The Legacy Sunbelt Software Blog

On the 30th of July, IBM’s ISS group announced the end of BlackICE PC protection:

IBM Internet Security Systems has announced the End of Life for BlackICE PC Protection (formerly known as BlackICE Defender) and BlackICE Server Protection (formerly known as BlackICE Defender for Server). The End of Sale date for these products is September 19, 2007. You will not be able to purchase BlackICE products after this date. We will update and support BlackICE products until September 29, 2008, and have prepared an FAQ for you about this process.

BlackICE was once one of the big names in PC security and it’s a bad sad (although not surprising) to see it go to grave.

So, we decided to give out a free copy of the Sunbelt Personal Firewall (formerly the Kerio Personal Firewall) to BlackICE PC Protection users:

…all registered users of BlackICE PC Protection can get a free one year subscription to the full version of Sunbelt Personal Firewall and includes all of the features, toll-free support, and updates of a standard subscription. To benefit from this special offer, users can visit http://www.saveblackice.com/ and complete a short form or call toll free at 1-800-336-3166. The special offer period begins today and will be available for a limited time.

You can find out more in our press release here.

Alex Eckelberry

The link may still be live:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-07/30/content_6450253.htm

Alex Eckelberry
(Hat Tip)

XP SP3 Confirmed
It appears that Microsoft has confirmed that there will be another service pack for Windows XP and that it’s scheduled to be released during the first half of 2008. Nobody’s talking about what it will include. Read more here.

Problems with Vista activation system
We all knew and accepted that we might have to reactivate Vista if we installed certain types of new hardware. But nobody expected that just installing driver software could trigger the reactivation requirement. Well, it seems several people are experiencing this, including my friend Ed Bott.

Give your input: What should the next version of Windows look like?
Vista is still new so who in his/her right mind is thinking about the next version of Windows already? Microsoft programmers, that’s who. Code named Vienna, Vista’s successor is still in the very earliest stages of development, but at least one blogger is soliciting comments and suggestions for features for the next Windows.

What I love about the new Windows Explorer
In the throes of my nVidia-induced problems with my primary computer last week, I ended up doing a lot of my work on the bedroom computer, which runs XP. Going back to XP after working with Vista as my primary OS for well over a year (first in beta), there were a lot of features I missed, including the Sidebar (whose gadgets I consult often) and the Search feature on the Start menu. But I think the thing I actually missed most was the new Windows Explorer layout and interface.

In particular, I absolutely hated not being able to just click Recent Places to get back to a folder I’d had open earlier. Whoever came up with that idea was a genius; I’ve found it to be extremely useful. Another great aspect of Vista’s Explorer that I missed was the ability to click on any level in the path to go there, and I felt as if I were operating blind as I navigated through document files without the preview feature that lets me see the contents of a Word doc without opening it.

The XP computer also runs Office 2003. To find out what I missed about Office 2007, see the July 29 entry in my tech blog, titled What I Missed About Office 2007 When I Went Back to Office 2003.

How to use encryption for Outlook 2007 email
Most people think of email as an unsecure medium, but it doesn’t have to be. You can use encryption to protect the contents of mail, or digital signatures to authenticate the identity of email senders. Most modern mail clients support using Secure MIME (S/MIME) for this, but it’s not always obvious how to do it. Here’s how in Outlook 2007:

1. First, you need to get a digital certificate. You can get one free for non- commercial use from Comodo (www.comodo.com).
2. Compose your message, then click the Office logo button and select Properties.
3. Click the Security tab, and click to encrypt the contents and/or add a digital signature to the message.

You can also use S/MIME email with a Windows Mobile device. Read more about that here.

All about Rootkits
You’ve probably heard about rootkits, and you know they’re bad – some sort of malware, “like a virus or something,” as one writer put it. Originally, the word referred to something used on UNIX based systems to hack the “root” account, which is like the administrator account on Windows. Now there are rootkits for Windows too. Here’s a useful overview of what they are, how they work and how they can be detected.

Can I change the default image editor in XP’s Picture and Fax Viewer?
QUESTION: I was hoping that your article on: (How to change file associations in XP) would show me how to correct a problem I am experiencing. The icon at the bottom of the Windows and Fax viewer for closing that program and opening the image for editing now takes me to Microsoft Paint while I prefer to have it open the image to one of my other editing programs. I realize that I can do this by right clicking the icon and selecting the program but would prefer to have it automatically take me the the program I select as it once did. Any help would be appreciated. – Bob R.

ANSWER: First, I have to say that one of the things I really like about Vista is the new Photo Gallery, which replaces the “picture” part of Windows Picture and Fax Viewer (the “fax” part is replaced by Vista’s Fax and Scan application). Photo Gallery is the picture previewer in Vista, and one of the things I love about it is that you can edit pictures right inside it, instead of opening some other program to do it.

That said, it is indeed possible to change the default image editing program in XP’s Picture and Fax Viewer, but you’ll need to either edit the registry or use a utility called Imgeditor which can be downloaded here (ZIP file):

To edit the registry, first back it up, then do the following:

1. Open your favorite registry editor and navigate to this key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT SystemFileAssociations image shell edit command
2. Doubleclick the entry in the right pane.
3. In the data value field, type the path to the program you want to use (for example: “c:Program FilesIrfanViewi_view32.exe” “%1”

You can change the editor for a particular file type this way:

1. Click Start | Run
2. Type CONTROL FOLDERS
3. Click the File Types tab.
4. Select the file type from the list and click the Advanced button.
5. Click New.
6. In the Action box, type Edit
7. In the Application Used To Perform Action box, type the full path to the application you want to use to edit pictures.
8. Click OK twice to close the dialog boxes. This sets the default image editor for the selected file type.

Mapped drives don’t appear to connect or disconnect in Windows Explorer
If you find that mapped network drives aren’t visible in XP, or a mapped network drive stays visible after you’ve disconnected from it, this could be because of a system policy. This issue is fixed by the latest service pack (if you have the same problem in Windows 2000 or Server 2003, you can get a hotfix for it). For more info, see KB article 812933.

No search results over a WAN link with your XP computer
You may not come up with any search results when you try to do the search over a wide area network (WAN) connection. Even though you know the files exist, you still get an error message that says “Search is complete. There are no results to display.” Luckily, there’s a workaround. Read the instructions in KB article 925885.

Vista computer stops responding if USB camera is connected
Does your Vista computer hang up when you connect your USB camera? This only happens with certain cameras, and it’s because of the driver the camera uses. There’s a hotfix available to fix the problem; you’ll need to contact Microsoft Customer Support Services to get it. To find out how, see KB article 939331.

Until next week,

Deb Shinder

Over the weekend, we learned that over 70% of American citizens support the increased use of surveillance cameras.

I know that some may believe cameras are harmless and arguments for and against them have been made by many people. I won’t get into the debate on this blog.

However, I see these survey results as a manifestation of the culture of fear of our society which is driving people to accept the continual degradation of their individual freedoms. More troubling is that we’ve seen this occur historically, to the detriment of society.

Our current culture of fear is largely manufactured. As an example, studies have shown that in some areas, where murder rate might be down, people think the murder rates are actually up. The reason? The media continues to report on the garish, the gruesome, the horrible, while largely ignoring the good. Also, these violent crimes are usually in particular areas, but they may be generalized over a broader area.

Really, how dangerous is your neighborhood? You watch the news and you could become terrified. But you go outside and walk your street, and you see something completely different. What’s the truth? It’s what you personally observe. And you’ll find that it’s generally at odds with what’s reported.

I lived in Los Angeles during the period when there were a number of drive-by shootings. Many people considered Los Angeles an extraordinarily dangerous place to live — as if simply driving was an invitation to get shot. Of course, this was nonsense. The danger from driving in LA is bad drivers. In 20 years of living there, I never saw a gun. Ever. And I drove a lot.

I also work in the security business, where I see gruesome stuff with an almost tiring routine. But I do know things have been getting a lot better for users over the past several years, with better protection in the operating system, government and other legal action against spyware companies, and better security software.

Am I some Pollyanna, believing that all is sweetness and light? Of course not. I’ve seen and been through some pretty rough stuff myself. But in all societies, for the most part, the bad is greatly magnified over the good.

In a way, we’re smarter now, because we have more than Hearst, Luce, and three television networks controlling our access to information. But fear has taken its grip.

In the end, the answer to Bad Things Happening is not reducing individual rights. One of the better essays on one historical aspect of this subject is by Robert Harris, writing about the “Pirates of the Mediterranean”:

“In the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped.

The incident, dramatic though it was, has not attracted much attention from modern historians. But history is mutable. An event that was merely a footnote five years ago has now, in our post-9/11 world, assumed a fresh and ominous significance. For in the panicky aftermath of the attack, the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their Constitution, their democracy and their liberty. One cannot help wondering if history is repeating itself.”

I hope that reason and rationality will prevail, and that I won’t have as a legacy to our children a place where they cannot live and think freely, under the constant watchful eye of cameras, wiretaps and other intrusions — all in the name of “safety”.

Alex Eckelberry

Sunbelt’s marketing department is doing their weird Crazy Eddie stuff again, this time with the Sunbelt Personal Firewall (formerly the Kerio Personal Firewall).

Alex Eckelberry

Our little town is going through a massive renovation downtown, with new streetscaping, a new marina, and much more. It makes for a real headache in terms of driving, etc. but the end result will be worth it.

One little gem we found is that they are restoring some of the old charm of the original town. For example, a local building is being sandblasted to remove the ugly stucco and in the process, revealing its past. In this case, our telephone exchange of 1914:

Now, if you look at that picture in blown-up form, you can clearly see that it originally said “Telegraph” — then Telephone was overlaid on top of it.

(And to my European readers, I know, I know, maybe we’re silly in America getting interested in something that’s such a recent part of history. It’s is nothing like going down an old country lane and stumbling over an ancient Roman statue. Still…)

Alex Eckelberry

We’ve started a new Sunbelt section on YouTube.  It’s starting small but will keep growing. You can find it here.

Alex Eckelberry

You know it’s been one of those weeks when I ask that question as the title of my editorial. It all started a little over a week ago, when I began having weird little display problems in Windows Vista. Then a few days later, I was in the middle of writing an article with deadlines looming, and suddenly all three monitors went black. That’s never a good sign, and things like that always seem to happen when I’m snowed under with work.

I rebooted, and was able to boot back into the operating system – but found that I had lost both of my secondary displays. What in the world was going on? When I went to Display Properties | Settings, four monitors showed up there (two for each video card) but three were grayed out and marked inactive. Attempting to extend the desktop to any of them had no effect whatsoever.

Those who know me know that I live and die by multiple monitors. It’s difficult for me to do the work I do (research and writing, often involving testing software in a VM while writing step-by-step procedures) efficiently with a single screen. So for me, this is a major problem. The weird thing is that although I had a bit of trouble getting the multiple monitor setup to work initially in Vista, it had been working fine for about seven months. What had changed?

My first thought was that perhaps some update had conflicted with the UltraMon software that I use for multiple monitor management, so I tried closing that program, then uninstalling it and restarting. No change. Next suspect was a “drive by” driver update, so I did a rollback of the nVidia drivers. No change, so I undid the rollback. I had work to do, so I tried working with the single monitor for a while, but I was getting more and more video problems, including short freezeups and flickers. Then I got an error message saying “Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding but has successfully recovered.”

Well, successful recovery sounded good, but I started getting this same message intermittently, more and more frequently, until it was coming every 30 seconds or so. The screen was frozen in between, so the computer quickly became completely unusable. But at least I had a good idea now that the nVidia drivers were the problem.

I started researching this error message on the web and found that I was, at least, not alone in my problems. One forum, in fact, had about eleven pages of discussion describing the same thing.

Unfortunately, there was no definitive solution, although several people offered advice that they said had worked for them.

I tried just about everything: Last Known Good, System Restore, uninstalling and reinstalling various versions of the drivers, deleting all nVidia files on the computer (warning: DON’T delete nvstor.exe – that rendered my computer unbootable and I had to do a full PC image restore to get it back). Some folks said disabling various software programs, from Windows Defender to Dreamscene, fixed it for them. I tried all that, but still no joy.

I was doing all this in Safe Mode, which ran just fine throughout the whole ordeal. That was another strong indication that it was indeed a driver that was the culprit. I made recommended adjustments to the BIOS configuration and I did a flash update of the BIOS. I tried unplugging the monitor from the older of the two cards (GeForce 5200) and trying it with the two monitors plugged into the newer one (GeForce 7900). That actually got me into Vista with normal bootup again – until I enabled the second monitor. Then I started to get the “nvlddmkm” error message again. And now when I rebooted and tried to start Windows normally, I couldn’t even boot into it. I either got a continuous black screen instead of the Windows logo, or I got a blue screen of death, STOP error 0x00000124.

At least that was something different. I did a web search on that error and found lots of discussions relating it to – who would have guessed? – nVidia drivers. Grrr. I was beginning to feel rather unkindly toward nVidia, whose own web site hadn’t offered any help at all with the problem (although its discussion forums indicated lots of people were having it).

At this point, I tried installing a whole new installation of Vista on a separate partition. Finished installing, booted into it and got (surprise … not) the cursed nvlddmkm error message. By now I was close to pulling my hair out and/or throwing the computer into the swimming pool. But I have a stubborn streak that I inherited from my dad; I don’t give up easily.

My husband was suggesting that it was a memory problem, but I ran memory diagnostics and they found no problem there. And I was just sure it was the nVidia drivers. To prove it, I went back to Safe Mode (by the way, the only effect I noticed from the BIOS flash was that now I could use a higher resolution in Safe Mode, which at least made it a little more pleasant to work with) and removed all the nVidia drivers completely. Sure enough, I could then boot into Vista normally without the blue screen or black screen. However, when Vista started, Windows automatically searched for and installed drivers, but they don’t become active until you restart. I worked for a couple of hours with no problems (but of course, with only one monitor). Then I rebooted, and got the blue screen again because the drivers had been reinstalled.

This time, I booted to Safe Mode and just disabled the drivers instead of uninstalling them. That “stuck” – Windows didn’t try to reenable them and the system was stable with no nVidia drivers. The system was also limited to a single monitor, and that still sucked. I considered my options.

I thought maybe this was the excuse I needed to buy a 30 inch monitor, if I was going to be stuck with just one. Dell has theirs now for a pretty incredible $1499.

I remember just a year ago, the 24 inch was more than that. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, though. I didn’t want to spend that much money to fix this problem.

I looked into the Matrox TripleHead2Go, an external device for setting up three monitors on one video card. That cost around $250, but I had no guarantee that it would solve my problem, since I might still need the nVidia drivers installed for it to work, and my machine suddenly but adamantly does not want anything to do with those drivers anymore.

The good thing about both of those solutions was that they didn’t require opening the case. Although once upon a time I enjoyed swapping out hardware, those days are long past. The Dell XPS is a monster – heavy as heck – and it lives under my desk. Ever since my back injury, I’ve been loath to try to pick it up. But I finally decided the best solution was to bite the bullet on this one and get rid of those GeForce cards. I had used ATI with no problems for many years until I got this computer. Dell didn’t give me that choice; I had to get it with the GeForce.

The reason I bought the XPS in the first place was because I wanted a system with two PCI-E x16 slots so I could install a second video card. Vista requires that all your video cards use the same WDDM driver, so I had to get a second GeForce to go with the one that came in the Dell. Now I was fed up with nVidia. I was ready to go home to ATI.

So I sent Tom to Fry’s to pick up a Diamond Radeon 1550 with 512MB of RAM. It cost $149, fifty bucks more than I could get it for online, but I was tired of dealing with this and didn’t want to wait. I needed at least two monitors, and I needed them NOW. I sweet talked him into lifting my behemoth Dell onto the table for me, took out the offending GeForce cards and inserted my new ATI, crossing my fingers for luck. Put it back together, hooked up all the cables, booted up and … (c’mon the suspense is killing you, right?) booted right into Vista.

In fact, Vista booted much faster than it ever had with the nVidia cards. No blue screens. No black screens. No nvlddmkm error! I went to Display settings; there was my second monitor, and I extended the desktop to it. Still no problems. And not only that, but the colors were better and everything was snappier. Hallelujah!

I know lots of people swear by nVidia cards and if they work for you, that’s great. They worked for me too, for over half a year. I still don’t know what made them suddenly turn against me, and I don’t know for sure that the ATI card won’t go bad for no apparent reason six months from now. But for the moment, I’m happy again, and I’ve ordered a second Radeon 1550 from NewEgg so I can get back to triple monitors.

ATI saved my sanity this time. How about you? Has your computer done something recently to drive you crazy? Any ideas about how they know when you have the most work that needs to be done and choose that time to go haywire? Have you ever gotten so frustrated with your computer that you just dumped it in the trash and went out and bought a new one? Do you find that you hate dealing with hardware issues more as you get older? Do you have a clue as to what caused my nVidia drivers to become toxic?

Deb Shinder

In a post this morning, Harvard researcher Ben Edelman alleges that Zango has violated its settlement with the FTC earlier this year, carefully dissecting Zango’s installation and distribution practices.

It’s worth reviewing the FTC Settlement:

The settlement bars Zango from using its adware to communicate with consumers’ computers – either by monitoring consumers’ Web surfing activities or delivering pop-up ads – without verifying that consumers consented to installation of the adware. It bars Zango, directly or through others, from exploiting security vulnerabilities to download software, and requires that it give clear and prominent disclosures and obtain consumers’ express consent before downloading software onto consumers’ computers. It requires that Zango identify its ads and establish, implement, and maintain user-friendly mechanisms consumers can use to complain, stop its pop-ups, and uninstall its adware. It also requires that Zango monitor its third-party distributors to assure that its affiliates and their sub-affiliates comply with the FTC order. Finally, Zango will give up $3 million in ill-gotten gains to settle the charges. The settlement contains standard record keeping provisions to allow the FTC to monitor compliance.

This is of some importance, especially in light of the fact that Zango is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with PC Tools over its method of listing Zango in its product.

Alex Eckelberry

That she made a pi.

(Mary Beth in Sunbelt’s tech support made the pi.  Looks quite yummy.)

Alex Eckelberry

Security guru Paul Ferguson has just blogged about some more of these fake “double v” sites that we wrote about last week.

VVINDOWS.COM NS NS1.MYDOMAIN.COM
VVINDOWS.COM NS NS2.MYDOMAIN.COM
VVINDOWS.COM NS NS3.MYDOMAIN.COM
VVINDOWSVISTA.COM NS DNS1.MALKM.COM
VVINDOWSVISTA.COM NS DNS2.MALKM.COM

…. and so on. More of these fun domains at Paul’s blog.

Alex Eckelberry

Truly silly. Halvar Flake, a German security expert planning to do a training to Blackhat attendees (a number of whom are federal security officials, no less), has been refused access to the United States over a technicality (despite never having had such a problem before):

For the next 4 1/2 hours I was interviewed about who exactly I am, why I am coming to the US, what the nature of my contract with Blackhat is, and why my trainings class is not performed by an American citizen. After 4 hours, it became clear that a decision had been reached that I was to be denied entry to the US, on the ground that since I am a private person conducting the trainings for Blackhat, I was essentially a Blackhat employee and would require an H1B visa to perform two days of trainings in the US.

Unfortunately, it’s not often within the purview of bureaucrats to work within the “spirit of the law”. One can only hope that Halvar can appeal to some reason at the consulate.

Alex Eckelberry
(Thanks Andreas)

That’s the words of a federal official on the bust of Suntasia Marketing (also known as Strategia Marketing, as well as a number of other names), an operation which was an allegedly major scam operation that was run out of a large office here in Florida.

Suntasia allegedly had telemarketers call up consumers and offer various travel programs. Customers were asked for their credit card number or checking account information and then got billed, often against the customers wishes. And it was allegedly impossible to stop the billing. (These types of billing schemes are called “negative option”, because the customer has to call to cancel, otherwise get billed).

You can see a video about the scam here.

And here is the picture of a telemarketer’s cubicle:

But how did they do it? I recently met a couple of ex-telemarkers from Suntasia and was curious about their story. Better yet, I decided to record the conversation, which you can hear for yourself.

Stephanie: Well, I started just listening on the phone, you know, to see how they actually talked to the people and how they dealt with the questions that they would ask. And then I started getting on the phone and they had me rebuttal (handle the customer’s objection), rebuttal them. People would not want to give up their account numbers.

We had to trick them just by asking their city, where they bank at and their name, the name of the bank, where they bank at. Then we would pull up their routing number and we would read their routing number to them. By then, the person would be, you know, kind of scared caused they say, “Oh she’s got my routing number.” So we had to explain that the routing number was simply just their electronic address to their bank and that they had to verify their account number.

What we did is, they would say, “No I’m not going to verify my account number,” and we had to rebuttal them. “Well your account is your member ID to your bank.” And they would say no, “I’m not giving it to you.” We had to keep rebuttal, rebuttal, rebuttal. And then finally they gave it up and they, you know, verified their account number and then we put them into the recorded line that they are not being billed, charged for anything TODAY. Which the main key word was for you to say “TODAY.” Because that was stating to the recording that they are not being billed for that day, but that they’re going to be billed for the next, and the next, and next days to come.

So my experience with that was, I was feeling kind of very upset because I tried to get out of that company two time and they just kept telling me “No, its, you know, it gets better. The money, you know, is good, and whatever,” so, but I was very, I was getting very upset because I knew for a fact that it was scamming people all over.

Mp3 here, text transcript here.

Alex Eckelberry

Yahoo is running ads for Zango via third party ad network rmxads.com. And it looks like the ad is optimized for myspace advertising as well…

Alex Eckelberry
(Credit to Sunbelt researcher Patrick Jordan)

A group affiliated with the infamous VxGame Trojan has registered a new site called vvindowsupdate(dot)com.

It was created July 9, 2007, and so far no pages.  However, the two v’s together looks like a “w”, so this is clearly an attempt to fool people into thinking it’s the real WindowsUpdate site. 

Alex Eckelberry
(Credit to Sunbelt researcher Patrick Jordan)

DollarRevenue had gone dark for a time, but it’s now back, installing from a new site, instaffpro(dot)com.

Related sites:

activexrevenue(dot)com
browserrevenue(dot)com
casinorevenueprogram(dot)com
freecontentprogram(dot)com
instaffpro(dot)com
intadvsol(dot)com
slotmachinerevenue(dot)com
toolbarmedia(dot)net

Other implicated sites:
nonameforthisdomain(dot)com
yourstartingpage(dot)com
searchbar(dot)findthewebsiteyouneed(dot)com

Patrick Jordan (aka WebHelper)
Sunbelt Spyware Research

Today, this ad was spotted apparently coming from realtor.com (ostensibly through a third party ad network).  Anyone else seeing this type of behavior on realtor.com?  

Alex Eckelberry

We’re looking for a Senior Security Response Engineer to join our antimalware team.

We’re doing some seriously bleeding edge stuff, so this is the place to be if you want to be involved in some of the most interesting research in the business.

Responsibilities: The Senior Security Response engineer will serve as a technical supervisor to a team of engineers creating antivirus signatures. The engineer will also be required to reverse engineer malicious code threats with the goal of creating antivirus signatures and custom reports detailing the threat’s actions. The position entails providing day-to-day technical guidance to other engineers on the team including provisioning work and ensuring deliverables are met.

The engineer will be required to create tools and systems to aid in reverse engineering malicious threats including file format parsers, unpackers, and system monitoring tools. In addition, the engineer is expected to remain apprised of current security trends and topics. This position may require weekend availability and the engineer must be able to work under high-pressure situations.

Qualifications:

• Degree in computer science or equivalent experience.
• Solid x86 assembly and C/C++ programming skills.
• Solid understanding of networking and Windows system internals.
• Experience in reverse engineering including using disassemblers and debuggers is mandatory.
• Knowledge of scripting languages such as Perl or Python is a plus.
• Relocation to Tampa Bay, Florida required. (Relocation assistance provided.)

Please email Eric Sites, CTO at eric at sunbelt-software dot com.

More jobs, including several senior .net programming positions, here.

Alex Eckelberry

Our Sunbelt building is mentioned in this blog post as part of a series entitled: “Real places recreated.”

That really is what our building looks like, and even the lobby is accurate.

Alex Eckelberry

(Back to the old format…)

Making XP Last
Not interested in switching to Vista now or in the future? Like XP just fine and want to keep it around forever – or at least for what passes for forever in the computer world? This article in ComputerWorld claims you can make XP last for the next seven years, and even better, shows you how to get many of Vista’s advantages on XP – even including cool “eye candy” features like Windows Flip 3D.

RIAA loses lawsuit – Bigtime
Although a few people have won their cases when lawsuits were brought against them by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), in the past it still ended up costing them plenty to defend themselves in court. Now, for the first time, RIAA and Capitol Records have been ordered to pay the attorney’s fees to individuals who fought back and filed a counterclaim after being accused of copyright infringement. Read more about it here.

Official word on Vista support for Second Lifers
For those of you who participate in the Second Life web experience, the official blog from Linden (the company that makes it) last week noting that they are in the process of testing and validating support for Vista, and that generally the software works on Vista as long as you have a supported graphics card with the latest drivers. Here’s the web site showing the system requirements.

Cool new Windows Media Center features in Vista
Vista Home Premium and Ultimate editions include Windows Media Center, which lets you turn your PC into a digital video recorder (DVR) and entertainment center for your home. The Vista version of WMC has a number of cool new features. For instance, you can watch and record HD cable content without a set- top box if you have a PC with CableCard support.

Another welcome change: you don’t have to buy a DVD decoder from InterVideo or another third party vendor. Now DVD codec support is included in Media Center. And in keeping with making your Media Center more like an appliance (think TiVO), you can configure it to start up like a CE device and you can lock the Media Center session, so that users can’t exit to the regular Vista desktop.

How to change file associations in XP
Sometimes when you install a new program, it may change the file associations. For instance, if you install a graphics program such as PhotoShop, you might find that it is now the default program to open picture files like .jpg and .gif, even though you prefer to have them opened by the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. Luckily, it’s easy to change the file associations so that files with the selected extension will open with the program of your choice. Here’s how:

1. Right click the Start menu and select Explore.
2. In Windows Explorer, click the Tools menu, then click Folder Options.
3. Click the File Types tab.
4. In the list of registered file types, scroll down to the file extension whose association you want to change and highlight it.
5. Click the Change button.
6. Scroll through the list of programs that can open the file type and select the one you want to use as the default. Be sure the box labeled “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file” is checked.
7. Click OK.

You can click the Browse button to look for the program if it doesn’t appear in the list.

How do I keep XP from connecting to wireless networks?
QUESTION: Last week I was traveling and discovered that my XP laptop was connecting to a wireless network without me doing anything. I’ve read about people getting in legal trouble for accessing wireless networks without permission, and besides I’m afraid of somebody hacking into my computer, so how can I make it stop this? Thanks. – Dana G.

ANSWER: The default is to connect to “any available network” and automatically connect to non-preferred networks, which helps to assure that you’ll get a connection if there is a non-secured network available anywhere in range, but it’s not so good for security (yours or the network owner’s). You should configure the wireless feature so that you’ll only connect to the network that you explicitly specify. Here’s how:

1. Click Start | Control Panel.
2. Double click Network Connections.
3. Right click Wireless Network Connection and select Properties.
4. Click the Wireless Networks tab.
5. Under Preferred Networks, click the name of the network to which you want to connect.
6. Click the Advanced button.
7. Click “Access point (infrastructure) networks only.” This will prevent connecting to ad hoc wireless networks, which could be run by anyone in range with a wireless-enabled computer.
8. Click to uncheck the box labeled “Automatically connect to non-preferred networks.”
9. Click Close, then OK, and close the Network Connections window.

Now your wireless laptop should be a little pickier about connecting to every network that comes along.

Troubleshooting DVD problems in XP
Having problems playing DVDs on your Windows XP computer? From choppy video quality to black screens and lost audio, this DVD Troubleshooter walks you through the steps of diagnosing and fixing the problem. Just click the link in the KB article to start the Troubleshooter.

Error message when trying to play older games on XP or Vista
Sometimes when you try to play an older game on an XP or Vista computer, you get an error message that says “Game requires administrative rights to play” or something similar. Or you may be able to play, but the game doesn’t allow you to save or open files. In other instances, the operating system may not recognize the game disc at all. Any of these problem can be caused by using a limited user account to play a game that’s written to require admin privileges. KB article 893677 provides workarounds for both operating systems.

IE7 stops working when you move the contents of the Temporary Internet Files folder
If you’re running Internet Explorer 7 on Vista and you move the contents of the Temporary Internet Files folder to a different location, IE may stop working properly (web sites don’t open). This is because the user permissions on the new folder aren’t set correctly. Luckily, there is a process for restoring IE 7 to working order (without having to move the folder back). For step by step instructions, see KB article 937828.

Until next week,

Deb Shinder