Docunext::Weendoze

The process of removing Zentom System Guard sucked so badly in my experience. Everything I tried was foiled:

• Unable to start task manager
• Unable to uninstall it via the control panel

The only thing that kind of worked was powershell, and then launching the task manager from administrative tools.

Too bad there are just as many crappy websites out there selling and offering software that could be just as obnoxious as Zentom System Guard.

I thought Windows 7 had resolved this issue of malware that affects Microsoft operating systems. Apparently not.

I think I was able to remove Zentom. One of the tactics they use is to randomize the name of the executable. In my place, it was: kocinc700k.exe. Perhaps the publisher stays the same. For me it was Innoware Corp. - apparently a real company but from what I gather has nothing to do with software.

UPDATE: I’ve since completely rebuilt this machine using the restore functionality included by Lenovo.

So far, so good, but I do note that since I’ve now enabled Windows auto-upgrades, the notebook reboots unexpectedly and its very annoying.

In the future I might try Malwarebytes.

One of my clients is experiencing performance issues with Outlook accessing Google’s IMAP service.

To fix this situation, I’m planning to use remote assistance to control their PC and make the necessary configuration changes.

UPDATE: Despite my best efforts, I just could not get “Remote Assistance” to work. Shucks. Perhaps I should have simply tried GoToMyPC or something similar.

UPDATE 2: I am using Remote Desktop at my new place of employment regularly and it works quite well, but I still prefer VNC.

I’m very glad a co-worker told me about Microsoft Security Essentials!

Why? Primarily so that the notifications center will stop telling me that my Windows setup is insecure. I consider Windows to be an inherently insecure product, and while I find it affirming that Windows itself agrees with me, I find it obnoxious for it to keep alerting me of this fact, and somehow trying to pin the blame on me, the user.

Back to Microsoft Security Essentials - its available at for no fee from the Microsoft website:

• http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

I’ve worked with OpenVPN a bunch before, but never on Windows. I heard good things about the two working together from reliable sources, and they were right.

I wrote up more about this at Docunext:

• OpenVPN Fun

What is XPS?

I had never heard of XPS prior to today when I tried to print a document from Internet Explorer to a file, preferably PDF, but Postscript would have been acceptable as well.

Based upon some web pages I found through Google when searching for a utility to convert an xps document to a format usable on GNU/Linux, I was led to believe that xps was a failed effort on the part of Microsoft to replace pdf.

Is There No Way To Convert it to PDF Using Open Source Software?

I was also led to believe that there is little to no support for xps on GNU/Linux.

There are commercial tools with names that sound like open source packages, like xps2pdf. Thanks, but no thanks, I’d rather support the open source community by using open source software, writing documentation, reporting bugs, and contributing code.

What now?

I guess I’ll have to leave the xps documents I created on the Windows machine now. I don’t really want to do anything with them, I just want to save and file them. I will deal with it later.

I’ve had bad numerous bad experiences with proprietary file formats in the past, including scenarios where the owner of the specification goes out of business (or bought) and the format is discontinued, so I just did a quick check to make sure that XPS is supported on Windows 7. It is, so XPS should be around for at least five years - I hope!

I have an old copy of Windows 2000 installed in a QEMU image which I'm still planning to use. Now that I've finally gotten my hands on a cheap laptop that supports KVM extensions, (KVM is an advanced version of QEMU with integrated CPU-capabilities, like AMD-V and Intel VT, support) I'm running Windows updates and its cool to learn that Microsoft still has the updates online.

I'm now wondering if Internet Explorer 6.0 is the most recent version that can run on W2K. I can install Firefox, but apparently Google's Chrome requires at least Windows XP.