Microsoft Update - the following updates were not installed

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I kept receiving "the following updates were not installed" when trying to use Microsoft Update on one of my plain Windows XP VMware machines. I have HEAVILY relied on Microsoft Update for a long time for many machines, and this is the first time updates just wouldn't install. In my scenario, I would choose "Custom" and anything I chose would go through the motions, but ultimately fail to install.

I followed the simple instructions here which solved my problem: Updates are not installed successfully from Windows Update, from Microsoft Update, or by using Automatic Updates after you perform a new Windows XP installation or you repair a Windows XP installation

Method 1: Register the Wups2.dll file in Windows

To register the Wups2.dll file in Windows, follow these steps:

1.	Stop the Automatic Updates service. To do this, follow these steps: a. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK. b. At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER: net stop wuauserv
2.	Register the Wups2.dll file. To do this, follow these steps: a. At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER: regsvr32 %windir%\system32\wups2.dll Note For a computer that is running Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, type the following command, and then press ENTER: regsvr32 %windir%\syswow64\wups2.dll b. Click OK on each verification message that you receive.
3.	Start the Automatic Updates service. To do this, type the following command at the command prompt, and then press ENTER: net start wuauserv
4.	Exit the command prompt. To do this type exit, and then press ENTER.

Service manuals are very useful !

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My printer broke and I was confident that I'd be able to fix the simple problem once I downloaded the service manual. I have to say it was very cool to be able to get a hold of that manual ! It has instructions on how to diagnose, disassemble and fix. The printer went through the motions, just didn't lay any ink... must be clogged, should be easy to fix.

The printer actually stopped printing about 2 years ago, and I had since abandoned the overly expensive and questionable ethics of that printer's manufacturer. Since I HAD purchased extra printer ink cartridges with that company's settlement to the class action lawsuit (pertaining to questionable ink practices)... I wanted to use up that ink, and spare some ink on my new Canon PIXMA MP780.

I have to applaud any company (even the maker of this printer and its expensive ink) that has a service manual that I can find online (I got it at this site). Kudos ! I also found community help for exactly the problem I had. Regardless of technical expertise or skills, I think everyone should have the chance to get the full manuals and self-help for all the products they own.

My project started following A FIX for Clogged Printheads which was VERY nice. The disassembly, construction of make-shift tools, and use of anti-freeze... all went great removing tons of gunk from my old printhead. Followed all instructions, didn't help in the end. I was still happy and empowered by the community help.

Then I found and dove into the service manual. I wouldn't gotten nearly as far carefully and gracefully locating and removing the proper screws without it. I usually break things as I'm being careful, which I didn't do as I followed the manual.

As the manual pointed me at screws that could only be reached with long narrow specialized screwdrivers I started to get frustrated, but still thinking there was SOME hope that I'd be able to reseat them all and get this thing back together.

Having to ultimately go for removing the printhead itself (ugh), I abandoned the manual, and honestly all hope of ever getting this darn thing back together. Just think though, without the manual I wouldn't have ended up with this, or potentially in the mood to buy a new printer. Too bad I already decided I didn't like this one's manufacturer, I might have bought another of their printers merely because I was empowered with the service manual to destroy my old one!

Care with the service manual lead to not caring and destruction.

Well, at least the 3 day project is now over, and I've got some additional neat parts for my Junk box.

Send Email Attachment Through Filter

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Through much trial and error, I've found an obscure but reliable way to send any attachment through an email system that normally prohibits DLL, CMD, VBS, etc... files. Even zipping the files or renaming files usually isn't enough to trick the filter into letting the file through. Sending emails through gmail and corporate systems, the attachment can cause the email to be partially or fully rejected. With a solid need to send .CMD and .CAB files (with a DLL inside the CAB) through a corporate email system, I figured this out:

1. Create original.zip, NOT password protected.
2. Rename original.zip to something else original.zip.RemoveThisExtension.
3. Zip the original.zip.RemoveThisExtension file with a password.
4. Send the original.zip.RemoveThisExtension.zip file to someone.
   
5. Tell recipient the password to unzip the outer file and that they should remove the ".RemoveThisExtension" portion of the inner file.

I think password'ed zip files still provide the directory without needing the password. So "double embed + password " doesn't let the email scanner see past the one non-zip extension'ed file. Here's a shocker, I suspect that the file doesn't even have to be renamed! I didn't have time to try zipping the zip (while adding the password).

AVG Free v8 - Start automatic updates fix

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Recently I found that my AVG Free (version 8 / AVG8), was not updating definitions and complained that "Database update is disabled" (strange since I had installed only this Vista x64 (64 bit) machine only about 1-2 months ago). I didn't reinstall, but I did find a fix:

The problem was that automatic updates were not enabled. But when I was not able to make AVG save my settings when I tried to enable it via:
Update Manager / Update Manager settings / Start automatic updates

I found Error: e001018b in the log file (C:\ProgramData\avg8\Log\avgcfg.log):

[AVG8.CFGMGR] ERROR 2008-07-12 14:25:06,155 AAFRY PID:3800 THID:2848 ID:{4B69726F-6E736B79-4C696C69-32303036-30393034}:519.134.79458 MSG:'DWORD:0x455295d4', 'DWORD:0x2', 'DWORD:0xffffffff', 'DWORD:0xffffffff', 'ERRORCODE:0xe001018b'

The solution was to remove the schedule config file (C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\sched.cfg), and let it be recreated. Here's what I did:

1. Move "C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\*.cfg" to "C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\old" (NOTE: you might want to try moving JUST sched.cfg... that might be enough)
   
2. Open AVG console from the system tray
3. Check the box at Update Manager / Update Manager settings / Start automatic updates
4. Perform "update now" on all AVG components
5. Reboot

At this point everything seems fine.

These files were automatically recreated:
C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\mail.cfg
C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\sched.cfg
C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\update.cfg
These files were NOT auto recreated:
C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\krnl.cfg
C:\ProgramData\avg8\Cfg\user.cfg

File paths/directories will probably be different on Windows Vista vs Windows XP. To reiterate, I'm using Vista x64, so the paths above are for Vista.

If anyone does the above procedure with moving JUST sched.cfg, let me us know if it worked for you.

Accumalizer.com Pretends to Care

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I've been getting a lot of spam recently from Accumalizer.com. Various spam offerings always with the Accumalizer.com top banner with the sugar speckled gumdrop, makes it easy to identify and delete the spam.

I'm enraged by the good-neighbor spam policy at the bottom. It reads (FYI: I made the email change to someone@somewhere.com):

"Accumalizer.com thanks you for opting-in to receiving email advertising with us. You signed up one of our partners with the address someone@somewhere.com, but if you would prefer to you may unsubscribe from future correspondence at anytime.
Please visit the original website where you opted-in to view the relevant privacy policies.
Or, you may contact us at: 3 The Drive, Great Warley, Brentwood, CM13 3FR, UK (CoNo: 06187068)"

This is not only a half truth (I didn't opt-in in any fashion), but it's also intentionally vague and probably impossible to opt-out electronically. Since I didn't opt-in, or I don't know what horrible site gave them my email address, how do I return to the original site to tell them to stop? Even if I did figure it out, it probably WON'T stop Accumalizer since they already have my email address, and wouldn't notice an off-site unsubscribe!

It looks to me like they want to appear legit in being a good and responsible custodian of your personal information. Meanwhile they've made it impossible for anyone to actually unsubscribe!

I've tried their unsubscribe link, which is basically this form: http://accumalizer.com/webforms/accumalizer/unsub/
Yet I'd bet that it doesn't ultimately stop them. I'll add a comment later if the emails stop (or if they continue).

Blockbuster Knew

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I just got home from Blockbuster and I am impressed. Their "bricks and mortar" store is connected directly to the online rent-by-mail service, and as far as I can tell, the connection is real-time.

I have the online plan where they send me one movie at a time via the mail (like Netflix), but I get the added advantage of getting a free rental and an immediate return of the mailer. Its great that I can have a different movie almost every 2 days with this setup, but that's not what this post is about.

Yesterday I went online and put Futurama "The Beast with a Billion Backs" on the top of my Queue. Today, I went to return a mailer and get a free movie... and lo and behold, the Futurama "The Beast with a Billion Backs" movie was right there on the shelf! I formed a plan to rent the movie, and rush home and remove it from the queue. I raced home and within 5 minutes I was in my online blockbuster queue. I was greeted with an alert that said that I had just rented Futurama "The Beast with a Billion Backs", and that it was also in my queue... and would I like to remove it from the Queue?... and would I like to always remove rented movies from the queue.

I'm impressed that they have this feature, but I'm more impressed that the system kicked in SO fast! Wow.

Samsung ESTOOL Drive Diagnostic Does Nothing (here's why)

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Or does it?

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/support/utilities/ES_Tool.html

I have been trying to get the ESTOOL hard drive diagnostic program to work for over a day now, and just figured out the problem. The bootable floppy disk seems to work. It lets me auto detect and select my Samsung hard drive. It lets me see information about the drive and its settings. When I choose "Drive Diagnostic," it asks how many loops to run, and when I hit enter (defaulting to 1), I end up back at the main menu.

Ends up that the ESTOOLS boot floppy disk MUST NOT BE WRITE PROTECTED ! It wants to write a status log to the disk, but fails silently if the disk can't be written to. I'd guess that if the floppy disk were full, the same silent error would occur. So, to save yourself the grief I went through, don't lock the disk, and make sure there is at least 10K for log files (they are actually less than 5K each).

Would have been nice if the program told me what the problem was !!!
(I thought it was that my chipset was Nvidia, which was the problem with another vendor's hard drive diagnostic toolset)