Report for Previous Meeting
April 2009
The new month kicked off a feast of queries related to a number of niggling things that were getting to people and just shouldn’t have, like the action of, apparently, Flash and the Bendigo Bank. A member’s browser had started refusing to open the bank’s web pages whereas it had done so many times before. The solution offered was to deconstruct the installation, first by removing all traces of Flash, including leftovers from previous versions: Flash has a habit of creating new branches in the programs tree while leaving registry references to the old. Bob T told us that the newest Flash has changed the installation structure and some awkwardness had emerged since.
The uninstall included both IE and other browser versions, if present. Finish with a reinstall.
To cap off the fix Secunia was suggested for an online scan to tighten up the state of Windows. Also, at FileHippo there is a link to Update Checker that should tidy up loose ends. Peter H pointed out that Windows x64 versions require both 32 & 64-bit Flash.
The next question was about Virtual PC and how to get it to address, in this case, an XP CD. We walked through the process and were shown how an ISO XP image can simplify the job. Supplemental was the user’s wish to boot off a USB stick, but first having to update his BIOS. We were shown the readout from the SIW info utility and Everest, just to prepare for the BIOS update. Then we ventured into ‘Legacy USB’ functions, ones that make the mouse and keyboard usable outside of a booted operating system. Turning that off can disable access to a computer – leaving you way up the creek! The general advice was to decide to update your BIOS judiciously, on a need-to-do basis.
We had a quick interlude into, of all things, Notepad, and its interpretation of lines beginning with ‘Bush..’. See Wiki. The connection was downloadable text files from banks for spreadsheet massaging. John H had had trouble with changes to the CTB’s site – so we worked online through what was possible with alternative Comma Separated Values page-grabs. That seemed to have some merit.
A question was about the security warnings Windows gives for some sites. IE’s Tools, Options, Internet Options, Advanced, second-last tick item was said to be the solution, though a site trust entry and a last-resort MKb article were added, just in case.
Ian L asked us about his USB upgrade process that kept failing, with a USB2 PCI card intermittently coming on and going off, and its effect on the old ports. Deconstruction was again offered, to get the machine back into a known good state, then beginning again, perhaps using another mopboard slot.
Lindsay P had one slow work computer so we stepped through the malware investigation process and asked for an update next month. Tony F reported Foo-like USB appearances from his 15 USB ports. We talked that over and consider it a work-in-progress, as was another query about Volume Shadow Copy.
The night was finished off with a thorough walk-through by Mohan G of Windows 7, a good interactive description of the new features and its anticipated slickness. The future looks rosy.
.oOo.