HP Solution Center 64-bit woes

I tried scanning in several documents on my Windows 7 RC 64-bit machine using the HP Solution Center for my OfficeJet 5600 AIO, and even though it looks like I have OCR disabled, the scans were pathetic. There were several places where the written numbers were totally obliterated, and the original typed text looked like it was in shadow mode, or 3-D mode. It was horrible. I thought I had executed this properly on an earlier version of Win7 w/o issue, but not this time. I had to resort to scanning on my XP Pro system, which worked flawlessly.

I compared the "Scan Document" settings between the 2 systems and they were identical, and on Win7 it says it was NON OCR mode, but it sure was acting like OCR was stepping all over the document when scanned. I will tinker with it some more, and possibly reinstall the SW to see if that fixes it.

Probably (hopefully) something simple....

Spyware Protect 2009 hit my brother

I was telling my brother about torrent site mininova.org, so he went there (on his work system, no less) in IE, and immediately after typing in his search criteria ("Johnny Cash"), he got the big Spyware Protect 2009 window. I knew at once we were in trouble, and sure enough, pretty soon his system stopped responding. He had been able to close windows for a few minutes, but they would always relaunch, and eventually, he was unable to do anything.

He rebooted (bad idea), but his system would never reach a point where he could use the mouse or keyboard once the OS loaded. I did some research to see how to remove it, and while we downloaded "Malwarebytes" tool to remove it, it wouldn't install in safe mode. So basically we were left to do it manually.

In a nutshell, here is what we had to do:

DO NOT LAUNCH INTERNET EXPLORER WHILE DOING THIS!!!
Boot INTO SAFE MODE WITH NETWORKING.

1. TASK MANAGER (right click task bar, select Task Manager)
KILL SYSGUARD.EXE

2. Regedit
DELETE FOLDER HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\AvScan
DELETE FOLDER HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\SYSTEM PROTECT 2009
(didn't exist)
DELETE ENTRY HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run "system tool" C:\WINDOWS\sysguard.exe
DELETE FOLDER HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\Stats\{bbd4551A-9b23-41cd-9bcd-818aa2da7b63}
DELETE FOLDER HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Browser Helper Objects\{bbd4551A-9b23-41cd-9bcd-818aa2da7b63}
DELETE FOLDER HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{bbd4551A-9b23-41cd-9bcd-818aa2da7b63}

3. Windows Explorer
DELETE C:\WINDOWS\sysguard.exe
DELETE C:\WINDOES\system32\mcenspc.dll (didn't exist)
DELETE C:\WINDOWS\system32\iehelper.dll
DELETE C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\[all files]
SEARCH ALL FILES in the WINDOWS folder:
- CREATE DATE of yesterday through today (looking for .exe and .dll files)
- MODIFIEd DATE of yesterday through today (looking for .exe and .dll files)
.exe and .dll files are program files, so they should ONLY be created or
modified when something is installed....normal use does NOT modify or create
executables! There will be lots of files and folders listed in this search,
but we are specifically interested in .exe and .dll files.
You can sort the list by clicking on the column header "Type". The types we
are interested in are "Application" (.exe) and "Application Extention" (.dll).

DELETE C:\Documents and Settings\[UserName]\Local Settings\Temp\[all files]

DELETE C:\PROGRAM FILES\AVSCAN (did not exist)
DELETE c:\PROGRAM FILES\SYSTEM PROTECT (did not exist)

modify C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC\HOSTS to remove all but 1st line
The latest variants of this thing modify the hosts file to redirect you to their
sites (94.232.248.66), so you keep getting infected....pretty clever really.

In doing the SEARCH of WINDOWS for any .exe or .dll files that had been created in the last 2 days, we found 3 additional files. I thought I wrote them down, but apparently I didn't (I just typed them into the Google search as he read them off, and I've since closed the tabs and cleared private data). Anyway, all of 3 of them (2 dll's and 1 exe) pulled up via Google as being bad guys, so we deleted them as well.

Once all of this had been done, we rebooted into normal mode, and his system came up normally. If we had been able to install Malwarebytes removal tool, it would have made things so much easier. Oh well. In any case, I suggested he move to Firefox with add-on Noscript, to disable java unless specifically allowed.

uTorrent gives user-mapped file error during download...why?

I just reinstalled Windows 7 RC this week and am running uTorrent version 1.8.2. I started getting the user-mapped error on some downloading torrents. I thought I had fixed it before by going into Power Options and disabling the option for Windows to turn off the disk drive, but that didn't fix it this time (so it probably didn't fix it last time either).

Thanks to this tread I hopefully have prevented the error.

I run AVG, so I went into the Resident Shield and added my download directory to the exceptions list. I also disabled windows indexing for the download directory as well. That should do it. I don't know which one was the offender, but now I'm covered in either case.

Up and running on Windows 7 RC

Well it only took about 8 hours total for me to get totally up and running on the RC for Windows 7. Using the Windows Easy File Transfer to "backup" my data and settings proved to be a real time saver. It saved all of the normal stuff like Firefox and IE settings, as well as Outlook calendar/contacts. It did not, however, save my Thunderbird settings. I suppose if I knew how to tweak it better I could have managed that, too, but it sure was cool to get all My Documents and many settings back w/o any effort. I made normal backups just in case, but didn't need them as the Easy File Transfer came off w/o a hitch.

Firefox is behaving a little slowly tonight. I did some "peformance tweaking" as described on TechRepublic, but it seems I'm getting a lot of spinning. I don't know if it's because these new settings are butting heads with uTorrent or if it just happens to be the sites I'm visiting tonight. I'll monitor, and if it continues, I'll probably revert to more normal settings to see if it makes a difference.

It's been pretty slim pickings on DIME and Demonoid this week....very few items I actually cared about. I did find the soundtrack for "O Brother, Where Art Thou", which is currently playing in Winamp.

On a different note, Sharon Corr (violinist and backup vocalist for The Corrs) has been hard at work on her new solo album. Since the group is on an extended hiatus, she decided to put out some solo stuff. Per her new website the first single will be released in early June, and she is scheduled to appear at many summer festivals across Europe. No release date on the album, but I'll post it here as soon as I see one.

The Earth stood still today...did you feel it?

I received a customer survey today....from Comcast...my former ISP. I decided to take it, and I'm sooooo glad I did. They asked my why I no longer had Comcast internet service. Here is what I wrote:

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The 250Gb monthly bandwidth limitation...period!!! The ONLY reason I changed to AT&T U-verse was because of the monthly limit. It wasn't price, it wasn't service, it wasn't speed, it was ONE THING!!!! The monthly bandwidth limit. There are 5 people and 8 computers in my home, and I work from home, so the potential of waking up one day and suddenly having no internet service (that was disconnected because of exceeding some arbitrary limit) was wholly unacceptable. I asked if there was an unlimited usage plan, or at least a tiered usage option (I knew there wasn't, as I was already paying FOR THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF CONSUMER SERVCE, but asked anyway), and was told no, other than an expensive dedicated business line (similar to a T1). Obviously I passed on that option. To say I was disappointed at having to go to all the trouble of changing email addresses for the entire family is an understatement. Is AT&T U-verse any better speed-wise? NO. Is the TV signal any better? NO. Is the channel selection better? Not really. But I was left with no choice since the arbitrary 250Gb limit was imposed. I exceeded it the first month it was in place, so I knew I would exceed it again, so I was left with no choice. Sad really that Comcast took such action. We were pefectly happy with our Comcast TV and internet service....reliable and fast. But we were unwilling to live within the strict limitation set forth by the bandwidth policy.

One of the WORST things about the 250Gb limitation is that no one at Comcast could tell me my usage pattern for the past 3 years when I talked to them after exceeding the limit in March. Nor could they provide me with my current usage. Nor could they provide me with an official way to check my usage. All they could offer was to download a bandwidth monitor and install it on all of my PC's, and then manually do the math each day to check my bandwidth. That would be like AT&T to tell me to take each of my cell phones at the end of the day to check their usage minutes so I could track how much of my monthly limit I still had available. VERY AMATEUR!!!! AND VERY DISAPPOINTING!!!!

After that conversation (about how to track my usage), the decision to go with AT&T U-verse was EASY!!!!! NO limits! Same channels! Very similar price! Did I mention NO bandwidth limits? Yeah, thought so...!!!!

There you have it...my Comcast flame. I'm so glad I was chosen for this survey. You know? If I had been offered a tiered usage plan that covered what I believed my usage to be, I probably would have taken it (as long as it wasn't outrageous). And if I had been allowed a higher bandwidth plan, and could monitor my usage, receive email warnings when usage hit a user defined level, and then was only charged ($$) when I went over, it would have been a better option. Facing disconnection for a year for exceeding the arbitrary limit is simply poor business. Would AT&T disconnect my cell phone service if I exceeded the limit? Hell NO! They would charge me for it. I don't understand the moronic decisions made by Comcast, but now I don't have to! Why, you ask? Because I'm no longer a customer, and probably never will be again.
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Do you ever get a chance like that to vent, even if it may never be read? Not as often as I would like (or have the guts to do).

I'll install Windows 7 RC this week....hopefully

Well, I downloaded the RC for Windows 7 the first morning it was available, but time has prevented me from installing it. It requires (well, it's strongly recommended!) a fresh install, so I need to pretty much give myself a full day to do it. I have so many apps to install to get things up and running that I really need to be ready when it's time to do the install. I have a few torrents that will take another day or so (and those that won't, like the Keane Live 2006 torrent that's been working for 2 months) I can just restart once I've got utorrent reinstalled.

I haven't even had time to read reviews of the RC, although I can't see it being THAT different than the betas I've been running.

I really need the install, too. For some reason, my HP Solution Center software does not recognize the installed OfficeJet 5610 after I did my beta version update (7000 > 7067). Printing works fine, but no other functions like scanning or faxing work, since they rely on the solution center sw (at least how I use them they do). If I try to reinstall it, it can't find the device. I can't delete the device and readd it....nothing. Something about updating from one beta release to the other must have fouled something, so hopefully a new install will fix it (after all, the initial beta install posed no problems, other than having to run the installation file in Vista compatibility mode).

AT&T U-verse is a go

Well, it looks like we're gonna stick with AT&T U-verse. It's been as stable as cable was, even during the storm that rolled through yesterday. That was a really good test because my DSL line used to drop out at the first sign of lightening, but U-verse stayed up and just kept on ticking.

I'm still not convinced I'm getting the full load of speed I'm paying for, but I'll monitor that.

Now all that's left is to call Comcast and cancel my service, and take my box converter box back to the local office....that's getting done today.