Windows 7 Remote desktop full screen issue

There is a very annoying issue with Windows 7 remote desktop.

While in remote desktop when you press the restore button it will change to window mode.

When you try to maximise to get back into full-screen it never happens and you have a scroll bar on the right.

You have to close the window and connect back using full-screen under the display tab.

 

To toggle between window mode and full screen mode use CTRL+ALT+Break

Virus Removal

This is what I feel about the infections (viruses) today and the process I follow to remove the infections.

The infections are more of adware type promoting useless products and of course other types as well.

Common reasons for Viruses (and sub Genres) today are USB, Internet Explorer and Instant messaging applications.

USB is a major culprit behind any infection today . I suggest not to double-click external drives from the explorer since most of the drives have a autorun.inf file at the root directory of the drive. It has an entry to execute an application which is most likely to infect the machine.

Some symptoms of infections:

1. Registry/Task Manager/Folder options/control panel do not open. (You might get “Disabled by Administrator” error)
2. Cannot unhide files in spite of allowing to “show hidden files/protected files”
3. Applications not opening
4. “Open With” when you double-click drives (mostly with external drives)
5. Frequent error messages and system slowness

I use some free tools like Malwarebytes, Process Explorer etc. to get rid of the infections.

Process I follow to remove the bad guys.

1. Clean junk like IE cache and Temp files. I prefer to use CCleaner since it not only cleans the regular places where unwanted info is left over but also it supports other applications like Browsers, Office, Adobe, Zip tools etc.
2. Disable the unwanted or suspicious IE add-ons (Optional).
3. Disable System Restore (Optional)
4. Do a quick scan instead of a full scan using Malwarbytes. Quick scan removes infections most of the time. Spybot is a good tool but it takes quite a lot of time to scan.
5. Some viruses detect anti-virus/anti malware products and can disable or even stop the installation.
6. You can use the built-in Msconfig to disable start-up items.
7. Autoruns by Sysinternals is a mother of Msconfig gives you a very detailed information of auto-starting locations, what programs are configured to run during system boot up or login etc .
8. Process explorer by Sysinternals can give a detailed information of the processes running and much more which can help you troubleshoot a bit more. The below link is a webcast which talks about advanced malware cleaning (its old but still helpful)
   http://www.microsoft.com/emea/spotlight/sessionh.aspx?videoid=359
9. Honestly I have never seen or removed Rootkits but there some applications which might help to remove them eg RootkitRevealer by Sysinternals
10. Windows updates

Sysinternals Suite has some pretty good tools to nail down infections.

There are many Pre-installation Environment (PE) products which help you boot from a CD/USB etc which can be used to integrate millions of free and paid products into them (Including CCleaner, Malwarebytes etc).  You can download prebuilt products or even build it yourself using Bart-PE and other PE tools

These are some ways which “might” help you to get rid of the infections but of course there would be situations where you just have to reimage the machine.

Some free tools which might be helpful
Optimization and Cleaning

• Ccleaner – http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

Malware, Adware & others

• Malwarebytes – http://www.malwarebytes.org/
• Spybot – http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html
• AVG – http://free.avg.com/in-en/homepage
• Avir – http://www.free-av.com/
• Avast – http://www.avast.com/index
• Clamwin – http://www.clamwin.com/

Preinstallation environment (PE) tools:

• Bart PE – http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
• Winbuilder – winbuilder.net
• Hiren – http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd
• UBCD for Windows – http://www.ubcd4win.com/
• Ultimate Boot CD – http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Search files:

• Everything – http://www.voidtools.com/

Other tools:

• Autoruns – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
• Process Explorer -  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx
• Sysinternals Suite – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx

Symantec Endpoint – Windows 7 issues

Some issues I came across with Symantec Endpoint installation on Windows 7
Had to read many forums to get the solution, so I though I will put all at one place.

Method 1: The single setup.exe package does not install.

1. Extract setup.exe using a unzip tool (7zip – http://www.7-zip.org/ )
2. Run LUSETUP.exe(or LUUPDATE.exe) from the extracted folder. This installs the Live Update.
3. Reboot
4. Run Setup.exe which the is the actual application.

Method 2: The above method works most of the time. But if it does not, follow the below steps

1. Open Registry and change the following
   Before:
   HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\AppData
   value=%APPDATA%
   After:
   HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\AppData
   value=%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming
2. Reboot
3. Follow Method 1

Method 3: Sometimes the installation fails with no error. You might find a “Pending reboot” in event logs. Even after multiple reboots you still cannot install SEP, try the below steps:

1. Open the Windows Registry editor (regedit.exe) browse to the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager
2. Verify the following Reg Multi String value PendingFileRenameOperations exists under this key.
   Note: If you do not find the PendingFileRenameOperations value in the location above, this error message can be generated if there are pending changes in:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSetXXX\Control\SessionManager\PendingFileRenameOperations
3. Delete the PendingFileRenameOperations value from the registry
4. If HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update\RebootRequired exists, Delete RebootRequired sub-key
5. Follow Method 1

Note: It is better to take a backup of these registry keys before making any changes.

Outlook 2010 – Multiple Exchange accounts in one profile

In outlook 2007 and older versions we had to create separate profiles for different exchange accounts.
The great news is that Outlook 2010 supports 3 exchange accounts in one single profile.

Let’s take an example

Let’s say we want to add 2 exchange accounts, First.Last1@domain1.com and First.last2@domain2.com
I will be using colors for the emails accounts instead of the actual names.

First.last1@domain1.com  
First.last2@domain2.com

What happens when you open Outlook – Will it ask for 2 different credentials ?
Yes.

Which account is used to send mails?
You get to choose from which account you want to send mails by clicking the “From” button in the new mail window

What happens when you send and receive – Which account does it refresh?
It will take the currently selected mailbox or mailbox under which you have selected a folder.
If you see the below screen shot … i have not entered the password for one of the accounts. The bottom bar is different for different accounts depending on which account is selected.

Some screenshots:

Showing two different accounts in the same profile

Showing list of accounts to select and modify settings

There are many more features and many unknown to me.

You can find some good info on: http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/archive/2009/08/25/multiple-exchange-accounts-in-outlook-2010.aspx
Check it out.

Orb servers did not reply in a reasonable amount of time. They might be experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later

Orb is a free streaming application which allows you to access your Music, Videos, Photos, Webcams and TV remotely. It also lets you browse through your folders. It is one of the coolest applications I ve ever seen.

The best part is it supports iPhone/iTouch, that means you can stream your stuff and play/watch on your device. But the catch is OrbLive which is the iTouch/iPhone app is not free though it is free if you access it via a browser.

I recently jailbroke my iTouch so getting OrbLive (for free) was not difficult.

But there was an issue. It plays perfectly while I am at work but when I come home and try it throws an error “Orb servers did not reply in a reasonable amount of time. They might be experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later.”

After researching I realized that when you are in the same network as the streaming server it does not use internet. In my case it uses Wireless which is brilliant and I was looking for something like this for a while. So finally I found the fix.

Here is the fix (I am using Windows 7)

1. Start -> Search programs and files
2. Type “Windows firewall with Advanced security” without quotes to access the advanced Firewall settings
3. Click on Inbound rules on the left
4. You will find a rule on the right called “Orb” which by default is set to Public
5. Double click and go to Advanced Tab
6. Check “Private” under Specify profiles to which the rule applies.
7. Apply

Orb URL: www.orb.com

Check out this brilliant tutorial of OrbLive on Youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjMLBADbK1g

Cheers