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Does your AMD-based computer boot after installing XP SP3?
Updates Updated May 8 to add information on a second issue. Updated May 9 to add information on possible additional issues as well as instructions for using the recovery console. Updated May 10 with some clarifications, a possible video driver problem...
Posted 08 May 2008 09:29 AM by jesper | 386 comment(s)
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1722 Error from InstallShield
Last week I found a post in the Vista newsgroups from a lady who was having problems installing Kaspersky Anti-Virus. She was getting an error 1722 upon installation on one computer out of three and the installation failed. She had called both Kaspersky...
Posted 10 March 2008 09:47 AM by jesper | 4 comment(s)
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Do Vista Users Need Fewer Security Patches Than XP Users?
On January 23, Jeff Jones, Director of Security at Microsoft, published his "One Year Vulnerability Report" for Windows Vista. In the report, he analyzed whether Windows Vista had fewer vulnerabilities in its first year than it's predecessor...
Posted 24 January 2008 04:13 PM by jesper | 21 comment(s)
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Remotely listing all installed updates
A couple of weeks ago I published a script to list installed updates . Predictably, one of the comments ask for a version that can do that remotely. Here it is . This version can be run a couple of ways. First, you can double-click it. If you do it will...
Posted 10 January 2008 11:08 PM by jesper | 1 comment(s)
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Using Autoplay on Vista To Stop Attacks
The January issue of TechNet Magazine has an article I wrote about how to hack a system using autoplaying USB flash drives. While it is not possible to stop all attacks from USB tokens, Vista does include some interesting protective measures. However...
Posted 23 December 2007 10:41 AM by jesper | 1 comment(s)
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WSUS 3.0 Is Still A Memory Hog
This evening I brought my WSUS server up to WSUS 3.0. Mostly I wanted to see if it still was as big a memory hog as 2.0. After the 90-minute-or-so installation was finished, here is what I had: wsusservice: 50 MB IIS worker process: 100 MB SQL 2005 instance...
Posted 06 May 2007 10:59 PM by jesper | 6 comment(s)
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I've Hit F12 For the Last Time
OK, so whose bright idea was it to put the F12 key so close to the Delete key on the keyboard? And whose bright idea was it to map F12 to "Save As..." in every MS Office application? And, whose bright idea was it to default the Save As... option...
Posted 04 May 2007 12:48 PM by jesper | 7 comment(s)
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Group Policy Fails For One User
Recently I started noticing a very strange problem. user Group Policy was not applying for a single user. All other users got GPO just fine, but for one user GPO failed to apply. This manifested itself in a couple of interesting ways: When you run gpresult...
Posted 25 November 2006 03:25 PM by jesper | 7 comment(s)
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New Article: SBS At Home
I've had this love-hate relationship with Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) for years. On the one hand, I agree to a large extent with Tom Shinder and Tim Mullen that SBS makes security compromises that in many, if not most, businesses are imprudent...
Posted 28 September 2006 10:41 AM by jesper | 4 comment(s)
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Place offline web pages in the correct zone with MOTW
For several years I have used a homepage in Internet Explorer (IE) that is a list of links I often visit. I find it a lot more convenient than using Favorites to track this, and it is easier to save, move to a new system when you flatten this one, and...
Posted 14 September 2006 12:12 PM by jesper | 3 comment(s)
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Unable to install Vista because of "Roxio Backup MyPC?"
Today I tried installing the latest build of Vista and ran into an interesting problem. The compatibility check during installation failed because I had "Roxio Backup MyPC." The only Roxio app I have is Roxio Easy Media Creator Suite 8, so I...
Posted 01 September 2006 11:50 AM by jesper | 4 comment(s)
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Wiping a drive, the easy way
While poking around for a blog post on Susan's blog, I found this one , asking how to wipe a drive. Teacher, Teacher, I know the answer, I know: cipher /w:<drive letter> This command, built into Windows XP and higher, does a three-write pass...
Posted 24 August 2006 10:15 PM by jesper | 5 comment(s)
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SMB Message Signing Troubles?
Susan posted this a few days ago , and I just thought it made sense to give it some more attention. SMB Message Signing is one of, if not the most, problematic security setting in Windows. It is commonly used to defeat man-in-the-middle attacks, but getting...
Posted 24 August 2006 09:57 PM by jesper | 2 comment(s)
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