Josh Wieder

McAfee's suite of antivirus services have come pre-installed on Windows computers for a long time. I don't use the product, but I frequently have to use computers that have had Windows installed with McAffee pre-bundled somehow. I've often struggled to completely remove all of the components of their software packages. I recently picked up a new laptop with Windows 8.1 - my first time using this version of Windows for a laptop. I was dismayed to find McAffee preinstalled. I will say this for them - they have gotten better since the last time I went through this many years ago. Better, as in uninstalling using the utility provided by McAfee did not break Windows. The uninstaller still left bits of McAffee's software behind, though. Specifically, what gets left behind is the McAfee Update Manager; a utility designed to download applications from the McAfee corporate servers and install those applications on your computer with minimal human intervention. Registry...

Recently I noticed some strange behavior while launching an update through Windows 8.1's 'metro' menu. I launched Computer Settings app to run the update, which was a definitions update for Windows Defender (KB2267602). The Update settings were configured to prompt prior to download & installation. This was the first task launched after awaking the computer from a Sleep state. The computer is not a virtual machine. With Windows 8 and 8.1 the first places to look for Update failures are in the files C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log and C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\ReportingEvents.log - for those still unfamiliar with navigating the newer Windowses, you can reach a Run prompt to open these files using copy + paste by hitting the Window key and "R" key at the same time.  The relevant entry of the ReportingEvents.log file shows me what Error 80200056 means in the most basic sense - the update failed to download; as opposed to failing to install. {C7C9...

It was one of these days, not long ago, that I work up one day and realized that I had become an Old Man. Mine is the last generation that remembers a time prior to the internet. I remember using acoustic couplers. My first laptop, a Toshiba, had dual 5 1/2 inch floppy drives, but had no hard drive. I was so excited when I got my hands on that machine. It meant I could connect to networks using my acoustic coupler from a pay phone! My ruminations on aging is at least somewhat related to the topic at hand. You see, among the memories rattling around my grey hair ensconced head are a few about searching Windows file systems for files of specific types. This sort of thing is very important, even just for every day normal computer usage. When your computer starts running out of space, wouldn't it be nice to be able to find all of the really large files on that computer? Or perhaps you are looking for an important document you wrote - you can't remember the name of the file but ...

Includes Keys for Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008, Windows 8, Windows 7 and Vista This list of keys for KMS can be a real hassle to find in Microsoft's online documentation, so provided here in the hopes of saving you some time. Please note that these are not stolen product keys and as such publishing them is a time saver for administrators managing large deployments of fully licensed Microsoft products  - so if you are a thief or an Internet police person, sorry to disappoint but you've made it to the wrong site. Click this link for an article with more information about KMS, activating Windows Server 2012 Licensing, and upgrading your KMS Server from 2008 to 2012 . WINDOWS SERVER 2012 Windows Server 2012 Core BN3D2-R7TKB-3YPBD-8DRP2-27GG4 Windows Server 2012 Core N 8N2M2-HWPGY-7PGT9-HGDD8-GVGGY Windows Server 2012 Core Single Language 2WN2H-YGCQR-KFX6K-CD6TF-84YXQ Windows Server 2012 Core Country Specific 4K36P-JN4VD-GDC6V-KDT89-DYFKP ...

RemoteFX Media Streaming Introduced Over the years I have worked at both Internet Service Providers and server hosting companies. In both environments, customers have found thin client deployment and virtual desktop provisioning stymied by the bandwidth needs of remote desktop when used for day-to-day desktop computing style tasks. I can't remember how many times I have worked with a company whose entire network has failed or flapped because of employees downloading torrents or watching Youtube videos from a remote server. Other times, I have worked on Terminal Services capacity planning projects, and found myself impressed by the difficulty of giving reliable estimates even where good data is available. Many companies have been completely unable to reap the rewards of hosted desktops (fast provisioning and restoring, centralized management, easy hardware replacement) because of the costs of reliable high-throughput internet connections to their office. Data center bandwidth...

That Was Quick Italian security consultants ITSEC discovered the security hole following an analysis of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), a successor to the legacy BIOS firmware interface, that Microsoft began fully supporting with 64-bit versions of Windows 7. Tip of the Hat to The Register, linked above.  [EDIT: The article specifies the payload as a "bootkit". This was deliberately omitted on my part. The word "bootkit" strikes me as part of that trend to modify prefixes of words to make them ludicrously specific, like how Watergate became EverythingUnderTheSun-Gate. Its a cheap way to feign familiarity through reference. Is there a relevant disharmony between the terms bootloader and rootkit I'm ignoring? If so feel free to shine light on my ignorance via email or in the comments.] Since we are on the topic of hardware hacking, last week I caught a printer spamming - as in, a printer that was network available that had been compromis...