CelticWhisper

We seem to have trouble getting the registry key deleted. Can someone verify if this is typed correctly? @echo off echo "Deleting HKLM\Software\Symantec Registry Key..." REG DELETE HKLM\Software\Symantec /va /f Does HKLM have to be spelled out as HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or does the REG command actually recognize the "HKLM" abbreviation? Thank you very much.

One of the best tweaks I know is to go into the registry under HKCU (or users/default if you catch it early enough) \Control Panel\Desktop and set MenuShowDelay to something like 2. This causes menus (e.g. Start Menu) to appear and expand instantaneously as opposed to waiting the stupid half-second they normally do. I find it gives the perception of a much faster system and I've never had anyone complain about it.

I had posted the same topic on Neowin and someone there alerted me that IE7 requires a .ico file to actually be a .ico resource, made with an icon generator. The .ico file I'm using is a renamed .gif file. As soon as I get my hands on an icon generator I'm going to test the site with the actual .ico. Thanks for all the ideas and suggestions, everyone. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Subscription expiry time is coming up on many of our copies of NAV2007 and we're looking to reinstall with some new/unused licenses (we buy the 10-user group licenses and install them as old copies expire, alas we're stuck with some 2K7s instead of going to all 2K8s) However, because the licensing system is a pain in the can, it's not precisely straightforward for us to just uninstall the old copy and reinstall the new one. So, what our intrepid helpdesk tech has figured out is that the old Norton demons can be exorcised by a 3-step process including: -Uninstalling via Add/Remove Programs -Running a Norton Removal Tool that is downloaded from Symantec's support site -Deleting the "Symantec" key under HKLM\Software What I'd like to do is automate the process, at least as much as it can be automated, so the users can then install the new copy with the new serial number. The registry key deletion should be no problem, but invoking the uninstaller and the removal tool might prove tricky. Does anyone have any experience scripting uninstallation that follows the "safe" procedure of going in via Add/Remove Programs? I know there's the "uninstall" registry key that contains the paths to the uninstaller files, but I tried copying the path to one (RealPlayer) once and pasting it into a DOS window and the uninstallation halted with some error I don't quite recall. Seems that just copying the path to the C:\Program Files\MyProgram\Uninst000.exe or whatever isn't always enough. Also, any way to make it forced/complete/silent or otherwise necessitating as little user interaction as possible? Thanks much.

Tried that, but no dice.

@Kacper - Interesting. We're actually testing on IE7, but I tried the trick anyway. ...Aaaaand IE7 is still insisting on not displaying the icon. IE7 is not my friend. I do not like IE7. Any other thoughts? Maybe a separate tag just for IE, like you once had to do with <EMBED> or something like that? (been a long time)

Sorry to be a pain about it, but could you possibly post the relevant text here? I'm behind a work filter and Wikipedia is inaccessible at the moment.

It works! ...on Firefox. IE, however, is not displaying the favicon. I have to be on my way from work to class now, but...any ideas? Thanks!

I would recommend Canon to anyone any day. I've used their scanners, digital cameras, and DVCams (have an Optura 50 myself) and all are excellent. Great build quality too - my CanoScan LiDE 20 scanner is about 5 years old, has endured coffee spills, neglect, dust, and various levels of manhandling, and still scans like a champ. I can also personally vouch for the Nikon Coolpix L10 or something like that. The small silver one with a slight bulge on the left side (as you're looking at it, right side from behind it). I got a display model for $110 or so and it's great for shutterbugging around the city. I have a Kodak EasyShare DX6490 which, while not a true SLR, has SLR controls for f-stop, shutter speed, etc. I use that for more serious work, at least until I save up and get an EOS. I wouldn't recommend the 6490 for point-and-shoot stuff, though, as it's very boxy in its physical conformation. Not pocket-friendly in the least, but it takes really great pictures. The new EasyShares, though, one of which my girlfriend has, are very nice. Slim, pocket/purse/laptop bag friendly, large LCDs. No direct viewfinder, though, if you feel you need one. My girlfriend was kinda bummed about that, but the camera was a good enough deal (think she nabbed it off NewEgg) that she bought it anyway. Funny thing about her Kodak and my Nikon - The Kodak produces more vivid color and is super-clear in the center of focus, but gets a little blurry around the corners of the image. The Nikon is a little less clear all around, but maintains a uniform sharpness. The colors aren't quite as nice as the Kodak, but they're still very, very good. Took pictures with it at Navy Pier in Chicago and the various blues of Lake Michigan came out great. Reds are a little washed out compared to the Kodak. I want to compare both of our Kodaks and see how they look side-by-side. Mine's only a 4MP to her...6, I think? But then again I have the SLR-style controls that hers lacks. It'll be a real interesting comparison I think. So yes, long story short I can vouch for Nikon's CoolPix line, Kodak's EasyShare line, and Canon in general as a very reliable imaging company. I'd say that if you have any doubts, go with a Canon. You'll likely not go wrong.

For video: VLC 0.8.whateverwasnewacouplemonthsago Things I like: -Integrated support for the vast majority of codecs. -Relatively small, lightweight -Open source -Open source -Open source -A lot of control over video playback. Can change aspect ratio, stretch, squeeze, zoom, distort, etc. the display just about any way you please. Cool before I had my widescreen monitor - I'd stretch a video file across my twin 17" LCDs. It was distorted a bit, but kinda neat. -Lots of streaming/network support Things I don't like: -Still a little buggy. Nowhere near as crash-prone as a few versions ago though (Re: MacOSX version. Dunno about win/lin versions) -No support for WMV/RM. They're lame codecs, but I'd still like to see them supported. -Deinterlace seems imperfect. Apple DVD player, and hardware DVD players, can deinterlace a DVD with no visible reduction in image quality. VLC always seems to blur it, no matter what deinterlace method I try. Things I want: -Support for the aforementioned codecs, and maybe (Cthulhu help us) Indeo/IV50 for those people who actually encode with it in this day and age. -Individual post-proc/deinterlace settings per file in the playlist. For example: going from a 1080p file where post-proc completely halts playback due to CPU load to a blocky rip of Stargate or something where post-proc cleans up the image a lot would be much easier if it would remember to post-process and clean up the blocky file but not even think of touching the h.264 1080p monstrosity. -Export feature/built-in transcoding. Foobar2000 can do this with audio, exporting a .wav to an .ogg or some such. It would be cool if VLC were able to transcode and export anything its built-in codec repository supports. Much less intimidating than wrestling with the syntax and ludicrous number of options in ffmpeg. For audio: On my Mac, Cog: Things I like: -Uber-small. Just a playlist, controls, and optional stream info. Zat iz it. -Plays a wide range of formats. iTunes can't handle my FLAC files out-of-the-box, and so iTunes can go stuff it. Cog has yet to choke on a format I throw it. Things I don't like: -... ... ...Not a whole helluva lot. With an app this small, it's hard to nitpick. Things I want: -Again, built-in transcoding would be cool. -More hotkeys, or better documentation of hotkeys and keyboard shortcuts. I like being able to manipulate GUI apps with keyboard commands. The Mac has historically been great for that and it would be nice to know what everything is in Cog. Then again, I might just be too lazy and the answers are waiting in the README or something. -iPod read/write support would be nice for those who need it, but most Mac users I know who have iPods just use iTunes to update them. Mine runs RockBox so I just update via Finder. Still, it would be cool to be able to update myPod without having to launch that memory-chomping behemoth iTunes. On Win32: Foobar2000 Things I like: -Super-duper-small. Something like a 7MB memory footprint to WMP and iTunes' 40MB+. -Again, plays every format under the sun. -Built-in transcoding! Great for video game music junkies like me who get those emulated/chiptune sound files like .vgm, .gym, .psf, .gsf, etc. Can queue them up and spit out WAVs to then compress to whatever I want. Things I don't like: -Lack of a volume slider. Again, this might be me being too lazy to configure it, but I was a little confounded by the lack of a volume slider, especially when it started blasting tunes at max volume. The up/down arrow keys work, but there seems to be a delay before the increase/reduction in volume takes effect. Things I want: -A volume slider ...that's about it for Foobar

Kacper - That looks promising. I think I'll give that a whirl. Ah, the many joys of working on preexisting websites. Especially when they were built by consultants in the first place. I mean, who'm I supposed to LART for not using templates? Nobody, that's who. Bloody outsourcing. Okay, thanks a million. I'll be back to whine if it doesn't work, but I can't see it not working.

I'm doing some work on my company's website and they expressed an intereste in implementing a favicon. However, the design handbooks and manuals I have are a bit sparse on how these things behave. I've generated the 32x32 icon and tested it with the index.html page, and it works just fine. However, they want the icon site-wide, on all pages, and I'm wondering if there's an easy way to blanket-apply it. Unfortunately the pages were not generated with a template (using Dreamweaver 8 here), so I can't just update a template and let the change filter out from there. Can favicons be implemented via CSS? The vast majority of, if not all, pages in the site pull from a style.css file, so that would be as good as a Dreamweaver template (probably better). Or does a favicon in the index.html page apply to all subpages within the domain? Long story short, is there any more efficient way to apply the thing than manually cycling through all the individual HTML documents and pasting in the line referencing it? Thanks!

erfahren - I'll drink to that. 1.8GHz AMD64, half a gig of RAM, 64MB video memory but I can't use Beryl because it's a Mobility Radeon 9600 and the ATI driver doesn't play nice with XGL. B@st@rds. Best software I've ever used is probably Final Cut Pro on Mac OS X. Leave it to Apple to take something as complicated as DV editing and make it smooth and easy. Other than that there's Nero and Toast, which are streamlined while still being full-featured, and 7-zip whose speed still astonishes me. Oh, and EAC has been great these past few months while I've been archiving my music CD collection to FLAC. Along the same lines, FreeDB has been wonderfully helpful for actually having that much video game music cataloged and tagged. Worst software... Recently, AlltoAVI. I normally don't say too many bad things about open-source applications, but the interface is TERRIBLE. The cartoon character banners absolutely have to go, as does the (pointless, it seems, as the app is quick to load) splash screen. Oh, and whoever thought to have a serious application play music when you run it needs to be shot. I find cracks/keygens and their blaring MIDI bad enough, but at least you only run those for a few seconds. I cannot imagine trying to transcode a large file with "Canon in D" droning away the entire time. Yeah, you can turn it off, but you shouldn't have to. I don't know...I'm probably being too harsh on the guys who wrote it, but it left me very frustrated when I was already nearing the end of my rope trying to get an .rm file converted to something VLC would recognize. That reminds me of another "worst software ever" I've had the misfortune to use: RealPlayer. Would it KILL you people to add in either a playlist or a repeat/loop feature? You know what? Scratch that. Just file for chapter 11 and do the Internet a favor.

I'm guessing if they hadn't made the CDs and SOLD them, they probably wouldn't have drawn ire (or, at least not yet). It's that "not yet" part that worries me. It isn't. But there's always been an element of control-freakism behind many of the things Microsoft does, and I think they would have gone this route eventually anyway. The primary reason they cited wasn't even the selling of CDs, it was that they wanted people to get updates from "trusted sources only," i.e. their own website that's entirely under their control. Whether it's for benevolent purposes (protecting against malware) or not (stealth updates), the result is the same: needing the blessing of Gates to get your patches. Also, frankly, I like AutoPatcher more than I like Microsoft or Windows, and so I'm inclined to side with Kaladis on this one, based solely on my subjective opinions and fancies. Even if I weren't an AP fan by experience, it's obvious that AP has good intentions in what it tries to provide, and MSFT putting the kibosh on that and forcing users of varying degrees of Internet connectivity to download multi-hundred-megabyte batches of updates, when not all of them know how to slipstream said updates (or are not experienced enough to be comfortable doing so) seems petty and unnecessary, regardless of whatever anti-malware intentions they claim to hold. If they'd release update rollup packs more often, like they did post-SP4 for Win2K, maybe it wouldn't be so much of a problem, but as it is they're really just hamstringing users who want the extra convenience of having a one-stop shop for patches. If the AP folks were selling those CDs at the cost of blank media and shipping, MSFT can go pound sand for all I care. If they were selling them at a profit, then I'll readily agree that MSFT has a legitimate complaint. Still, though, they should have demanded the CD sales to stop, rather than demanding the plug be pulled on AutoPatcher. As for RyanVM, I would take any actions against it or other companion utilities like it (nLite/vLite/WPI/HFSlip) to be the start of a witch-hunt. If AP remains an isolated case, I'm willing to accept (over time) that maybe someone did have concerns over malware or that it was the selling of CDs that set off the people at MSFT. However, if more apps like it start coming under attack, it's going to be very hard to believe that MSFT isn't just being petty and controlling like it seems their nature to be. Especially when these are free, safe, and OPTIONAL utilities that are only there to help and that do no more harm to MSFT than pointing out shortcomings in the default Windows installation/update/customization facilities.

If M$ takes RyanVM down, I'll switch to Kubuntu and give all my games away. Games aren't worth it to me to keep supporting a business who pulls crap like that.

I'm working on a macro to help our sales staff format some of their reports. They're being sent .TXT files and need to convert some of the formatting, so the macro takes certain columns and formats them as text/numeric/date/currency/blahblahblah. What I'd like to do, though, is make the macro available to them without their having a particular file open--i.e. so they can just open up Excel, go to the Macros menu, and select it regardless of the file they have open. Basically to tie the macro to Excel rather than to a specific file. I read about Office 2007 having a "personal workbook" feature that allows for this sort of thing, but since some of the people this will be servicing are at remote locations and acquire their own PCs, we have to work with versions potentially as old as Office 97. I've been told we won't bend over backwards to support 97/2000 users and will primarily stick with XP/2003/2007, but if there's an easy way to make it work with back versions, that would be great too. Thanks a million. I don't know what I'd do without you, but I suspect it would involve clenched-fist-induced hair loss.

Hi all, We're having the notorious "tiny print in Outlook" problem at my company here and we found that the problem can be worked around by saving HTML e-mail messages to the desktop, opening them in IE7, doing a Print Preview, changing "Shrink to Fit" to "100%," and finally printing them. The key here is the "shrink to fit" bit, obviously. What I'm wondering is if there's any way to set the default from "StF" to "100%" so this issue can be put to rest. I've poked around group policy settings and the registry but didn't see anything that looked like it might correspond to the setting. Of course, I also didn't look in too much detail (only found the fix half an hour ago), so I may well have missed something. Also, on a semi-related note, it seems that Outlook 2007 does not have the tiny-print problem at all. Anyone know why this is? Thanks a million, I really appreciate it.

To Windows Defender? No, no addons here. I did recently download the update for WD from the Windows Update site, though. That seems to have fixed the problem on my end. I still can't get over the fact that they would let grievous typos like that slip through QA, especially with them pushing this "Windows Live Everything" boll-yotz.

First of all, be very careful about saying things like "The effect of pirating one of these CDs could be destroying Windows for all I care." Sony almost did just that (look up "XCP Rootkit lawsuit") and was taken to court by several states for it. That was one of those multi-billion dollar companies. You're one guy. You could very realistically be found guilty of criminal computer trespass or vandalism and face harsh legal penalties. Now, that out of the way, there is no way to do what you're talking about. Not with current technology anyway. For every small corporate development team that comes out with a new copy-prevention mechanism, there is a whole world full of hackers just waiting to be the first to crack it wide open. Drooling over the challenge. Couple that with the ill will you'll face from potential customers once they find out it they can't make backup copies for their car, rip it to their iPod, etc. and you've got a recipe for disaster on your hands. Copy-prevention isn't worth the time it takes to try to make it work because it can never work. To put it another way, "Secure or usable. Pick one."

I once (unintentionally) did this to myself on Mac OS X with the iChat client. I was running a daemon called "Throttled" to prevent my BitTorrent upload speed from going over a certain amount as my crappy client at that time didn't have an upload limiter. Problem was that Throttled operates at a lower level and, by default, controls the up/down bandwidth for the entire system. Soooooo, when my torrents approached the limit I had set via Throttled, web browsing and anything else involving network traffic slowed to a crawl. A girl I was talking to for a while via the Internet (never got to meet her, after 3 years) first tipped me off that my messages were coming in small floods after unusually long delays. Finally realized that Throttled was causing my iChat outbound traffic to queue up such that it would all be sent at once when there was a break in other outbound traffic. Anyway, point is that you could impose a bandwidth limit on the entire system, but it's not an elegant way to do it. A better way would be via NetLimiter or another per-application packetshaping tool. Just impose a harsh limit on MSN such that there'll be enough bandwidth for text to move in and out freely, but it'll be impractical for binary files to transmit. As far as a hard-and-fast limit on "text only, no other data xmit/recv'd," I have no idea if MSN supports it or not. Furthermore, I'm not aware of any third-party tools that can do that (though this is not to say that they do not exist).

By any chance did you install Defender from AutoPatcher? I got the same error, and the "Mallware signeture" bit seemed suspicious to me. I'm pretty sure Microsoft wouldn't misspell two common words like that in a row. Not that I'm accusing AP of bundling spyware or anything, but it did raise a red flag when I saw it.

All of my systems are passworded in some capacity. My test system is currently running Sabayon, which won't install until you create a root password and a default user with a password. True of most distros these days. My notebook runs XP Pro (soon to be Kubuntu) and has a password set; I do not run as Admin by default and also lock the system whenever I'm away, even if there's nobody else around. The only system I'm bad about locking/restricting is my G5 which I normally leave logged in. I really should get better about using FUS to go back to the login screen when I step away, but I'm the only really Mac-savvy person in my house and I have the added benefit of having a trackball, rather than a standard mouse, on that system so there's a bit of a confusion factor acting as an extra deterrent. My brother wouldn't be deterred by it, but then he has his own account on my G5 anyway and knows how to login to it. Plus, I know I have nothing to worry about from him-he's a good kid. The ones I would worry about are the same ones who would seriously be confused and put off by something so simple as a trackball. I'm studying information security in college right now and have learned, among other things, that in addition to cryptographic security, account lockout policy, and other technical solutions, security is a matter of trust. Whom do you trust, to what extent, and under what circumstances in what situations? Without trust there can be no security. 'Tis the reason for my trust of my brother with my (very expensive!) G5 video box, and the basis for my policy on my laptop: It more commonly finds itself in potentially hostile situations than my (50-pound and oh-so-slightly-less-mobile) G5, such as public libraries, schools, friends' houses, etc. Honestly, though, with as easy as password-protection is these days, nobody should be without one. It's just plain ol' good practice and can really save your butt from time to time.

I'm trying to run NetBeans 5.5 for a project I'm working on. However, the IDE refuses to launch, repeatedly telling me I must specify the userdir with the --userdir parameter. I've tried setting the netbeans_userdir variable to a few different values in the netbeans.conf file and still the IDE will not launch. This is on a WinXP SP2 system with JDK 1.6.0. I appreciate any insight you can offer.

I'm pretty much finished with my XP unattended project, having tweaked it the way I like it (drivers maybe notwithstanding--I have yet to field-test it on my physical laptop, having previously only run it in a virtual machine) and incorporated all my application installations. I decided to do XP for a number of reasons--primarily because it started as a work project that I then expanded upon for a home project, and also since XP is the most "current" of Windows flavours. However, I've long been a fan of Windows 2000 Pro over Windows XP and all other versions, and would like to do a 2000 install to complement my XP install. If I've gotten my RunOnce and CMDLINES.TXT processes set up how I need them, how much work would it be to adapt an XP unattended configuration to 2000? Has anyone here done this before and can you comment on the viability of the procedure vs. starting from scratch with Win2K? Thanks.

I'm incorporating ZipGenius into my unattended install via RunOnceEx, and the /verysilent switch gets the job done (almost) perfectly. The problem I'm having is that ZipGenius wants to launch itself after its installation finishes. So I get through my "Compression and Archiving Tools" segment in RunOnce, I see the next installer for the next secton start, and then BAM! Y HELO THAR, ZIPGEENYUS. WUT U R DOING HEAR? The software itself works fine post-install, everything else is good, but is there any way to tell it not to self-launch after it's done installing?