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Another PC broken, another Norton product... [maybe]
I spent half the day trying to fix a XP PC today with Norton Internet Security installed. Interesting product, and one I haven't seen before. I found and removed two viruses before doing anything else (the online scanner at SARC is a lifesaver for people who catch one because they forgot to renew). Then I started exploring.
The customer's complaint that "I can't use the Internet" was obviously ridiculous, since I had no trouble running the online scan. So I asked her to show me what she means. She went to one of her online financial services without trouble, then tried to log in. IE reported a DNS error. On to the next site - same thing, the front page is okay, but login is impossible. This is getting interesting, I thought, as I started tracing through the process of logging on to a secure website. I tried a few of my own favorites and had the same result, so I hypothesized that IE was blocking https connections. Then I tried one that uses https but without a cgi-bin directory in the path and it worked. Scratch that idea. I checked settings in IE, played with security zones, but nothing helped.
That's when I finally found Norton in her programs menu. I tried running it, and sure enough, though it was current, everything in the control panel was disabled, and I couldn't change any of the settings. A little research turned up the fact that this problem is known to occur with McAfee software on XP machines, but I found no mention of Norton IS being a problem. Meanwhile back at the ranch I did some searching at the Symantec site and found instructions for enabling the Supervisor account ( I have to uninstall/reinstall the entire product, then reregister it ), which I think will then allow me to configure the firewall software. But I'm still not convinced that this is what is blocking logins.
Has anyone else ever encountered these weird symptoms on an XP machine? Any other ideas out there? And while I'm at it, does XP have a Repair option on the installation CD? I noticed that her Help system doesn't work anymore - some viruses wipe that out - and I'd like to repair it without using System Restore (she has no restore points), and without damaging her installed software. Thanks for any clues!
"Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.
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Roger Wright wrote:
does XP have a Repair option on the installation CD?
Yes it does, but in my experience you need a "restore floppy" whatever that may be... AFAIK you need to have created this before problems showed up, but I don't know, I've never used repair, so I'm not sure what it does in the line of settings and installed programs. My guess is it'll be no problem, but I'm not sure.
Paul 
Open the fridge door, scream, and everything that doesn't run into the corner is safe for eating. - Jörgen Sigvardsson
modified 18-Jul-18 11:59am.
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Thanks! I've used Repair on previous versions of Windows, and it's alwys done a very good job of preserving apps and settings. Of course, this will be a last (or next to last) resort, but I'm glad to have the option. I did find late last night that what I'm seeing in the Norton Internet Security behavior is not normal, and Symantec has a fix for it on the support site. I'll try that first.
"Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.
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Roger Wright wrote:
Symantec has a fix for it on the support site
That sounds hopeful!
Good luck 
Paul
Open the fridge door, scream, and everything that doesn't run into the corner is safe for eating. - Jörgen Sigvardsson
modified 18-Jul-18 11:59am.
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Well, the fix is their standard response to everything - uninstall it and try again. We'll see...
"Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.
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What a fix 
Hope it works, anyway... 
Paul
Open the fridge door, scream, and everything that doesn't run into the corner is safe for eating. - Jörgen Sigvardsson
modified 18-Jul-18 11:59am.
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Paul van der Walt wrote:
Hope it works
Nope. Windows can't uninstall it, and the uninstaller won't open with a Supervisor account active. There is no Supervisor account, and the Symantec site responds with nothing from the Knowledge Base, about what I've learned to expect from them. There's also no way to write for tech support. I'd hate to delete the files manually, having no idea where all the remnants are hidden (all of their products are extremely intrusive), and the user has a lot of irreplacable stuff installed. Grrrrr....
"Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.
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Try to boot first in safe mode, then uninstall the software using Add/Remove programs.
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Well, the trick to removing the NIS thingy is to disable everything related to it at startup, then to use the Control Panel Add/Remove Programs function. Once that was done the customer was able to get into secured sites with no problem at all, so the NIS was definitely the cause. Of course, she somehow managed to delete the original installation zip file from her download directory, and somehow lost the setup executable that is supposed to remain in the Installers subfolder, so she now has no protection at all. Fortunately she's out of town for a week and the PC will be off.
"Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.
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Someone please help me before I lose it!
I have two PCs - XP Pro and W2K SP2. I have a service running on XP (normal SYSTEM user) that needs access to a folder on the W2K machine. Both machines are members of the same workgroup (not domain...). So, I share the folder on W2K and even though "Everyone" has full permission, my service running on XP cannot create files. So I thought I'd try to add permissions for the SYSTEM user on the XP machine to the shared folder and am getting nowhere. To start with, the W2K machine displays the Workgroup name in the permission drop-down, but when selected, none of the machines in the workgroup are displayed. If I try and add a share by hand (e.g. XP\SYSTEM or \\XP or \\XP\SYSTEM) it moans that the machine name is incorrect and won't let me continue. However, if I browse "My Network Places" on the W2K machine I can see the bloody XP PC. Sigh.
Why is this such a black art? Is there a trick to getting a service on one PC to access resources on another? I know I could run the XP service as a named user (e.g. Administrator) but this causes other problems, so I want to leave it running as a "normal" service.
Any ideas?
The Rob Blog
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Is your XP machine using the simplified file sharing method? If it is, turn it off (it has been the default on all the XP installations I've seen so far). When using that mode, all sharing requests use the Guest account, which is normally disabled in both XP and 2K. Once you do get it working, map the shared folder on the W2K machine as a network drive in XP and make it persistent. I'm not sure of the exact procedure as it's been almost a year since I've set up an XP system, but I think that still works.
"Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.
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What differentiates a running app from a process in Task Manager? For instance, I have a half dozen programs running on the desktop, another 10 or so running in the background (displayed in the Notification Area), and another 20 processes displayed in the Task Manager Processes tab. Only the handful running on the desktop show up as Applications; the rest are listed in the Processes tab. Is that the only difference - where they are executing?
"Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.
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As far as I know, if a thread creates a top level unowned window, the icon and window text for that window show up in the Applications tab.
You'll notice, that if you have more than one IE window open, two "Applications" will be there on that Apps tab, but most of the time there's only one process representing both of those windows.
Chris Richardson
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Chris Richardson wrote:
if a thread creates a top level unowned window, the icon and window text for that window show up in the Applications tab.
That sounds about right. Thanks!
"Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.
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I think process would refer to the memory that is taken up by the application/service. All running programs therefore would show up in the process list (umm lets not talk abt device drivers)
Only programs that need to interact with the user get classified as applications. Example of a process could be an antivirus monitor, web server etc which could have GUI's to be configured but can work without user interaction.
Multiple instances of an application like Internet Explorer can share the same process space (i'm not sure how its done  ) .
When you hit Ctrl-N on IE to create a new window you notice there is an additional application (ie IE  ). Whereas if you were to click on the IE icon, an additional application AND process would show up.
IE 
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Does anyone know how to id what specific process has a particular file open? Is there a utility in the OS like 'lsof' or a utility with the MS compilers? If not can I do this programatically? Any help would be apprciated.
BTW. The reason I am doing this is because the network admin has a open file called 'hfind.tmp' on a SQL Server machine. Is this file possibly an indexing or hashtable for full text searches in SQL Server?
~LizardWiz()
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Use the free Process Explorer from SysInternals
Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet.
-- Bruce Schneier
By the way, dog_spawn isn't a nickname - it is my name with an underscore instead of a space. -- dog_spawn
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Another goodie is Who's Locking[^]. It even lets you close down the process that's locking you out.
"Another day done - All targets met; all systems fully operational; all customers satisfied; all staff keen and well motivated; all pigs fed and ready to fly" - Jennie A.
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And then there's OH.EXE[^]
oh hfind should do it!
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not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but...
i'm writing a report on the output of a WinDump.exe file, and while creating basic sockets, i see
"win16384 <mss 1460,nop,nop,sackOK> (DF)"
i cant seem to find any explanation of what these bits in detail mean. whats does the (DF) at the end stand for?
and whats 1460? i take it "mss" is microsoft something...
all the tutorials i googled for only explain the SYN and ACK parts...
any help on this would be much appriciated
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In our systeme there are some Applications that should not be ended from a user that does not know the Password. This Password is needed when the Application is Closed (with File->Exit or the [X] button on the top right) or when the Machine is shut down.
Under Windows 2000 when the user wants to shut down the machine, after 5 seconds there comes a window 'End Task' where the user can kill the task without typing in the password.
I've found the Registry Keys to set the timespan 'til this window pops up (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\desktop\HungAppTimeOut and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\desktop\WaitToKillAppTimeOut), but is there a possibility that this window doesn't appear (maybe another registry key)?
thanks
Roland
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The Windows 2000 server resource kit included a tool called rdpclip.exe which, accurding to the documentation, allows files to be transfered from the terminal services client and the server via clipboard.
1) Has anyone had this working?
2) Is it, or something functionaly equivalent available for Windows 2003 servers?
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Mark Nischalke wrote:
2) Is it, or something functionaly equivalent available for Windows 2003 servers?
Remote Desktop/Terminal Services cross machine clipboard has worked for me when connected to XP and 2k3 server.
Matt Newman
If you chose to continue this discussion, I am fully prepared to make you my bitch. I invite you to ask around, and you'll find out that I'm quite capable of doing so - John Simmons on Trolls
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Strange, I've tried that with no luck either. Am I missing something in the setup or configuration?
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Mark Nischalke wrote:
Strange, I've tried that with no luck either. Am I missing something in the setup or configuration?
I don't know, I've never configured it, it seems to have always worked for me.
Matt Newman
If you chose to continue this discussion, I am fully prepared to make you my bitch. I invite you to ask around, and you'll find out that I'm quite capable of doing so - John Simmons on Trolls
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