When visiting Microsoft Answers, TechNet forums or other Windows support forums on the web, you may have seen some of the answerers using the title "MS-MVP", "MVP" or "Microsoft MVP" under their signature. Some people wonder what that means, and some people think that the answerer is a Microsoft employee (No. MVPs are not Microsoft employees.) (more…)
Microsoft Security Essentials Upgrade notification popped up when I switched on the computer today.
Clicked the Upgrade now button and allowed the process to elevate. (more…)
The Microsoft Online Services Diagnostics and Logging (MOSDAL, for short) support toolkit is a very useful tool that performs network diagnostics and collects system configuration, network configuration, and logging information for service-based products. The logs that the tool generates provide data that helps technical support professionals troubleshoot configuration, network, installation, and other service-related issues. MOSDAL collects log files, registry keys, and configuration settings that would otherwise require time-consuming and labor-intensive collection by using separate tools. (more…)
We’ve covered the excellent multi-purpose command-line tool NirCmd from Nirsoft several times before. This post talks about the new command-line switches added in the current version of NirCmd. Earlier this month, I sent a NirCmd feature request to Nir Sofer, asking to include an "elevate" switch, which should launch an application elevated (Windows Vista, Windows 7 & 2008.) Nir was kind enough to incorporate this feature in the immediate version update (v2.40). Later another update, to fix a bug I reported, v2.41 was released. (more…)
For a limited time, you can download this free e-book. First Look: Microsoft Office 2010, by Katherine Murray, offers 14 chapters of early content.
First Look: Microsoft Office 2010 (PDF file, 10.5 MB)
First Look: Microsoft Office 2010 (XPS file, 27.9 MB) (more…)
Microsoft Answers, one of the biggest community forums which is run by Microsoft is a great place where you can search, browse, and post questions and answers. They’ve made available a search connector so that you can search answers via Windows Explorer in Windows 7. Also, there is a Microsoft Answers search provider for Internet Explorer 7 and higher. (more…)
A fraudulent (and worm-laden) email arrived in my mail box today containing a zip file claiming to be from Google Staffing, with the title reading "Thank you from Google!".
I downloaded the attachment (from a test system, of course) and the excellent Microsoft Security Essentials nabbed it right away!
Category: Worm
Description: This program is dangerous and self-propagates over a network connection.
Recommendation: Remove this software immediately.
More information about Worm:Win32/Prolaco.gen!C from the Microsoft Malware Protection Center.
I was recently asked how to disable updating of virus/spyware definitions when running a command-line scan using Microsoft Security Essentials console tool MpCmdRun.exe. The option exists in the Microsoft Security Essentials user interface, but the setting is not obvious for some users. (more…)
The MSE console tool MpCmdRun.exe’s command-line help displays the parameters and flags to be used to initiate a scan. Here is the line that I’m talking about.
-Scan [-ScanType] Scans for malicious software
And the ScanType can be 1 (Quick scan) or 2 (for Full scan) (more…)
If you’re greeted with the Windows Installer setup screen for an existing product everytime when you try to install a new program, you usually repair the existing application, or use the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility to remove the installer information of the existing application before reinstalling it. The problem is the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility Setup itself uses Windows Installer and hence it may not run in the above scenario. Here is an option which can be used to launch the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility without installing it. (more…)
