Windows XP Solution
1) Click the Start menu, control panel
2) From the control panel select “Add/Remove programs”
3) Find Internet Explorer 8 and proceed to uninstall it.

After the uninstall is complete you’ll be able to use IE8.

Windows Vista Solution
1) Click the Start menu then select control panel
2) From the control panel select “Programs and Features” (Or Programs)
3) Click “View installed updates” on the left

(wait for it to load .. it does take a few minutes. Note the bar at the top of the screen)

4) Find “Windows Internet Explorer 8″, select it and use the “Uninstall button” at the top of the list.

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To get your storage device to work with Vista, you can enable your Windows Vista PC to use both NTLM and NTLMv2 authentcation, in order to communicate with older SAN devices.

Solution

1. Click the Start Menu, then “Run”
2. Type “secpol.msc”
3. Select Local Policies
4. Select Security Options
5. Find Network Security: LAN Manager
6. From the drop down list, select: “Send LM & NTLM – use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated”

Now you should be able to communiate with older SAN devices in Windows Vista!

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The patch is available here: http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pjt2v07/chrome/ (Thanks to Paul for writing this fix)

Things to note:
You need to run this patch from the folder that contains the file chrome.dll. For me it was located in the following path (On Windows Vista)
C:\Users\<>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application.2.149.30

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All of the above are symptoms of spyware, which may have been introduced to your machine via various methods – which include activeX downloads and software you installed on your PC (such as Kazaa and other p2p programs).

You did not authorize these applications to install onto your PC – so why are they there?

For a bit of fun and games, I decided to be the test dummy. After firing up VirtualBox running a clean install of Windows XP, I proceeded to install various ‘known’ applications that included spyware. These included Kazaa, Performance Optimizer, Bonzi Buddy and XP Antivirus 2008.

After I had installed these applications, I was infected with spyware – there was no doubt about it. Here’s a few screenshots of my system;

XP Antivirus 2008 informing me that I have a ton of viruses .. *cough* fake!

Who likes my new wallpaper?

Internet Explorer Hijacked!

Some funky looking Windows processes

Removing them all

If you performed a Google search for “Anti-Spyware”, you will be bombarded with hundreds of applications which promote “Greatest protection”, “Instant spyware removal” and “Free scan now”. I decided to give two programs a whirl and there were;

NoAdware and AdwareAlert

NoAdware

NoAdware is a lightweight antispyware application designed to dig deep within your system to find traces or spyware, dialers and adware. It also has a number of PC Shields, designed to lock down certain parts of your system so that spyware cannot perform any modifications. This includes locking down your IE homepage, IE favorites and your windows hosts file.

While NoAdware managed to remove the majority of spyware found on my dummy PC, it wasn’t able to fully remove AntiVirus 2008 – which as I mentioned before is a NASTY spyware application designed to try and sell you products, whilst providing FAKE virus results.

Download NoAdware

AdwareAlert

The thing that impressed me the most about AdwareAlert is that it actually detected XP Anti-Virus in its scan results, where as NoAdware didn’t. The software promotes its “3 way protection” system, whereby AdwareAlert Scans, deletes and protects your system – pretty straightforward really. AdwareAlert also has an inbuilt quarantine system and the ability to add programs to an ignore or white list.

Overall AdwareAlert was able to clean the system and restore my dummy system to its former state.

Download AdwareAlert

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The best way to erase your browsing history is to use Firefox and the “Clear Private Data” tool that ships with it (ctrl + shift + delete). However if you are using Internet Explorer or you want to make 100% sure that all history is deleted then its best to leave it up to an application to search through your system and delete any trace that you were even there!

The program I recommended is called “WINCLEAR”, and is able to clean up your tracks from a number of browsers and Internet applications. (Such as Firefox, Opera, Netscape, AOL etc)

Give Winclear a whirl!

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I have a ASP.NET 1.1 application that requires Windows Authentication and this was the error I was receiving.

“You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials you supplied”

1. Whip open the control panel, and select programs and features
2. On the left select “Turn Windows Features on or off”
3. Drill down to “Internet Information Services” – “World Wide Web” services” – “Security” – “Windows Authentication”
4. Tick “Windows Authentication”

My gosh, hidden away eh?
I love Windows Vista.

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Here’s how to install IIS on Windows Vista.

1. Hit the start menu and select settings, control panel.
2. Look under Programs and Features, and click the option which says “Turn Windows features on or off”
3. Click on Internet Services
4. Click OK

Done!

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Very annoying if you ask me; lucky there’s a quick fix.
1. Click on the Start Button and go to the Control Panel.
2. In the Control Panel search box, search for “disable uac”.
3. Click on Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off.
4. Uncheck Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer.
5. Hit OK.

1. Hit the Start Button and select Control Panel
2. In the Control Panel, select User Accounts
3. Then click on User Accounts again .. (I know, what the?)
4. Select “Turn User Access Control on or off
5. Untick the box and hit OK!

Whola!

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