Had a query today from a customer about spell checking - basically it didn't seem to be working, but without seeing the machine in front of me it's difficult to diagnose. I pointed her at the troubleshooting steps on the OO forums, but when I get a chance I will see if my handover checklist needs something else including to prevent this happening again.
Instructions for troubleshooting here
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Fix for Antispyware XP
Had a customer come to me after getting an infection via a Facebook malware spamming application. Quite a tricky problem to resolve!
BitDefender found 8 infections which were cleaned. Problem persisted. Spybot S&D found another 658 problems, which were fixed. Problem still there! Malwarebytes from bleeping computer finally resolved the issues but unfortunately left another problem in their place.
Rundll32.exe was no longer registered, meaning many programs and controls wouldn't load. Eventually fixed the problem using a registry file from Doug Knox, which reassociated all the vital system executables and allowed all programs to load once more.
There are a couple of things of note here.
1. Safe mode ain't so safe any more! Even in safe mode, the infections appeared just after Windows had finished loading.
2. Fixing and deleting the "issues" that your scanners find, will not necessarily be the end of your troubles.
3. This was a fully patched Windows installation with up to date AV software and it still became infected. Those malware writers are getting better and better.
BitDefender found 8 infections which were cleaned. Problem persisted. Spybot S&D found another 658 problems, which were fixed. Problem still there! Malwarebytes from bleeping computer finally resolved the issues but unfortunately left another problem in their place.
Rundll32.exe was no longer registered, meaning many programs and controls wouldn't load. Eventually fixed the problem using a registry file from Doug Knox, which reassociated all the vital system executables and allowed all programs to load once more.
There are a couple of things of note here.
1. Safe mode ain't so safe any more! Even in safe mode, the infections appeared just after Windows had finished loading.
2. Fixing and deleting the "issues" that your scanners find, will not necessarily be the end of your troubles.
3. This was a fully patched Windows installation with up to date AV software and it still became infected. Those malware writers are getting better and better.
Friday, 5 March 2010
Good trick with a Live CD
I've had a couple of machines so far that refused to load from the CD due to dirty lenses or other malfunctions in the drive, but I recently found a fantastic script to get around the problem.
Basically, if you boot from a live CD in another machine and then run this command, it turns the machine into a network boot FTP server, then mounts the CD as a bootable device across the LAN. Boot the "broken" machine from the network card and it will go off and find an image across the LAN.
So basically, I'm sat here now looking at a laptop with a dodgy CD drive that is running a Live CD image across the LAN. Absolutely marvellous. Well, to me. Your mileage may vary.
Instructions here
Basically, if you boot from a live CD in another machine and then run this command, it turns the machine into a network boot FTP server, then mounts the CD as a bootable device across the LAN. Boot the "broken" machine from the network card and it will go off and find an image across the LAN.
So basically, I'm sat here now looking at a laptop with a dodgy CD drive that is running a Live CD image across the LAN. Absolutely marvellous. Well, to me. Your mileage may vary.
Instructions here
Slow and old PCs
Did another laptop last night, but it's a bit slow, purely because it's quite old and underspecced. Not sure whether to just give it back (with a slowness caveat) or have a go with one of the "lighter" versions of Ubuntu, that take up fewer resources. As usual, it's a balance between my time, and keeping the customer happy, and support overheads. Mind you, I'm not doing much today so may as well have a go, even if it's just to see what Xubuntu (light version) looks and runs like.
NewBuntu
New branding has been announced - good job I've not put the logo on my business cards or I'd be out of date in a month!
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Brand - (scroll down a bit)
I quite like it, especially the new font
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