I really couldn’t find a quick answer to this on this in a quick search. Maybe it’s just me. But, one of the computers that I support has UPS Worldship installed on it. (Version 8.0.16 I think.) They had a printer problem and switched printers. Of course, Windows handled the printer just fine. Worldship printed out labels (this all happened before I got there, but Worldship gives you an opportunity to change the label printer.) Unfortunately reports wouldn’t print. When looking through the setup and attempting to test it simply gave a message that the printer couldn’t be found (the printer could not be found) and nowhere was an option to CHANGE the report printer. In retrospect, I wonder if I should have looked in the “Change label printer” choice, but at the time I didn’t want to run the risk of tinkering with THAT working part. So… here’s what I did.
Category: Windows Tech Support
-
Windows Run commands reference
One of the frustrating things about windows is having to wander through X number of menus looking for a specific item that you KNOW is there, but just can’t quite find. If ONLY you remembered the command name for it, but the RUN commands are sometimes quite a bit different than the name of the utility or program. After all, the legacy is the 8 character name dos days (8+3 but windows hides the 3…) Well, 156 Useful Windows run commands is for you then. This reference has a good list of some of the more useful of those. (There are a number that are third party software as well.)
-
Another Wolf in Sheeps Clothing to watch for “Spyheal”
Sunbeltblog has the heads up on this one. Spyheal is the name it goes by and it hangs out at spyheal (dot) com
So, if you’re in a position to block sites that looks like one to filter for your network.
-
7 Updates coming from Microsoft in July
We can expect 7 updates next week from Microsoft on the monthly patch day for July. Four of the updates will be for Windows, and 3 for Microsoft Office. There will be at least one critical update for each. It’s expected that we’ll see an update for the Excel issues that have been talked about the last few weeks. There are a number of publicly known Internet Explorer vulnerabilities, but it’s not known if Microsoft has prepared patches for those yet. It should be noted that many times 1 patch will cover a number of issues. This is commonly seen with Internet Explorer cumulative updates where several vulnerabilities are addressed with one update.
-
Windows 98 and ME in final days of support (6 by my count)
July 11th will mark the end of Microsoft’s support for Windows 98 and ME. Which means that there will be no further security updates for those systems after that date. In SOME ways, those systems may find comfort in the security through obscurity approach as much malware MAY not run on those systems, but that’s kind of a risky angle to play. For those that are willing to experiment…
-
Sophos suggests…. for more safety – get a Mac
Analyzing the state of the computer world…. Sophos Antivirus has suggested that consumers consider a Mac for their next PC if they’re concerned about the increasing swarm of malware targetting Windows PC’s. The main point being there are no ACTIVE malware threats against Mac systems and Windows still seems to be increasingly targetted. Mac will likely be less malware prone for the foreseeable future. No, MAC users – that is NOT an excuse to ignore Security updates!!!!
-
Windows XP and IPP printers
I really like printers with their own built in print server. They can be plugged into the network and some operating systems can just find them. Unfortunately most of the time Windows doesn’t just find an IPP printer. One tool that can be handy for such a time as this is a free tool like softperfect network scanner or you could substitute your own tool in to find where the printer is on the network. If you’re lucky enough to have designed the network or setup the printer yourself, you may know. But, in my job I may have information on some parts of a customers network, but many times I’m called in after the fact and get the “I need that network printer to work on this desktop” kind of assignment.
-
Fasten your seatbelts – Browser vulnerability a day to be announced in July
I hope there aren’t too many browser developers that have planned on taking July off….. I ran across browserfun.blogspot.com where it is planned to release information on a web browser vulnerability EACH DAY for the month of July. This comes to us from HD Moore of Metasploit. Judging from This securityfocus article, most of the vulnerabilities may just lead to a browser crash, but some seem to be remote code execution vulnerabilities. Microsoft Internet Explorer is where they found most of them, but other browsers were NOT immune and did find at least one remotely exploitable vulnerability to gain remote access for each browser tested.
-
Intelliadmin – free disable usb storage tool
For Windows system administrators that have sweated over the perils of usb drives and memory sticks…. Intelliadmin has a tool for you. It’s a small utility that will allow to remotely disable usb drives over the LAN. It won’t affect usb mice/keyboards – just usb storage. So, if your network security policy doesn’t like USB storage you can easily use this to make sure those devices don’t work on plugin.
-
NTFS cloning
Sometimes drives just go bad. Surprise. One recent fresh install of Windows XP had started having real stability problems. On running a chkdsk and looking at the event viewer, it was fairly clear that 16KB of bad sectors and the disk problems had likely been the problem (lots of disk and atapi errors in the system log. Mostly disk error during paging operation (swap filing)) So…. I looked at cloning the drive using dd_rescue. All went well and the new system booted up on the new identically sized drive. In fact EVERYTHING was fine except chkdsk still reported 16KB of bat sectors….