March 12, 2010

Microsoft confirmed today that security update for its Excel Spreadsheet had turned English text in an important Windows tool into Chinese. The admission was the second in the past two days from Microsoft's Office team of a gaffe involving a recent security update.

Fridays announcement involved the seven-patch update Microsoft shipped out on Tuesday for Excel. "We have received reports from some of our Excel 2003 and Excel 2002 customers that after installing update KB978471 or KB978474, they are seeing non-English text in the "Add or Remove Programs" tool Windows XP or the View (Vista, Windows 7), Microsoft said in an entry published early today on the "Office Sustaining Engineering" blog.

The two updates Microsoft referenced KB978471 and KB978474, were the patch collections for Excel 2002 and Excel 2003, respectively.

According to Microsoft, the patches are displayed in "Add or Remove Programs" in simplified Chinese rather than the intended English. "If English text..... is a requirement, there is a two part workaround available," said Microsoft as it told users to first uninstall Tuesday's Excel update, then download and install a revamped version.

Todays snafu wasn't as serious as the one Microsoft acknowledged Thursday, also on the Office Blog. Yesterday, the company confirmed that a February 9th non-essential hot fix that added support for Net 4.0 to Office 2007 caused the suites programs to crash when they were run on Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2008 with Terminal Services. Some users claimed that the update also made Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) crash when working with Share Point 2007. Microsoft yanked the hot fix- which was served in limited fashion last month and then more widely via Microsoft Update starting last Tuesday- and replaced it with another that corrected the crash problem. The crash making Hot fix was also pulled Thursday from Windows Server Update Services (Wsus), the patch management system that many businesses use to distribute security and other fixes to company PC's.

Microsoft has had a string of update problems this year, the most widely reported a February patch for a 17 year old vulnerability that caused computers to lock up and display the dreaded "Blue Screen Of Death" error message. Microsoft withdrew the update within two days, and later said that only PC's infected with "Root-kit" had been affected.

How do users operate when they visit this forum (or any other)
I have never posed a question, so regard myself as being in a "help" category. To merely select "New Posts", unless you are a very prolific poster, with time on your hands, can reveal a mass of material, a lot of which, if one is honest, the user rends to skip over without opening.
I, like many, have quite a few forums in my bookmarks. Several of these are being totally swamped by material which, in my particular case, is totally irrelevant.
In order to "get through the day", I worked out a system which, with practise, is not time consuming and gets the subject matter revealed in a summarised format. I have noticed, however, that there is a trend to post links as help, instead of opening a more friendly and informal dialogue.
As I see it, posting links indicates that any intelligent computer user, could browse for his answer anyway, and not even bother to use forums.
First thing I do is click Windows Rumours and news forum entries. I get this material through other news sources, so have no need for it. I then select the "Forum Tools" option and mark the forum as read.
I do the same with Security Zone and the Water cooler.
This eliminates about 70% of the "New Posts" and allows me to view the remainder more comfortably.
The "Open topic" forum, I keep at the moment. It has a tendency to merge its contents with the Water Cooler, but still has interesting chat items.

After various attmps my windows live mail worked once i don't know how and then e stopped working...
I'am using windows 7...
Heeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllpppp....

Microsoft announced today of new attacks against IE6 and IE7. An unpatched bug that attackers have been recently exploiting, which injects malicious code the computer.

The oldest IE 5.01 and the newest IE 8 respectively, are not vulnerable to such attacks.

The best way to defend from these attacks is to "Modify Access" to the "iepeers.dll". "Disable Scripting" in the browser and enable DEP (Data Prevention Execution)

The next patch "Tuesday" is April 13th, just 5 weeks away. Exactly when Microsoft can patch the bug is uncertain because of tests and scheduling, but and out of band fix is certainly possible.

March 9, 2010

Opera confirms " highly critical" browser bug in "Windows Versions of Opera 10 and 10.5. According to "Scunins Report" theoretically the flaw could be used to corrupt memory, crash Opera and execute attack code.

In an 64 environment the bug would crash Opera, in a 32 , memory could be moved around short distances and theoretically execute attack code. Opera is working on an update that will patch the weakness and should be coming out soon. In the mean time, the best way to defend your computer is to make sure "DEP" and "ASLR" are enabled.

March 7, 2010

USB Battery Recharger Status Software contains Trojan, says US-CERT ( United States Emergency Readiness Team)

Back door Malware software that accompanies the Energizer DUO USB Battery Charger contains Trojan Horse that gives hackers total access to a Windows PC.

The Energizer DUO is a USB powered nickel metal hydride battery recharger that has been discontinued, said Energizer Holdings, which late Friday confirmed that the software contains malicious code. Both the US-CERT and Energizer are trying to find out exactly how the malicious code was inserted into the software.

(Energizers DUO was sold in the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia starting in 2007)

Windows Software included with the charger is designed to show battery charging status. The software is installed, then it creates a file, "ARUCER. DLL". Which is actually a "Trojan" that listens for commands on TCP Port 7777. Upon instructions, the Trojan can download and execute files, transmit files stolen from the PC, or tweak the Windows Registry. The Trojan automatically executes every time the PC is turned on and remains active even if the "Energizer" is not connected to the machine.

US-CERT urged users of the Energizer Software to un-install it or remove the "ARUCER.DLL" from the Windows System directory and reboot the machine.

I apologize if the answer is posted somewhere else, but I can't seem to find it.

Can you retrieve your program files from windows.old, after clean install of Windows 7? If you double click on a program within the windows.old file, it works. How do I transfer these programs out of this folder and into Windows 7 Program files?

Any help would be appreciated.

March 1, 2010


Caution! (Unpatched Bug in VB Script confirmed by Microsoft)


Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 are impacted.The bug has to be with those operating systems and any supported version of Internet Explorer-including IE-6.

This is a logic flaw that could be used by hackers to inject malicious code on XP machines using Internet Explorer. The malicious code could be disguised as a Windows Help File (File Extension .hlp), then the attackers could convince users to press the F1 Key when a pop-up appears. Your computer could conceivably be hijacked.

Microsoft rated this new threat as "Medium", and has not set a time line for a fix. They only stated that users should not press the "F1 Key" for the tome being. Disable the Windows Help Files is also another possibility.

Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 are not affected......

Dear sir/madam

I have a laptop which is already installed with Windows 7 in Dutch when I buy from the company. And I want to change the language to English. Can I download some files from Microsoft so that I can fix my problem or any help?

Microsoft announced today two new updates will be shipped out on Tuesday (March 9th) at 1:00 pm ET. The 1st update addresses one or more vulnerabilities in Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. And affects the most recent service packs for XP and Vista, SP3 and SP2, respectively both 32- and 64- bit editions.

The 32- and 64 bit editions of all three operating systems harbor the bugs, according to a terse description in the Microsoft notice. Both updates deal with bugs that can be exploited only if users are tricked into opening a malicious file. Deals with vulnerabilities with malicious code being introduced into an un-patched computer and remote code execution.

The 2nd update will quash one or more bugs in Excel 2002, Excel 2003, and Excel 2007 on Windows. Excel 2004 and Excel 2008 on MAC. The patches will repair the version in Excel in Office 2007 SP2. It's the latest and greatest that is being patched. A newer file format is coming which is said to be safer.

March 3, 2010

Special 3 D Effects are about two weeks from release for the "Firefox Browser," according to Professor Slusallek of Saaland University. The browser was being demonstrated Wednesday at the Cebit Trade show. This is an integrated fast software that performs real-time ray tracing, which is aided by faster processors. (Dubbed RT Fact)

RT Fact will be integrated into Firefox and Webkit, the rendering engine for browsers such as "Safari" and "Chrome". The images are then described using XML3D, part of the HTML Web Programming Language. With the integration of HTML, it means that every Web Programmer can directly apply their entire knowledge to 3 D.

March 2, 2010

Corsair releases its fastest USB Flash Drive. Flash Voyager GTR family of USB Flash Drives. Its maxium read speed will be up to 34 MB/sec. and write speeds of up to 28 MB/sec.. The gizmo will offer the best features of a USB flash drive and the performance of an external hard drive.

__The Ultimate Portability Tool___

Available in densities of 32, 64, and 128 GB

Housed in resistant rubber and have a 10 year limited warranty. Corsair offered no suggested retail price.

(Lets hope these speeds check out!!!)