Norton have their Removal Tools

A customer of mine had used Webroot SpySweeper for many years but we both decided that it wasn’t offering adequate protection and was instead slowing down the customers computer. A real shame because SpySweeper used to be a really good product when the customer first used it on Windows XP – today it doesn’t seem to be so good in the era of Windows 7. So we wanted to remove it.

The standard installer would not work. After some time it gave an “Error 100” whatever that means and directed me to this website. I wasn’t able to find this through Google so I thought I’d blog about it, so that maybe it is reachable through Google. That page describes WRUpgrade.exe which is published by Webroot to remove damaged installations of their products when their regular uninstaller does not work.

When I ran WRUpgrade I had to then load Task Manager and kill off Webroot related processes as it got stuck. But after I did that it removed Spysweeper no problems.

While 1.9.7 still works perfectly fine for me and every update sees no change to the status of Windows Activation Technology, new versions are worth noting because of the addition of further SLICs taken from OEM pre-installations of Windows 7, and further advanced options to fiddle with. I haven’t bothered to install 2.1, I figure I won’t install a new version of Windows Loader until activation stops working, but its worth noting for any new installs to use the latest version available.

Current releases for Windows Loader by Daz can be found here.

Windows Loader by Daz v2.1 can be downloaded here.

I tried to install the System Update Readiness Tool but was presented with the error “Installer encountered an error: 0xc8000222”.

The fault was caused by a corrupted SoftwareDistribution folder. So if you rename or delete %windir%\SoftwareDistribution and then try Windows Update or the System Update Readiness Tool, the problem is then fixed.

Supposedly the same issue can occur on Windows Vista and would have the same fix.

Skype adaptors seem like a really good idea… provided you have no clue about VoIP.

The downfall my customer had was that they’re running Windows 7 64bit and the adaptor they purchased while it stated “Compatible with Windows 7” did not mention that the manufacturer does not release 64bit drivers. So my customer either needs to downgrade to a 32bit operating system or to get a real VoIP solution.

Thats not the start of the issues with these adaptors though. Any Internet based telephone device will require a connection to the Internet – and in short if your device connects via USB, you require your computer to be on whenever you wish to use the device.

Another downfall with Skype is interoperability. As Skype own all rights to the audio and video codecs they use, and they own all rights to the encryption technology they use, nobody knows how to communicate with Skype – other than Skype. Also if Skype for one reason or another jacked up their prices or completely disappeared, any Skype based hardware may not work with alternate services.

Finally, nobody in Australia seems to consider that Skype servers are located in America and even if you use Skype to call an Australian phone number, you may as well be making an International call (as the latency is very high).

These downfalls are quite different to the SIP based VoIP adaptors and ethernet phones I sell & support, as the solutions I push do not require a computer at all – just an ethernet connection to your broadband Internet service. It makes you wonder why and how Skype remains so popular.

So how do you login as the Administrator since its missing from the logon screen?

Press Ctrl + Alt + Del at the logon screen. The administrator account will either appear, or you’ll be taken to the form based logon where you can enter Administrator as the username.

• I installed Service Pack 1
• I ran WGA Fix. This rebooted my computer after running for 5 minutes or so.
• I installed Windows Loader 1.9.7 by Daz with the ASUS SLIC, ASUS Certificate, ASUS Serial & Ignore SLIC option set. I used all the ASUS options as I have an ASUS mainboard. Daz tends to recommend to use the default Acer SLIC, Certificate & Serial. Windows Loader rebooted my computer after less than a minute.
• I validated my computer on the Microsoft website in Internet Explorer. It passed.
• I right clicked on the desktop, selected personalize, and picked out the Windows 7 Aero Theme to repair the theme damage caused by the not genuine notices

Windows Loader by Daz 1.9.7 supposedly can crack Service Pack 1 however it hasn’t worked for me.

This also means that both RemoveWAT and Chew-WGA have been defeated.

For now I’ll leave it but I will eventually look into how to get rid of these not genuine notices and blog about it.

I haven’t yet tried to install it on a cracked copy of Windows 7 Pro however I will do that shortly and blog about my results.

The update can be installed via Windows Update or can be downloaded from here.

RemoveWAT was a great way of removing the Windows activation technologies however it seems this has now been defeated.

Chew-WGA seems to be the new method.

Its also worthwhile to note that there are counterfeit copies of Windows 7 being sold on the Internet. Generally if its a retail copy and sells for not even half the cost of the retail editions in store – its counterfeit.

Thank god for that – because the tool provided by Microsoft didn’t support many UPS’s anyway, which meant you had to use 3rd party software. In other words, the inclusion was pointless.

I found a really good utility that works in 2000, XP, 2003, Vista & 7 called UPS Assistant. Best part is UPS Assistant is free.

It auto detected my cheap no-brand UPS and only required slight tuning to the min & max voltage parameters so it matched the meter on the UPS. This particular UPS was not supported by Windows XP, but does work on Linux.

UPS Assistant can send out e-mail notifications on power failures or run a command.