Aw dawg, this is just my whateva-whateva site.

Tweakers are one of several banes of my existence.

Tweakers second guess the kernel developers and use third-party software utilities to "clean" the registry and remove/disable system services they shouldn't be touching.

They often end up with more than one registry cleaner, more than one antivirus, and/or more than one firewall application running at the same time. Tweakers care a lot about system speed, so of course this will make them download/apply more tweaks in an attempt to offset the speed decrease from all of the junk software they have installed and running.

They change every option in the system to something bizarre and follow nutball crazy tech evangelists such as (but not limited to) Kim Komando and Steve Gibson of GRC.

They listen to their friends who know less than them and swear by software such as (but not limited to) Norton Antivirus.

Their systems come into my shop because they're ridiculously broken, and I spend hours removing conflicting "one-click fix" software that has ironically caused the breakdown of the machine and re-applying system defaults (using things like Dial-a-fix to guide me). When I tell them that these software packages they're using are pieces of junk and are causing all of the problems, they don't believe me.

They always disable System Restore (because they don't think it works well enough or they think it takes up a lot of resources) so there's no way I can go back to a sane system state by rolling back individual hives. They usually "replace" System Restore with Norton GoBack or some other ridiculously bad program.

I'm sure Dr. J.D. Azil will chime in with more stuff about tweakers. Doctor?

1. Install Windows
2. Leave it the fuck alone

Okay, there may be actual tweakers that know what they're doing, but I never see them. Why would I? They know what they're doing!

I also see kids (usually self-professed "gamers") who do the following to their homebuilt machines:

• Attach a CPU heatsink without using any thermal paste
• Screw the motherboard directly to the case (without standoffs)
• Chain multiple fans from a single molex connector where the chain finishes at a hard drive (or two)
• Forcing RAM modules in backwards

I was going to edit the previous post, but making a new post will bump everyone's RSS, etc, so I am just making this stub to paste the URLs for each hour:
* 06/15/07 – Hour 1
* 06/15/07 – Hour 2

Don't forget about FREE Dial-a-fix support at Lunarsoft.net! Even if I'm too busy to be around, the regulars there know Dial-a-fix better than anyone and can definitely lead you in the right direction. Also, they'll help you with general computer/tech support problems too, not just with Dial-a-fix.

As a follow-up to my old article, I would like to present to you the two Symantec non-technical support phone numbers that I have. I've been told by several customers that it has taken them less than 10 minutes to get refunds. I've even had a customer who was 6 months into a subscription receive a complete refund.

The first number is long distance for most, but it's the preferred number:
1-585-350-0400

The second number is 1-800-745-6055.

Simply tell Symantec how much you hate Norton Antivirus, Internet Security, or Systemworks (all pieces of crap) and how much time and money you lost when it broke your computer (even if it didn't). You'll get a refund.

Enjoy.

Sophos is recommending that system administrators ask their security vendors if they are capable of properly protecting them on the forthcoming 64-bit version of Vista, as arguments continue regarding access to Microsoft's operating system code (kernel). Sophos has reassured its customers that Sophos Anti-Virus will offer full protection against malware threats on Vista, and suggests that some security vendors may not have given sufficient thought to the new operating system when developing their products.

Anti-virus firms Symantec and McAfee have recently made high-profile complaints that they are being "locked out" of the Vista operating system kernel by Microsoft's PatchGuard prevention system. They argue that this is preventing them from continuing to develop pro-active protection against new malware, sometimes referred to as 'host intrusion prevention' or 'HIPS'. They claim this action is anti-competitive.

However, Sophos argues that its approach to HIPS technology has met with no problems on both the low-spec and high-spec versions of Windows Vista. In addition, Sophos claims that Microsoft has so far provided all the interfaces that Sophos needs for providing this form of protection.

More…

This isn't a timely post by any means, but I wanted to make sure everyone was aware of it. One of the Norton updates from 2006/03/15 causes AOL to disconnect immediately after connecting. The remedy is to temporarily disable Internet Worm Protection, get online, and run LiveUpdate to get the new version of Internet Worm Protection.

Source: Symantec.com KB

Symantec sucks.

SymNRT.exe is no more — Symantec has opted to instead install LiveUpdate on your system using ActiveX via Internet Explorer in order to remove Norton/Symantec products. What? Besides their continued effort to shovel more crapware in each successive version of Norton/Symantec products, this is the worst thing they have ever done.

Sure, IE may not work at all because of a broken NIS installation, but that's okay, I can always remove it using this ActiveX control. No, wait…

See also: http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039

If anyone has a newer version of SymNRT than 2006.2.10.19, please let me know. I'm also patiently awaiting third-party removal tools following this debacle. Once my copy of 2006.2.10.19 expires, I'm up shit creek — with ActiveX paddles.

EDIT: Okay, I didn't notice the "What if this did not work?" link at the bottom, where you can still get SymNRT. *Whew*. Thanks "Mike" for bringing that to my attention.

Commenting closed :)

Reports are pouring in about Norton 2006 products and permissions problems. It seems that it is sometimes difficult to install, uninstall, or simply use Norton 2006 products without using my permissions repair tool first. Our tech shop has already fixed several dozen computers using the just the permissions repair tool, and more seem to be coming in. After using the tool, we were able to finally install, uninstall, or use Norton 2006 products.

Tell everyone you know who has Norton 2006 to use the tool – even if they don't have any problems yet. There are many other issues that are completely unrelated to Norton 2006 that are actually caused by it. One customer was unable to install Macromedia Flash/Shockwave. Several others were unable to double-click on shortcuts (.lnk files) or run .exe files at all. Dial-a-fix (full version only) comes with its own version of the standalone repair tool, which can also solve some of these issues.

Norton Antivirus is at it again, and by 'it', I mean sucking.

This customer's machine has OVER 70 GIGABYTES of viruses QUARANTINED. They are all the EXACT SAME FILE. 47,713 BYTES times a kajillion. I couldn't even tell you how many files there were because it would have taken hours to get a directory listing. I've begun an rmdir /s /q (because explorer.exe is too slow for this).

What is wrong with Symantec? Why do they continue to make (and furthermore, how are they continuing to sell so many copies of) a program where the quarantine folder can take up your entire hard drive (ruining Windows completely)? Why is it always impossible to install or uninstall their products, and why does it usually break the BITS service (ruining Windows Update, which Dial-a-fix can fix, thankfully) when you try to use their horrible SymNRT to remove their horrible product? Why do their products break each other, and why is it nearly impossible to install a new version of one of their programs after an older version has been removed? Why does every brand new product of theirs (such as Antivirus 2006) already have 30MB of core updates, right after it was shipped (not including virus/spyware definitions)? Why isn't there yet a symantecsucks.com or something? :P

It's been deleting for ~5 minutes, and I have 2.5 GB of free space back so far… ~67 more gigabytes to go. :(

Edit: This is why I use avast! (on customer machines; on my own personal machine I don't use antivirus or spyware protection)

Edit 2: 2:37 PM (EST) and 20 GB has been deleted thus far.

Final edit: It took approximately 6 hours to delete ~75 GB worth of the same exact 47,713 byte file.