Category: Windows 7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkBr0fxqr9w

Yeh, yeh, I don’t have a T-Bird, but I had fun, fun fun, didn’t I? 😉

What?!?

It’s been a little over a year now since I picked up this lil Asus P50IJ notebook. It’s been really useful for web browsing, email, a few VMs (mostly Linux VMs) and other light computing stuff. Like it. About a month after I bought it, I went ahead and used an extra (perfectly legal, from Technet Plus membership) license for Win7 Ultimate to do “Windows Anytime Upgrade” from the Win7 Home Premium (just two features I wanted, and I ought to have used a Win7 Pro license instead, I guess).

But as with all Windows installs, after a time things became crufted, system files became screwed up, etc. It happens. I use a few techniques and utilities to keep things relatively clean, but… it’s Windows, you know?

So, time for a reinstall. But. I hate backing up (although I do that anyway), wiping, reinstalling Windows, then reinstalling applications, etc. So…

Non-destructive reinstall. Just the ticket, right? Simply pop in the appropriate Windows installation DVD and select Upgrade when the prompt finally loads for Upgrade or Custom Installation. Seems simple enough. Continue reading “Well, I’m Keepin’ the T-Bird…”

…so you don’t have to.

I try out various softwares all the time, so that when someone asks about a certain need or issue, I am more likely to have a reasonable suggestion to offer them. Now, this applies to apps for ‘nix and Windows environments only, but, frankly, most (though certainly not all) of the time, the “stupid things” applies to Windows app testing, simply because there are so many more Windows apps to test and so very, very many ways for such apps to screw things up.

Often, problems with apps don’t show their faces until the app’s been around a while. Such is this latest “stupid thing”.

Comodo Cleaner and Windows 7 64-bit. Not a good combo. Here’s why. I had downloaded and installed the app to see how well it performed as opposed to such apps as CCLeaner and Glary Utilities, neither of which have–yet!–screwed up any Windows computers I’ve tested them on. It seemed to perform well, apart from the stupid “reboot between each action” behavior. For that, I tagged it as less useful than either CCLeaner or GLary Utilities.

But. All of a sudden last week, I started receiving a strange error every time I tried to save a file of any kind, via any means (except for one, which I’ll explain later as a workaround for folks who really, really want to try Comodo Cleaner on 64-bit Windows anyway): “There are no more files”.

WTF?!?

Searches for solutions on the web turned up all kinds of answers that did not apply to my testbed computer, and so, of course, did nothing to correct the problem. I decided to effect a temporary workaround until I could solve the problem, and so I used dropbox, saving files I needed by ftp-ing them to a remote site (that meant sending the temp file Windows created of them, since temp files weren’t affected) and transferring them from there to another computer (no, I couldn’t save on locally networked drives, either), then dropping them in that computer’s Dropbox folder, which would sync with the testbed’s Dropbox folder and be accessible for use.

It worked but was a real PITA. (BTW, I could use Teamviewer 6 to do all the necessary things on the other computer directly from the testbed. *heh*)

So, where did Comodo Cleaner come in? About 15 Google pages into searches for “There are no more files”, that’s where. Someone on a Comodo forum noted the behavior in a Windows 7 64-bit environment, and that the error disappeared on a simple uninstall of Comodo Cleaner.

Uninstalled Comodo Cleaner.

Bob’s your uncle. Problem gone.

Now, note that I had previously applied each suggested solution, even such things as using a Restore Point predating the issue, and rebooted after each proffered solution to no avail. Hmmm, even after a Restore Point? Yep. So it wasn’t a change I had made manually or an app I had recently installed myself. Nor was it some sort of malware, as I scanned the testbed with six different well-regarded anti-malware scanners in Safe Mode, even outside the Windows environment entirely etc., and noted nothing that could cause such things (I did eliminate some tracking cookies, though :-))

Here’s what I think probably happened. I tested Comodo Cleaner just as I think most users would have: I allowed it to perform auto updates. Although it’d been on the computer, rarely used (because of the stupid “reboot between each and every action” behavior), for several months, apparently the most recent auto update had screwed things up.

Simply uninstalling the app solved the problem. Sure, I rebooted after uninstalling, but the very next thing I did after uninstalling Comodo Cleaner was to test whether I could save files both of original creation and from the web. Works now.

As a side point, this is one of the reasons I suggest that folks who only use thir computers for web surfing, email, typical office app stuff and listening music to or watching videos seriously consider a Linux environment: it really is harder to screw a ‘nix computer up b y installing a “bad” app, and recovery is usually more straightforward. Configuring a ‘nix computer for use is still, unfortunately, not as easy as a Windows computer, especially as slickly as Win7 does the job, but it’s getting there.

Of interest to Windows 7 users only; ‘nix users have a wide variety of other issues to deal with, and other Windows version users, well, they probably need to deal with updating their computers to something better for an OS. 🙂

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I can recall when folks were anxious to get their hands on the service packs for Windows XP and Vista–both OSes from M$ had some serious issues right out of the gate that needed to be addressed. And I can also recall many users who had some serious problems caused by service packs on those M$ OSes. (Note: I mostly skipped XP and Vista, except for a reference XP VM and XP on my Wonder Woman’s notebook. My experiences with XP and Vista were almost entirely fixing problems folks had encountered with those OSes.)

Well, I had my hands on the Win7 SP1 last week via my Technet subscription, but I’ve been in no hurry to install it on my own computers. Oh, not because previous M$ service packs have caused problems. No, I’m in no hurry to install it because there’s mostly nothing there. The one “biggie” in Win7’s SP1 might be the graphics improvements to Remote Desktop Management, but since I use other products for that, I saw no need to install SP1 for that very minor non-benefit.

OTOH, all reports so far are that SP1 isn’t breaking anything, so these minor updates, fixes and improvements (that almost no one will even notice) aren’t coming at the cost of a lot of problems introduced into users’ computers.

That’s nice, I suppose. 🙂

So, Win7 users, when M$ offers the SP1 update via your regularly scheduled Windows Update*, feel no hurry to imbibe, but no worries if you do.

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*For most users, “automagic” updates are probably OK, but for intermediate to advanced users, I suggest Windows Update settings that call for downloading the updates but allowing the user to choose when and which ones to install.

*heh* Confession’s good for the soul but bad for the reputation… 😉

OK, so my last backup on this particular Win7 machine was a week ago. (Bad, cobbler! :-)) I know better. Windows is very fragile, and so many software publishers take liberties with their code that sometimes software installs/uninstalls just break Windows. It’s a fact of life, and one i know very, very well.

Got in a rush (always a mistake) and didn’t take a snapshot or even create a new System Restore Point before uninstalling an app I knew had its hooks pretty deep in the system.

Uninstall “required” a reboot (why?!? Because the authors were too stupid to make it uninstall cleanly, of course).

Toast.

No boot. The Windows installation had “disappeared” as far as Windows 7 and its repair tools (available on the installation disk) could tell. Oh, I could “see” it from the command line, but none of the command line tools could repair the startup elements (far more than just the MBR–numerous Windows system files as well) that had been corrupted.

So, disaster, right? Nah. Just moderately time-consuming, and not even all that big a distraction. I had the time today, and, after addressing the primary problem, I’ve been getting plenty of other things done while my data’s restored.

Key? A custom install of Win7. The custom install saved all my old data in a Windows.old folder–including ALL the data that had changed since my last real backup. Nothing lost whatsoever.

Next, I went to Ninite and selected all the free softwares the site had available that I had previously had installed. Saved the installer, invoked it and just let it run during dinner.

Then I had only to install a few specialty programs I had bought and archived. I could have dug out the disk they’re all archived on (or pulled the installation files from a backup), but since I also had the installation files and registration keys saved in that Windows.Old folder, I just reinstalled them from there.

Bob’s your uncle.

Oh, a couple of lil niggling things: resetting my Win7 startup background required editing a Registry Key and creating two folders in my Windows folder, but that’s the kind of thing I can almost do in my sleep, so no biggie. Getting rid of the stupid default image file for my account picture (I have a nice pic of an American Bison that I prefer to use for that–and yes, I pulled it from that same Windows.Old folder :-)) : check.

OK, done. And the only thing I “lost” (for now) is my Freecell score of 1,923 wins, no losses. No biggie, as I’m at 1,735-0 on another computer… *heh* (I play it a lot while on the phone as a kind of “Freecell Zen” relaxation thing.)

Heck, even my VMs survived the new install of Windows. Just reinstalled VirtualBox, copied over the pertinent folder, a lil fiddling and… done.

Funny thing: the app that caused all the problems with the uninstall was an older–too much older–version of Acronis True Image. *heh* I had a full version to install (not as an upgrade) and needed to ditch the older version (too old to upgrade, you see *sigh*). Oh, I certainly could have just used an image snapshot from last week, using the (old) Acronis boot CD, but this way I

have all my data
do NOT have that OLD version of True Image I had uninstalled
have a fresh Win7 install, that’s already updated in the background (Note to self: turn off automagic updates as soon as this round is through *heh*).

All in all, a pretty good thing. I just wish Windows weren’t so fragile. Oh, well, at least it’s easy-peasy to repair, even when its own repair tools fail.

I’ve long held that most people need to seriously think, if only for a couple of minutes, about one of their most basic internet security issues (beyond simply not being stupid *heh*): their firewalls. Yes, plural. Most people access the internet via a Windows computer*, and most people simply use a built-in Windows firewall at its default setting. Some unwittingly purchase (or have purchased for them) a router that has firewall capabilities as well.

But.

Most Windows users are still using the less-than-capable Windows XP software firewall, and I’ve found that many folks who have a router with NAT or even SPI capabilities either don’t have those capabilities fully enabled or, even worse, still have the factory default password unchanged.

Bad.

If you or someone you know is still using WinXP’s software firewall,please change that to a more capable software firewall solution. The free Comodo Firewall is pretty good. If you have Win7 installed, the choice is not as clearcut. More on that later.

NAT (Network Address Translation) and SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection) firewalls built into most modern routers are easy-peasy to enable, and using them/not using them is a no-brainer. Even folks who only have one computer connecting to a broadband connection should have a NAT/SPI firewall-capable router installed between them and the internet.

Now, Win7 and firewalls. I’m certainly not averse to upgrading to a more robust firewall than the one included in Win7, but Steve Gibson’s Shields Up! utility says that combined with a NAT/SPI hardware firewall, it’s pretty darned good:

Of course, Gibson’s utility only tests the first 1056 ports, but he gives his reasoning for that, and it seems to make some sense, at least. Still, no previous Windows firewall/router firewall combo in the past has achieved he result noted above before now, so one might be relatively safe with a Win7 firewall/NAT/SPI firewall combo.

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I will say that every computer I’ve had running Linux or BSD (usually just using the default firewall rules found in most distros) has returned a “stealth” notice from Gibson’s site. Heck almost all hardware routers use some ‘nix variant as their operating systems, anyway.