Anything Goes Discussions

SuperAntiSpyware Causes Windows 7 Beta to Crash After Installation

Ray Ebersole — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 02:04:59 +0000

I uninstalled my antivirus software before upgrading my Vista machine to the Windows 7 beta, but I forgot the antispyware software. That was a mistake because after the upgrade finished and it booted into Windows for the first time it decided to promptly do a reboot with a blue screen of death(BOD). The BOD flashed on the screen so fast that I couldn’t read it, but I was was able to boot into safe mode. This lead me to believe it was the antispyware, since that would be the only other program that was loading other than the OS.

The antispyware program is SuperAntiSpyware (SAS), which I really like, but won’t be using on Win7 until they get it working with it. What I did to fix the reboot loop, since I couldn’t see the error with the naked eye, was to use my digital camera to video the boot and then pause the video to read the error message. Here is a picture using the new Win7 snip tool after I fixed the problem and was able to use Win7.

You will notice the file SASKUTIL.SYS in the snippet. That is the file that was causing the OS to dump and with a little look up in safe mode I found it in the SuperAntiSpyware folder. This program does not uninstall in Safe mode, so what I did was move the SuperAntiSpyware folder into a different temp folder on the hard drive and reboot. Once I got it rebooted and the OS didn’t dump, I was able to move the folder back, install RevoUnistall and remove it completely. RevoUnistaller goes into the registry and finds leftover chunks of a program, I highly reccomend it.Everything seems to working fine now, but I will report more on my adventures into Win7.

Microsoft, Windows 7 Beta

Happy Holidays

Ray Ebersole — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 23:54:47 +0000

So, it’s Christmas Eve in the US and I’m all tucked in with my family watching the Polar Express. Okay, it’s for my 3 year old, but it is fun to do things like this. If you haven’t already done it, stop by the NORAD tracking of Santa. My daughter loves it and I’m all the kiddies will too.

Enjoy your holiday and if you like the coziness of a fireplace try the Yule Logs for your PC.

What to Do When IE Blocks a needed ActiveX

Ray Ebersole — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 03:10:48 +0000

I recently was setting up port forwarding for a DVR at a business. They wanted to watch the DVR from a remote location and port forwarding with password protection was the easiest solution. Once I had the port forwarding set up on the router I set out to the remote site to set up the URL for the remote computer. What I encountered was an IE security error message that blocked the installation of the remoteweb.cab ActiveX.

What I first did was lower my security setting so that all ActiveX would be allowed and tried again without any success. I then put the URL in the Trusted sites and tried again only to fail. At this point I went to Google and found a couple of MS MVP’s that had left someone with the same problem some snotty answers. There was one intelligent answer from a MCSE but it was the first solution that I had tried.

Bound to not let this kick me for more than 15 minutes, I decided to lower the settings in the Trusted Sites to the lowest settings I could. I went back to the site, where low and behold the install worked perfectly. After it was finished and I could see the DVR, I went about moving the security settings in both the Tools > Security > Internet and Trusted Sites back to their normal settings.

My last check was to restart IE and test the port forwarding site again, which was a smashing success. What this shows is that you shouldn’t listen to titles like “MS MVP” or “MCSE” as gospel. You can get good answers in all sorts of places, you can even find them yourself with a little persistence.

SnagIt 9.1 Released

Ray Ebersole — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 01:10:33 +0000

A new iteration of SnagIt has been released. Check it out at TechSmith.com

Discover Card Harasses Card Holders with Telemarketing Calls

Ray Ebersole — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:19:04 +0000

I have seen on the Internet and heard from friends that a great majority of people with Discover cards have been receiving a telemarketing call multiple times a day.

This call is from 866-290-4961. It’s an automatic dialer that rings the phone, if you pick up and say something it connects to a person, sometimes. This lets the telemarketer dial multiple numbers at one time and pick up the only calls that get a human response. Sometimes you will not get the telemarketer because they have all answered calls, so no one is available to answer.

Here is the rub, even if you ask them to remove you from the call list, they continue to call. You can even call Discover at their 800 number and while they will be very nice, telling you that they will remove you from the solicit list, it still does not get done. There are web sites with pages of complaints about the Discover telemarketers with rarely one that has a happy ending.

Maybe we can do something about it? Lets blog about it, discuss it, call Discover, tell a friend, stop using your Discover card.

If you want to complain here is the Discover customer privacy service number: 800-225-5202

Technorati tags: Discover, Telemarketing