Windows Explorer

The update is already installed on this system

Dave Farquhar security, Windows , ,
The update is already installed on this system

I had an update on my work laptop in a partially installed state. Our vulnerability scanner determined one file, MSO.dll, was still out of date. It recommended a patch to apply. Running it gave me an error message. Here’s what to do when Windows says the update is already installed on this system and refuses to let you do anything but click OK.

Because hey, from a security analyst’s point of view, this is anything but OK. I get questions about patches in a partially deployed state all the time, so I figured I’d write about it. Here’s what I do when security updates fail to apply with this error.

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Start button disappeared? Here’s the fastest fix.

Dave Farquhar Windows , , , ,

If your start button disappeared, I have the fastest possible fix for you. It works with Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10, and server versions, in addition to versions of Windows you shouldn’t be running anymore.

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Connecting to Virtual Disk Service message in Disk Manager

Dave Farquhar Windows ,

I had trouble in Disk Manager the other day. It hung at the message that says “Connecting to Virtual Disk Service.” My problem happened with an SD card, but it can happen with any type of drive.

Here’s how I fixed it.

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How to clean up a Windows server

Dave Farquhar security, Windows , , , , , ,

From time to time, Windows patches will fail to install because a server doesn’t have enough space to install them. Finding the ginormous files are that are hogging all the space on the C drive is really tedious if you do it by clicking around in Windows Explorer, but there’s a better way.

Download the free Sysinternals Du.exe utility and you can find the behemoths in minutes, if not seconds. Read more

My phone’s micro SD card made Windows Disk Manager hang, but I fixed it

Dave Farquhar Android, Hardware , , , , ,

The micro SD card in my Android phone (a Samsung Galaxy S 4G, if that helps) quit working suddenly, and I finally got around to investigating it on Friday. I ended up having to solve two problems to do it, though.

Let’s start with Windows 7’s Disk Manager hanging at the message that says “Connecting to Virtual Disk Service.”

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How to give a computer or hard drive away more securely

Dave Farquhar security , ,

If you want to give away a computer, it’s best to securely erase the hard drive first in order to prevent someone from recovering sensitive data from it after it leaves your hands.

The problem with this advice is the lack of a comfortable, familiar way to do it.

But I found one. It’s called Privazer.
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Move the print spool directory to your ramdisk

Dave Farquhar Software, Windows , , , , ,

You can improve the speed of printing slightly and, depending on the nature of your print jobs, dramatically reduce disk writes if you move the print spool directory to your ramdisk. It’s a little performance tweak you might have never heard of, but it’s helpful.

This trick works best with a ramdisk product that loads a disk image at startup, such as Dataram Ramdisk.

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Deep Firefox SQL optimization

Dave Farquhar Software , , , , , , , ,

I was looking deeper into Firefox optimization, and I found Adventures in Firefox-places.sqlite. It’s a pretty intense analysis that goes beyond the usual simple, in-browser SQL vacuum that I’ve mentioned in the past. It was written with Mac OS X and Linux in mind, which is fine, but if you run Windows, you might want to do the same thing.

It has two benefits. It speeds up Firefox, and it reduces the amount of disk space your Firefox profile occupies. The two things are related; smaller databases are quicker and easier to navigate than large ones. As for why you should care about the amount of disk space it takes up, well, on an SSD every megabyte counts.

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Windows 7 programs quit responding? You have a corrupt user profile. Here’s how to fix it.

Dave Farquhar Windows , ,

Windows 7 can suffer from old-age disease, where it thrashes hard drives, programs quit responding, and it generally becomes unusable. I’m beginning to wonder if my main PC might be suffering from this. Microsoft prescribes this cure.

If you’re comfortable with a command line, I can make the solution faster and easier.
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Using Robocopy to root out PST files

Dave Farquhar Windows , , , , , , ,

So the word came out that the office is migrating to Windows 7 at some yet-to-be-determined time, but soon. It’s in testing now. (Too bad they didn’t recruit me as part of the testing team, because breaking Windows 7 is one of my superpowers.)

We’ve been told to back up our data. Lots of people are paranoid that they’ll lose their Outlook PST files, and with it, their ability to do top-drawer work. Frequently we have to search our archives to find forgotten details about old projects. It helps to make the new projects go more smoothly.

I came up with a surprisingly easy solution. It doesn’t even require admin rights–which is good. I won’t elaborate.
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