not true. In fact, the buttons did stop blinking. However, when pressed they went blinking again and were not functional.]

WORKAROUND

Currently, the workaround is to kill the Firefox 3.5 process through Task Manager. Possibly you could close it through the Task Bar click on the Firefox icon and hitting F4 to close. I have not tested this yet.

WORKAROUND 2 (POSSIBLY)

[UPDATE: This is the most promising workaround so far. I noticed TODAY 10/21/09 that when I got blinking minimize button, I also got unresponsive Firefox window frames. All three of them. I indeed counted the number of tabs and it was 40 exactly. It was possible to close one tab, and guess what, the same second, the blinking of the minimize button stopped!]

[UPDATE 2: 10/30/2009: Got the same problem today. Some of the tabs were unresponsive when I got the blinking minimize button syndrome. Some were responsive. I closed a few of those and the problem went away. Again, this is the easiest most promising workaround so far. Close some tabs.]

I found that the problem has not occurred after I reduced the number of tabs open in my Firefox Windows. This could be a workaround - reducing the number of tabs may be a good idea anyways.
I got another independent confirmation that reducing the number of tabs works by Jae

Jae
Firefox user

Hmm...I haven't paid attention to the specific number of tabs open, but itdoes seem to help when I clean up my tabs (meaning go from 40-ish to15-20). I'll be sure to keep an eye on the number of tabs open nexttime it happens.

So after you've restarted FF, quickly reduce the number of tabs open. I have not yet had the problem reoccur since I reduced the number of tabs.

Let me know in the comments below how many tabs and how many FF windows you had open when you saw the problem. Thanks!

WORKAROUND 3 (THANKS TO COMMENTER HANNA)

Hanna, below, found that switching to another, non-flash tab made buttons function again.
[Update: I just had the same "blinking close, maximize, and minimize button problem" today, and switching tabs showed a different tab content, but did NOT make the problem with the buttons go away. The problem disappeared by itself later, much later. So this is NOT a universal workaround.]

WORKAROUND 4 (Potential, Thanks to a TIMELY Firefox PopUp Message)

I had never before received such a pop-up from Firefox! The pop-up has appeared through my Firefox today:

These Add-ons Have been blocked:
Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant 1.1 [Blocked add-on]
Windows Presentation Foundation 3.5.30729.1 [Blocked add-on]
These Add-ons have a high risk of causing stability or security problems and have been blocked. Restart is required.

There you have it. That is a potential Workaround #4 for the problem.

I checked and yes, I had .NET Framework Assistant 1.1 Extension installed in my Firefox. And yes, I had the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) Plugin installed in my Firefox. You can indeed find them in my original problem report to Firefox, below.

I write about this very peculiar possible workaround in the post titled The Battle of Softwares: Microsoft vs Firefox.

[Update: I just had the same "blinking and non-functional Close, Restore, and Minimizebutton problem" today, after disableing the above Add-ons and restarting Firefox. Disabling the above Add-ons will prevent future surprises from Microsoft in Firefox. However, it did NOT make the problem with the buttons go away. So this is probably NOT a workaround.]

WORKAROUND #5 (POSSIBLE, BASED ON A HINT FROM FIREFOX)

Disable Firefox Skype extension!

[UPDATE: Anonymous reports in the comments below that problem still persists with Skype extension disabled. See below. This workaround needs to be thrown out the window! ]

Today Firefox popup came up suggesting to disable Firefox Skypeextension 2.2.102 because it causes instabilities. Couldthat be a solution? Everyone, please help: If you are reporting this blinkingclose, minimize, restore buttons problems in the comments below, please include: #1) Howmany tabs you had open in FF when it happened #2) Do you have FirefoxSkype Extension enabled, and what version. That would be great. I havedisabled Skype extension for Firefox today and we'll see if the problemreocurrs.

WORKAROUND #6 (most promising so far! Thanks to an anonymous commenter, below.)

If you have more than one Firefox Window open, Close All But One! Move your tabs into one single window (just click and drag will do). Then close all windows but one. If you are having this problem and are commenting below, please let us know how many windows you had open.

WORKAROUND #7

Posted separately in a new post! See you there!

SOLUTION

There is no proper solution to this problem just yet. You'll just have to use one of the WORKAROUNDS above for now. If you have this problem and are sick of needing to kill Firefox and restart, click on Follow with Google Friend Connect on the bottom left and I will let you know when I find the solution. Probably the SAME DAY as it becomes available! The other thing you can do is whenever you see this problem occur, disable one of your AddOns and see if anything improves. Then let me know in the comment below, which AddOn did you disable! Thanks!

REPORTING PROBLEM TO FIREFOX DEVELOPERS

Below the problem I reported today to Firefox developers: If you have a solution please let me know. Before I reported the issue, I searchd all over the internet. No solution. Googled for firefox close button not working, firefox problem, firefox minimize button not working, firefox restor button problem, firefox unresponsive, firefox frozen, firefox not working, firefox stops working. No solution.

I am planning to downgrade from Firefox 3.5 more specifically Firefox 3.5.3 down to 3.0.14.

Shortly after this problem which happened even after restarting Firefox, I was not able to get any URL to display or to navigate in Firefox to any website. In fact I am writing this using Google Chrome!

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION SUBMITTED

Here's the problem report submitted to Firefox: http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?locale=en-US&forumId=1&comments_parentId=471517

Sometimes The Close, The Maximize and The Minimize Buttons are Blinking

Issue

Firefox is having problems with certain web sites

Description

The Windows Vista: Close, Maximize and Minimize buttons in thetop/right of the windows frame start to blink and become disfunctionalfor an extended period of time. This happens on random websites, one ofthem being "Google hiring workers from home" site which is triggered ina popunder.

URL of affected sites

http://any.com but see above

Extensions installed

several, other reports say it happens in Safe mode as well.

Firefox version

3.5.3

Operating system

Windows Vista

User Agent

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090824 Firefox/3.5.3 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

Plugins installed

[-]

IE Tab Plug-in for Mozilla/Firefox
LogMeIn, Inc. Remote Access Components
npmnqmp 07076007
QuickUpload Plugin (1.0.0.47)
Default Plug-in
RealJukebox Netscape Plugin
RealPlayer(tm) LiveConnect-Enabled Plug-In
6.0.12.69
Adobe PDF Plug-In For Firefox and Netscape
BitTorrent Plugin 1
1.7.0059.1
npunagi2
np-mswmp
Office Plugin for Netscape Navigator
Google Update
Shockwave Flash 10.0 r22
Delivery Network Acceleration by BitTorrent™
3.0.40723.0
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) plug-in for Mozilla browsers
MetaStream 3 Plugin r4
Java Plug-in 1.6.0_03 for Netscape Navigator (DLL Helper)

SOLVED: Computer Goes Back To Sleep After Wake Up

2009-10-05T23:18:00.000-07:00

This post will show you how to prevent your computer from falling asleep too soon.

PROBLEM: COMPUTER FALLING ASLEEP TOO SOON AFTER WAKE UP

I've been telling you how I resolved the problem of Windows Vista not waking up from sleep or hibernate. Now that this problem is solved, I encountered another one: Laptop computer goes back to sleep soon after wake up or resume.

This only happens when I don't touch the keyboard after the computer is back up.It is annoying because resume from hibernate takes quite a while, maybe 2 minutes. I leave to get something else done while waiting. I come back and find computer has fallen back to sleep/hibernate again. I lost 5-10 minutes that way.

Others schedule their computer to awake at a certain time for a scheduled task. Their annoyance is that the computer goes back to sleep before the task is completed. I will show here how both problems are resolved. The same solution applies to both.

SOLUTION

It turns out (credit for reporting this goes to http://vista64.com) that Vista will fall back asleep or hibernate after a specified amount of time if not physically interacted with. Such as by typing or moving the mouse. This amount of time is set to 120 seconds or two minutes. The value is stored in registry.

If you are uncomfortable changing registry, please ask someone else or just keep in mind you need to be there within 2 minutes of Vista computer waking up and need to touch the keyboard.

HOW TO CHANGE THE TIME BEFORE COMPUTER FALLS ASLEEP

Here's how to change the appropriate key in the Registry: Click Start, then in the box on the bottom type regedit. If prompted by UAC, click Continue.

Registry editor comes up. Follow the tree: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\238C9FA8-0AAD-41ED-83F4-97BE242C8F20\7bc4a2f9-d8fc-4469-b07b-33eb785aaca0\DefaultPowerSchemeValues

In the left pane, click on the triangle to expand DefaultPowerSchemeValues into three subvalues. They correspond to Balanced, High Performance, and Power Saver options. To be safe, just change all three values, under both AC and DC values. So total of six. I changed from the default 120 seconds to 300 seconds. So long as I'm back in 5 minutes the computer won't fall back to sleep or hibernate.

If a scheduled program is waking computer up from sleep, make sure you set the value to longer than the maximum anticipated duration of the run of the scheduled program.

THIS SOLVED MY PROBLEM. WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Have you found this solution workable, and useful? Are you now able to get back to your computer before it falls back into hibernate? Or, are the programs that are waking up your computer getting enough wake-up time to complete their jobs? Let me know either way, ok? Just click on the "Leave a Comment" link below!

Recurring Laser Printer Paper Jam Problem - Recurred

2009-10-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

ANNOYANCE: RECURRING LASER PRINTER PAPER JAM

I was just telling you two days back about the persistent recurring laser paper jam problem. Every time I attempted to print the first page would print fine, but the second page never printed. Sometimes even the first page only came out of the printer 2/3 of the way. I fixed this problem by finding manufacturers directions, followed them, and, voila, the problem was solved.

SYMPTOMS NOT GONE, JUST TRANSFORMED

Two days later, I find that the problem of recurring printer paper jam is still not gone, only transformed. Today I wanted to print a larger document. I found that printer stopped printing after the first page, blinking a red "Paper" light and refusing to print further. All I needed to do was to push the big print button on top and the next page came out. Or, if that didn't work, I had to pull the paper tray open and push it back in, press the big print button and printing would resume. See below to understand why this worked. Not as annoying as before but still, not quite functional.

FOLLOW DIRECTIONS TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM AGAIN

As this problem could still be classified as a paper jam problem, I followed the same manufacturers (Brother) directions again. I opened the printer up, removed the tray and the drum, cleaned the rollers thoroughly with a wet cloth and I made sure I cleaned all of the rollers. Replaced the tray and the drum and went for a test print.

Heavens!!?! Now printouts came out just terrible, there were big black smudges on paper and the second sheet even got stuck in the printer, causing a massive paper jam. Not great. I pulled all the jammed paper out and retried. It did come out better, and after the third printing, the smudges and the jammed paper were not recurring again. Next time I should have let the rollers dry before the test print!

NO SOLUTION...

However, my problem with the second page not printing was not gone. However, this time it was different. When I needed to print two or more pages, printer would print the first page fine. The second page, however, would not be printed. I inspected the tray and saw that the second sheet of paper would consistently be lifted out of the tray and lay on the "separation pad". Never made it any further. I tried several times.

ONLY THEORIES...

From all the materials that I read about the problem I concluded that the worn out pickup roller was the culprit. It did appear smooth and slippery in places indeed. Tried cleaning it again, even with alcohol (the manufacturers directions do not suggest that because of the fire hazard). I even "roughed it up" using a sharp knife and at one point I was able to print two pages at the time, but not three. I gave up. My current theory is that I was able to fix the dirty separation roler and dirty separation pad but the pickup roller was beyond repair.

MY SOLUTION: PULL OUT A SPARE PRINTER

So finally, I replaced the printer. I had previously bought another HL-2040 so that was easy for me, I had a spare one. I'm okay.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? WHAT WILL YOU DO?

If you do not wish to buy a new roller or Buy new laser printer, the workaround is to print the first page, then open and close the paper tray (this pushes the second sheet back into the tray), press the Go button, and print another page. Quite annoying but at least you don't have to remove stuck paper from underneath the drum as before.

Another workaround is to print using manual feed. That still works, one sheet at the time. You may even want to set your print software preference to "manual".

MYSTERY REMAINS

What is still unclear is why the first page from the tray always prints???

OTHER SOLUTIONS

Do you have a better solution? Let me know, just leave me a comment below! Here are a few suggestions which I haven't tried. If you do, let me know if they worked for you!

First other solution would be to buy a rubber roller rejuvenation can. That could extend the life of your rollers.

Second solution could be for you to buy a new roller. See this website. You'll have to contact the company by phone.

Third solution: Buy a new laser printer. In fact, do like I did. Buy Two New (or Used even) Identical Laser Printers. They are not that expensive. This roller problem was not the first problem where spare parts from the second laser printer came in handy. I had issues with the drum, the toner, the toner refills, you name it, before. All easily and successfully resolved with spare parts from another printer. And the reason I bought two laser printers at the same time? The price was right, and I knew the laser printer models change quickly so the model may not be available when you need spare parts. And the last reason: The cost of repairs of laser printers in the USA is quickly approaching the cost of a new printer. So there you have it. Buy two!

Either way, leave me a comment if you found a solution that worked for you!

REFERENCES

Original Brother page for paper jam problems at Brother Solutions Center.

Techrepublic post on printer troubleshooting, see chapter on Clearing Paper Jams

Buy Rubber Roller Rejuvenator Can from fixyourownprinter

Another descritpion of the same problem I had from fixyourownprinter. The poster could get one step farther toward the solution if he knew of my post here.

Another article from Techrepublic, see chapter titled "Clearing Paper Jams"

Page where you can buy printer rollers at kejia.com

Buy new or used laser printer from Amazon.com

RELATED POSTS

Solved: Persistent laser printer problem: Page stuck under the drum, causing paper jam.

SOLVED: Windows Vista Sleep Problem, Laptop Not Waking Up

2009-09-30T22:36:00.000-07:00

ANNOYANCE: WINDOWS VISTA LAPTOP NOT WAKING UP FROM SLEEP PROPERLY

Are you puzzled by Your Microsoft Widows Vista laptop not getting back from the sleep mode? Don't you hate it when you need to reboot your laptop and lose all your settings and data in the process? You are not alone, I had the problem with Vista sleep, and so do many folks I met online. Read on, this could solve your problem of Vista not coming back from sleep.

PREVIOUSLY SOLVED: LAPTOP HIBERNATE PROBLEM

A few weeks ago I showed you how to fix a Windows Vista Sleep or, better, Hibernate Problem. The problem stemmed from the disabled hibernate file in Vista. Indeed, during the last month or so now, I had no problems with Windows Vista hibernate. However, as I also pointed out, Vista Sleep proper (not Hibernate) still failed from time to time.

WHY MIGHT YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH WINDOWS VISTA LAPTOP SLEEP

Here is my theory: Windows Vista Sleep is a combination of Suspend into memory and then, if allowed, Hibernate after a while. Microsoft calls this combination Hybrid Sleep. It is very useful for a number of reasons. Since hibernate part of hybrid sleep now works after the fix, the suspend part comes into question. I realized recently that Windows Vista suspend power requirement is not insignificant. That is opposite to hibernate which takes no power at all. Some claim that suspend could last 60 hours on a full battery. Others report maybe just 7 hours. What if your battery is not new? What if your battery is really really used up? What if your laptop runs out of juice before hibernate kicks in? If it does, you will come back to your laptop, press the "On" button, and you will not be able to recover, ending up with a lights on and blank screen. This is what a lot of people find.

SOLUTION FOR WINDOWS VISTA SLEEP PROBLEM: TIME HIBERNATE PROPERLY

I've played around with this theory and found it makes a lot of sense. So based on this theory, here is my solution #2 to the problem of Vista not waking up properly from sleep. Again, I'm assuming that your Vista Hibernate is already working fine. If not, go back and fix Vista Hibernate first following these directions.

To fix Sleep proper, you want to make sure that Hibernate kicks in on time. You know approximately how long your laptop lasts on battery. I would give it about that much time at most before I'd kick it into hibernate. You can accomplish this easily through Windows Vista Power Settings.

SETTING WINDOWS VISTA POWER SETTINGS RIGHT

Let's set Hibernate to kick in 60 minutes after sleep. If your battery lasts less than an hour, make the appropriate setting less than 60 minutes. Here's how:

In Vista go to Start/Control Panel/Mobile PC/Power Options/. Under your current selection of plan, click on Change Plan Settings/Change Advanced Settings. Then select Allow Hybrid Sleep ON (on battery). Second, set Hibernate (on battery) to 60 minutes. If your battery only lasts 10 minutes, set this to 10 minutes or maybe even just 4 minutes.

Save all settings and close all Power Options windows. That is it. You're done. Your laptop will now come back from sleep alright because it will never run out of juice during sleep. That is, it will kick into Hibernate before running out of juice.

MY PROBLEM SOLVED. WHAT ABOUT YOURS?

This solved my laptop's sleep problem. What about you? Have you been able to follow advice above? Has that helped you not lose data after putting your laptop to sleep? Let me know. Just leave a comment below, thanks!

UPCOMING RELATED ISSUES

Other issues: As I was playing around with the sleep and hibernate options, I got a glimpse of a possible solution to another related problem some people were reporting in the help forums. They found their Vista laptop came awake during sleep repeatedly and they lost all data and found a depleted battery when they returned back to their laptop. If you would like to find a solution to that problem let me know and I will investigate further. If the problem is happening with your laptop, please leave me as much information as you can in the comment below. Or, hit "Follow through Google Friend Connect" on the side.

Persistent Paper Jam: Buy New Laser Printer? No, Fix It!

2009-09-29T14:02:00.000-07:00

ANNOYANCE - PERSISTENT PAPER JAM IN LASER PRINTER

I had this persistent paper jam in my laser printer. The second page would always jam. Time to buy a new laser printer? Well I sure thougth I would have to buy another laser printer, even thought of to buy a new color laser printer. But there is no need! You can fix it! Read on!

DETAILS - TRAY PROBLEM

It's been a hot and fiery summer here in Los Angeles. A two weeks long fire in the surrounding mountains. There was a lot of smoke in the air. Some of that smoke and dust came in through the window. It only made the laser printer paper jam worse. I'm not using my laser printer much anymore but I do on occasion. It's been a pain. The manual feeder works fine, one page at the time. The Tray Feed, however was acting up for quite some time, maybe months.

What happened was that whenever I submitted a print request, the first page would print fine. For some reason, even if not requested, the second paper page would be sucked into the laser printer and caused a jam. So I could never print the second page without opening the laser printer, clearing the jam, pressing the button and continuing. What a pain. I have Brother HL-2040 by the way.

SEARCHING FOR A SOLUTION

So I decided to tackle this today. I googled online under "printer jam", "paper jam", "printer paper jam", "brother hl paper jam" etc. Finally, I got to a very helpful page directly from the manufacturer that helped me out a lot. Here are the directions if you ever have a paper jam as described above:

http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/BSC/public/eu/gb/en/faq/faq/000000/002000/000024/faq002024_006.html?reg=eu&c=gb〈=en∏=hl2070n_all

I was surprised to find so many rollers. Separation roller, pick up roller, etc. etc. The point is, you need to clean'em all. With a wet cloth. That is basically what the page above shows you. How to and how not to. The only thing that the directions above would not tell you is that you need to make a special effort to clean the rollers from all sides. And that can be tricky when they can not move, so you can only see one side. You catch them when they are rolling during printing. You need to be careful about that because the printer of course must be on at the time. When the rollers roll, you will see if there are any dirty segments. Clean them while they are rolling ;). Again, be careful!

MY PROBLEM SOLVED

Following the directions on the site above and making sure the rollers are completely wiped, even wiping them "on the fly", my annoyance was gone! Problem solved! At least for now! Until the next fire!

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Let me know if this helped solve your printer paper jam annoyance, and if other brands of printers have similar problems and solutions. Just leave me a comment, especially if this helped you solve the printer jam. Thanks!

SOLVED: Laptop won't boot and shows blank screen

2009-09-25T22:40:00.000-07:00

VEGAS BABY VEGAS

If you traveled much you know traveling is stressful both for you and for your laptop. I was just waiting on my plane at the Las Vegas airport. I used the laptop on and off in Vegas. There are very few locations on the Strip with reasonably priced or free WiFi. More on that some other time. I was able to play around with the laptop sleep again and had problems booting the laptop with the DVD inserted. That's even though my DVD writer/player device is disabled. And the DVD lights keep coming up... Trying to boot from the disabled DVD? Oh well. Back to the main story...

CHECK DISK INTERRUPTED BY PLANE LEAVING VEGAS

I decided to do a "quick" check disk as I had over an hour left before the plane was leaving. As I mentioned I had some problems booting with a DVD inserted so I wanted to make sure the hard disk was in good shape. So I fire up the check disk to be scheduled on reboot. I reboot the laptop. Check disk starts and... takes forever. My group was called for boarding. How to interrupt checkdisk? I knew of no other way but to turn the laptop off, pack it and rush to the plane.

BACK IN LA - LAPTOP REFUSING TO BOOT

How would you feel if on boot, the hard drive light doesn't even come up and you end up with blank screen? At first I thought I crashed the hard disk when I pulled the plug on check disk. Hard disks are sensitive to this kind of abuse, right? At least when I still had the problem with laptop not booting from sleep mentioned earlier, the hard disk light came up. I'm talking about my Acer Aspire 5770z by the way. Now watch this.

WHAT I TRIED, UNSUCCESSFULLY

I tried a number of things. Tried resetting the computer by plugging out the battery and plugging out the power cord and pressing the on/off button for 60 seconds. 4o seconds is a long time. No help. I tried turning the laptop on and off numerous times, to no avail. So I just gave up, and went on to read a book I got in Vegas.

SURPRISE - A SIGN OF LIFE FROM THE LAPTOP

Imagine my surprise when, still reading the book, I suddenly heard the laptop's fan starting to blow. A sign of life! Just waiting patiently. Did the temperature rise? Oh well, I turned the laptop off, back on, and, voila, the hard disk came up and the vista booting proceeded. Not 100% though. But after a few attempts, the laptop came up completely and is now fully functional.

BOTTOM LINE - TIME HEALS ALL WOUNDS AND ESPECIALLY THE NON-BOOTING VISTA

Don't give up on your laptop when it's not booting. It could be that the system needs a high temperature kick. Maybe the disk self-heals after starting. Who knows? But my solution for this case of laptop not booting was to wait with a laptop turned on. Maybe about 1/2 hour. Something like that.

DID THIS SOLVE YOUR PROBLEM?

What about you? Were you able to resolve your booting problem by just waiting for the system to heat up enough and start properly? I wonder how common this solution could be. Definitely better than sending the laptop for a repair. Out of warranty, I'm sure the cost would be at least a couple hundred and who knows, they may need to wipe out your disk with all your data and settings! What a prospect.

LEAVE ME A COMMENT, BUDDY

Regardless, let me know in a comment below what kind of a problem you had that brought you to read this page. And let me know if you were able to fix your problem with your laptop or not. Either way, ok!?

4 Fashionable Ways to Protect Your Laptop in Style

2009-09-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

BEING MOBILE

Today's business professionals, students, even work-at-home professionals do not like to be tied to a single location. They need and want to be mobile. They like to enjoy working from the airports, Starbucks locations, libraries, or hotels. Laptops, and more recently, netbooks are a preferred way for them to be able to accomplish serious amount of work anywhere, anytime.

YOUR LAPTOP UNDER STRESS

The movements, shifts, vibrations, even accidental drops are expected to cause substantial stress on laptops and netbooks. The part most exposed to such stress is the hard disk. Hard disks are virtually the only moving part in netbooks and laptops. Hard disks are very sensitive to shocks, vibration, even loud shouting!

HIGH TEMPERATURE?

High operating temperature is another major reason for laptop and netbook hardware troubles. Especially when the computer is exposed to direct sunshine and when operating at high processor utilization. Such as having many programs running at the same time.

FOUR WAYS TO STAY MOBILE AND PROTECTED IN STYLE

As a mobile professional you do not want to compromise your mobility. You can, however, minimize the risk of computer damage. Here are three ways to do that:

Laptop skin. These are thin and are attached to the back of your laptop cover. They can be very stylish. Go all out and let them show your personality. At the same time they protect the most ding and dent-sensitive part of your laptop.

Laptop sleeve. These are relatively thin enclosures and should tightly fit your laptop or netbook. They are made of leather or neoprene. Some netbooks these days come with a sleeve. If not, that is a worthy extra expense. You do want to be stylish here. Depending on your style, you can pick up a single color skin, like black, or you can go with an artsy, colorful skin. Go all out, protect your computer in style!

Laptop bag or case. These are larger and will house your computer accessories such as the charger, the USB or bluetooth external mouse, the chill pad, perhaps a headset and a microphone. For extra padding I recommend using a laptop bag big enough to fit in your laptop already snuggly stored in a skin or sleeve.

Laptop chill pad. A chill pad will protect your laptop or netbook from high temperature. High operating temperature can damage both your hard disk, the CPU, and the motherboard. Computer problems caused by overheating are difficult to diagnose and expensive to fix.

RELATED LINKS

A gallery of laptop and netbook skins

A gallery of laptop and netbook sleeves

Laptop bags and cases

Top three laptop chill pads

Is Windows 7 a worthy upgrade for your laptop?

Windows 7 Solution to Vista Annoyances?

2009-09-17T14:51:00.000-07:00

Windows 7 promises to end scores of annoyances with Windows Vista. One of the annoyances I discussed in my earlier post about Vista unable to wake up from suspend or hibernate.

Microsoft understands that Vista was a major step forward from Windows XP. However, it was also a much more complex and demanding operating system than the XP. Microsoft realized that what they need now is a smaller step forward, more polished, and more user friendly. Sounds like there will be fewer annoyances with Windows 7! Microsoft says:

"When we asked what you wanted in a PC, you told us to make it simplerand easier to use. We listened. And we built Windows 7 to make your PCsimpler and the things you do every day easier. Now, it's nearly ready.Windows 7 is on its way to manufacturers, and will be available onOctober 22"

IMPROVEMENTS IN USER EXPERIENCE WITH WINDOWS 7

Improved Taskbar and fullscreen previews:

Get the picture: See what's open

Jump Lists:

A leap in efficiency: Jump Lists provide quick access to common tasks. Programs can prepopulate jumplists for easy navigation.

Desktop enhancements. Wouldn't you like more ways to move, resize windows, and sometimes just get them out of your way? Example: You can make all windows, or all but your current window invisible by "shaking". Invisible windows:

Now you see them...

Now you don't.

There are a lot more enhancements and simplifications in Windows 7. See One Minute Microsoft Windows 7 Video at Amazon.com Media
What are your biggest annoyances with Vista? Or Windows XP? What would you like to see resolved or improved in Windows 7? Post a comment below.

Windows Vista Annoyance: Sluggish Cursor

2009-09-12T18:19:00.000-07:00

Windows Vista: Sluggish Cursor

I woke up this morning, and saw my laptop was on. The Mozilla Firefox browser had crashed. Weird. I sure didn't leave it crashed when I went to bed. Another weird thing was that since I solved my problem of windows vista not waking up from sleep or hibernate I rarely leave my laptop on all night. Strange happens.

PROBLEM

Oh well. Firefox does crash sometimes. It's the newest version 3.5 after all. What really surprised me was that the windows vista cursor (or pointer) was sluggish. It was moving 3-5 times slower than normal. I tried changing pointer sped through Start/Control Panel/Mouse/Settings. No change in speed. I started the Windows Task Manager and noticed that Desktop Window Manager (dwm.exe) was page faulting quite a bit (300-400 pagefaults a second) when moving the mouse which is unusual.

Googled

vista sluggish cursor
vista sluggish pointer

I came up with a lot of people having this problem but no solutions. Even came across some respectable sounding windows vista forums. Came across windows games sites reporting the same problem. Windows news sites. No answers. Weird. Either this is a really tough problem or really simple.

BEFORE YOU JUMP INTO THE SOLUTION HERE, CHECK THIS

[Update: Before you look into this solution, there is a simple one you may want to try instead. It is much faster! Go see Solved: Slow Mouse Pointer on Vista Laptop]

SOLUTION

Well it turns out this problem was one of the simple kind. Sometimes a computer just mysteriously loses the sense of time and the driving frequency. So it needs to be rebooted. Rebooting the laptop in fact solved the problem of sluggish cursor. That was easy!

COMMENTS?

Did you experience a sluggish cursor on your computer, vista or otherwise? How did you solve it? Find a comment button below and let me know! Got any other computer-related problem you'd like to see solved? Just hit the comment button.

UPCOMING RELATED ISSUES

Other issues: As I was working on the sleep and hibernate problems with Windows Vista, I got a glimpse of a possible solution to another related problem some people were reporting in the help forums. They found their Vista laptop woke up during sleep repeatedly and they lost all data and batery power. If you would like to find a solution to that problem let me know and I will investigate further. If the problem is happening with your laptop, please leave me as much information as you can in the comment below. Or, hit "Follow through Google Friend Connect" on the side. Any other problem with your laptop? Let me know in the comment below!

Note: Infoaxe.com; How To Delete Browsing History

2009-09-01T19:27:00.000-07:00

Doing research on infoaxe it dawned on me that great many people are interested in erasing, deleting, and getting rid of browsing history. Not so many are interested in searching it! That was a surprise to me. Considering what people are using internet for these days, maybe I shouldn't be that surprised!

Erasing browsing history is normally never needed with infoaxe. Sometimes, however, you may want to consider deleting your browsing history.

Why? You may realize you have data that you don't want to take a chance on. Infoaxe is still in its alpha version. The service is buggy so the information may not be 100% secure. For example, many links on the website do not work, and even though the FAQ promises you can delete any entry, the delete links currently do not exist.

From the FAQ:

How can I delete stuff from my Web Memory?

If you see something in your web memory that you want to delete, click on the delete link that appears next to the search result snippet. You have the option of deleting just that page or all pages from that site. It will take about 2 minutes for the changes to take effect i.e. for it to stop showing up in your search results.

The delete links currently do not exist and the only way I see to remove your browsing history from inforaxe is to delete your account. If that is what you want, login into infoaxe.com go to FAQ and hit the delete link, and then on the delete page, hit the delete button. This action can not be undone.

In conclusion, use infoaxe for your web browsing history search but proceed with caution. Use the Record On/Record Off buttons deliberately. Infoaxe is in the alpha stage and YOU are on the leading/bleeding edge of a bookmarking revolution. Worst comes to worse, you have an exit strategy.

SOLVED: Searching Browsing History. Viewing Recent Internet Browsing History

2009-09-01T01:11:00.000-07:00

While I was preparing materials for my previous annoyance-resolved post, I needed to fetch websites I was on and view the pages to retrieve pertinent information. Looking into firefox browsing history I was quite shocked to just see the huge number of web pages I visited recently. Must be over 1000 pages just last week! Recent internet browsing history in firefox showed just the url of the page by default. Later I found one can see the date and number of visits, and that is it. I wanted to search my browsing history.

That proved out of reach of firefox. I looked at my firefox cache which showed just 10 Megs of Cache, which didn't reach very far, not even one day. Useless! I increased that to 100 Megs but that still seems inadequate.

I searched google for

find my browsing history
search browsing history
internet browsing history
view browsing history

I found Firefox plugins to help track browsing history and view or display browsing history, but not to search it. Not helpful.

Finally found a nice article by Ann Smarty from MakeUseOf.com at

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-extensions-to-search-and-organize-your-firefox-browsing-history/.

She presents a collection of 4 choices. Because I was specifically looking for a solution to help with searching my browsing history, the first choice made immediate sense: INFOAXE.

Even the visual layout of INFOAXE was immediately suggestive that searching browsing history is the main reason for its existence. Infoaxe results look like Google results. How can it be any easier?

Go to http://infoaxe.com to sign up. I suspect one day the service will become a paid service, but it is free for now, in its alpha version.

The benefits of infoaxe are:

All browsing history is stored on infoaxe servers so you don't have to use your own disk
Installation is simple
You can install it on both Firefox and Internet Explorer browser so, if you routinely use both you don't need to remember which one did you use when you found certain information
Compared with bookmarking, there is no additional annotation work required.
Nice and unintrusive tool bar/status bar choices. You can search your browsing history straight from the tool bar or status bar.

However there are internet browsing privacy concerns and I will write about how to delete your browsing history when needed in the next post on infoaxe.

SOLVED:Reinstall ACPI Lid - how to fix the "fix"

2009-08-31T12:59:00.000-07:00

You can imagine that the process of finding a fix for Vista Laptop Hibernate was not a straight road into to the horizon. A few things got messed up in the process. One of the intended fixes for Vista not waking up was the ACPI Lid driver that someone suggested replacing by a Windows Printer Driver in the device manager. The ACPI Lid driver then disappeared from the device manager. The laptop did not go to sleep anymore after closing the lid (Duh?). And, this was definitely not a solution for my laptop not waking up from hibernate either.

How to fix the "fix" - how to get your ACPI Lid driver back? I'll be brief. Someone posted a conversation chat with a customer support of Dell. Here is my little MOD which applies to ACPI Lid being replaced by a Windows Printer Driver (well, in my defense, desperate times require desperate measures, ha). First, you need to go into device manager and uninstall all ACPI drivers under "System". Then (and here's a rub) you need to find a Windows Printer Driver under Device Manager/System. There are two. You only need to uninstall the one who's description looks like ACPI Lid. That's it. You may need to reboot a couple of times and the ACPI drivers including ACPI Lid will reinstall themselves. In the process BOTH Windows Printer Drivers will mysteriously disappear from the Device Manager/System.

Done.

For now.

P.S.: I suggest changing the function of Lid Close to Hybernate, in your Vista power options because, as it turned out, Hibernate is more reliable than SLEEP. See previous blog post about the difference between hibernate and sleep after the fix.

More on: SOLVED: vista laptop not waking up from sleep/hibernate/suspend

2009-08-29T16:53:00.000-07:00

It's now been two days of testing and hibernate works flawless, never failed. The only downside is that it takes up to 90 seconds to hibernate or wake up. This is on Acer Aspire 5570z with 2 Gigs of RAM. So I tried windows sleep instead of windows hibernate. Worked like a charm too, ~~so far!~~ for four (4) days, see P.S.. And it only took about 3-5 seconds to go to sleep and about the same to wake up! Incredible! Tested just about 2x and it really seems to work. I'll keep you posted for more.

Read up on the original problem: SOLVED: Vista laptop not waking up from suspend, hibernate

P.S.: The wake up from SLEEP failed today after 4(four) days, somewhere between home and Starbucks. Retested everything real quick and Hibernate still works well but I'm announcing SLEEP unreliable even after the fix!

RELATED LINKS

SOLVED: Vista Laptop fails to resume from sleep

Download FREE Windows Vista Performance and Tuning Tips and Tricks from Microsoft

SOLVED: Vista laptop won't resume from sleep/suspend/hibernate, shows blank screen

2009-08-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

Really Simple Solution Below!

[Update 9/6/2009: I have today confirmed that the cause of hibernation bug is Disk Cleanup, most likely the option [x] Hibernation File Cleaner checked at the time of Disk Cleanup. Did that and found myself with the original symptom. Repeated the solution, was in good shape. The problem/solution reconfirmed.]

SYMPTOM OF ANNOYANCE

Laptop won't come out of hibernate/suspend/sleep after pressing the wake-up button. Shows a few blinking lights and a blank screen. It would wake up if I wait less than 1 minute after putting it to sleep. It will not wake up if I wait longer. This annoyance happened just about anytime I put my laptop to sleep. Laptop is Acer Aspire 5570z. However, I found that the problem appears on other brands as well.

POSSIBLE BUT UNSUCCESSFUL SOLUTIONS

So it looked more like the Microsoft Vista support issue. I didn't think of contacting microsoft vista support as my laptop was 1 year out of warranty. Googled all over the web for:

acer 5570 sleep blank screen
acer aspire sleep resume
laptop vista sleep resume blank screen
acer screen blank resume sleep
acer aspire wake blank screen 1 minute
laptop sleep
vista s3
suspend mode

I found suggestions that that could be because of the display driver being outdated. People suggested reinstalling display driver. I tried that. Turns out the display driver at Acer website is actually older than the one I got through Vista Update. Go figure. Replacing the display driver didn't help with the blank screen problem.

Some people suggested putting the laptop to sleep by closing the lid. Tried that. Laptop would still not wake up.

Some people saw the annoyance with the AMD processor. Well mine is Intel. Never mind.

Some suggested setting minimum CPU processor speed back to 100% and disabling screensaver. I did that, didn't work.

Some suggested removing ACPI Lid from the System Devices under Device Management. That "solution" is now preventing my laptop to go to sleep when I close the lid, nothing more.
Note: I resolved The ACPI Lid annoyance later here. Easy but interesting.

Some people had problems with not being able to turn the computer on at all (now that really hurt). Solution to that was to take out the battery and press the ON button for like 60 seconds. Weird!

My annoyance was weird too. Especially because the problem appeared intermittently, not every single time. But it happened frequently and the only thing I could do was to push the power button and reboot. With Vista, that takes forever! Vs. just a few seconds when you put it to sleep or hibernate. Plus, I lost some of my valuable data in running programs and lost the system status. Oh, yes the problem also happened with hibernate. Same thing, intermittent.

SOLUTION, FINALLY

So what is the solution? I finally found it with a guy named Larry at howtogeek.com: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-hybrid-sleep-mode/

My memory of recent activities on vista supports the possibility that by a recent disk clean up I erased or disabled the hibernate file. Great job Microsoft! The solution is to restore the hibernate file, see quote below. The procedure takes about a minute. Restoring the hibernate file worked for me! It is incredible this solution still needs to be invoked in 2009, two years after the problem was found!

Quoting the solution:

From Larry @ howtogeek:

Frankly, Vista is just a poor, beta-level OS.

The hybrid sleep feature and the hibernation feature in Windows Vista may become unavailable after you use the Disk Cleanup Tool (or fix hibernation not working)
[updated 12th March 2007 21:03]
This particular problem went round the internal discussions groups – having told people how to turn on hibernation and suggested a KB article on it, Armelle O’Neal told me that is has already been written up in KB Article (928897).
SYMPTOMS
After you use the Disk Cleanup Tool in Windows Vista, you may experience the following symptoms:
You cannot see the Hibernate option in Power Options.
When you use the sleep feature, the computer does not recover its settings if power is lost.
CAUSE
This problem occurs when the Disk Cleanup Tool disables the hibernation file. The hibernation file must be enabled to access the hybrid sleep feature and the hibernation feature in Windows Vista.
When the hibernation file is disabled, and the hybrid sleep feature is enabled, a backup of open programs and open files will not be saved to the disk when you use the sleep feature in Windows Vista. Additionally, if the computer loses power while the Windows is in sleep mode, open programs and open files will not be recovered, and any unsaved work will be lost.
RESOLUTION
To resolve this problem in Windows Vista, run the powercfg -h on command at an Administrative command prompt to enable the hibernate feature and the hybrid sleep feature. To run this command, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, click All Programs, and then click Accessories.

2. Right-click Command Prompt, click Run as administrator, type powercfg -h on, and then press ENTER.

DID THE SOLUTION HELP YOU?

Did this solution help you? I want to hear from you! Go ahead and post a comment below and let me know if the solution worked for you!

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