Uninstall Trend Micro Officescan without a Password

Ran into a slight problem today.  I had to add a couple of older computers to a  new Domain.  Pretty easy to do normally but these workstations had a version of Trend Micro’s Officescan from their previous domain that needed to be removed so that the new version could be installed.

I couldn’t just uninstall the client (which would be the best solution) as that requires a password and no one in the office could remember the old password.  (As a side note, when you install network versions of antivirus programs, make notes of the install details and file them away.  It will help you out in the future.)  Doing a bit of “Bing-ing“  ( , yes I used Bing ) I found this information on how to change the password from Computing.Net:

To remove / reset the uninstall password for Trend Micro OfficeScan

Edit Ofcscan.ini file. (Do a search.)

On Windows.95/98/XP machines it is usually in C:\Windows\Ofcscan.ini

On Windows.NT/2K machines it is usually in C:\WINNT\Ofcscan.ini

Open the Ofcscan.ini file using notepad search for the [INI_CLIENT_SECTION]

Find the line reading Uninstall_Pwd= and type a # at the beginning of the line to comment it out.

Insert a new line saying Uninstall_Pwd=70

Save the Ofcscan.ini file and retry the uninstall. When it prompts you for a password, enter a ’1′.

Sadly though, this method did not work for me as there was no Ofcscan.ini file to be found anywhere on these workstations.  Therefore I was forced to do some manual removal of the client.  This took a little digging into the Registry.  Here are the steps I went through that worked for me:

First, you need to stop all the Officescan Services. To do that

1. Go to Control Panel —> Administrative Tools —-> Services — and stop these services:
   • OfficeScanNT Listener
   • OfficeScanNT RealTimeScan
   • OfficeScanNT Personal Firewall (this one may not be enabled – don’t worry if you don’t see it)
2. Run Registry Editor. Click Start —> Run —> then type ‘regedit.exe’
3. Find this registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services
4. Delete these keys:
   • Ntrtscan
   • Tmlisten
   • TmFilter
   • VSApiNt
   • TMPreFilter
   • TM_CFW
   • OfcPfwSvc
5. Now find this Registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SOFTWARE\TrendMicro
6. Delete the following keys:
   • OfcWatchDog
   • Pc-cillinNTCorp
   • RemoteAgent
   • PC-cillin
7. Next Find this registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SOFTWARE \Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
8. Delete the OfficeScanNT Monitor key.
9. Now find the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
10. Delete the OfficeScanNT key.
11. Delete the OfficeScan program group (Trend Micro OfficeScan Client) from the Windows Start menu.
12. Restart your computer.
13. Delete the directories that contain the OfficeScan Client program files, normally located inside Program Files folder.

The above steps worked for me on a version 6 client of the Trend Micro Officescan client. If you are trying to remove an early version of the client, these Registry keys and services may not be the same.  Please use the above instructions carefully and at your own risk.  Also, remember anytime you intend to edit the Registry make a backup BEFORE you started editing and/or deleting keys.

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Pre-Order Windows 7 upgrade and save 50%

I was wandering around the web this morning and saw an Article over at ZDNet about Windows 7 prices.. Which led me to this other link to a Microsoft Pre-Order Windows 7 page. And, looky here!! Starting tomorrow, June 26, you can pre-order upgrade versions of Windows 7 at 50% off!!!

Here’s a blurb from the page:

It’s pretty simple

Windows 7 is coming on October 22, 2009. Here’s an easy way to get it fast and save a bundle: Pre-order a Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade for $49** or a Windows 7 Professional Upgrade for $99.** That’s about half off the estimated retail prices. This offer is available through participating retailers. Pick one below and pre-order today. They’ll tell you how to get your copy when Windows 7 is available.

Then sit back and smile. You scored.

I’ve been pretty happy with Vista but, decided to give Windows 7 a try. So I installed the Release Candidate on my laptop  a while back and have to say I think it’s the best Microsoft OS to date!  So, if you are unhappy with the performance of Vista then I would take this opportunity to upgrade at a great price!! Just goto the Windows 7 Pre-Order page starting tomorrow to SAVE!

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Remote Shutdown, Oh how I love thee…

I manage a few Windows Servers across my VPN… Updating software, OS, and managing backups, etc. And, sometimes when you are installing an update that requires a reboot things can get a little complicated. Especially, if that server has a lot of services running and you are logged in via Remote Desktop. If there a lot of services that have to be shut down, sometimes the server can hang in the process… Cutting your remote session but not finishing the reboot process.

So… enter shutdown.exe. Shutdown.exe is a command line tool that can be used to shutdown and/or reboot local or remote servers. (Granted you have administrative privileges) You can use shutdown.exe two ways. By command line and the Graphic user inteface. If you want to try the command line approach, Shutdown.exe uses the following syntax:

• \\computername: Use this switch to specify the remote computer to shut down. If you omit this parameter, the local computer name is used.
• /l (Note that this is a lowercase “L” character): Use this switch to shut down the local computer
• /a: Use this switch to quit a shutdown operation. You can do this only during the time-out period. If you use this switch, all other parameters are ignored.
• /r: Use this switch to restart the computer instead of fully shutting it down.
• /t:xx: Use this switch to specify the time (in seconds) after which the computer is shut down. The default is 20 seconds.
• “msg“: Use this switch to specify a message during the shutdown process. The maximum number of characters that the message can contain is 127.
• /y: Use this switch to force a “yes” answer to all queries from the computer.
• /c: Use this switch quit all running programs. If you use this switch, Windows forces all programs that are running to quit. The option to save any data that may have changed is ignored. This can result in data loss in any programs for which data is not previously saved.

Examples

• To shut down the local computer in two minutes and display a “The computer is shutting down” message, use the following line in a batch file or type it at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
  shutdown /l /t:120 “The computer is shutting down” /y /c

  To cancel the shutdown process, type the following line at the command prompt, and then press ENTER:

  shutdown /l /a /y
• To shut down and restart a remote computer named “Support,” use the following line in a batch file or type it at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
  shutdown \\support /r
• To schedule the local computer to shutdown and restart at 10:00 P.M., type the following line at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
  at 22:00 shutdown /l /r /y /c
• To schedule the local computer to shutdown and restart at 6:00 P.M. every weekday, type the following line at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
  at 18:00 /every:M,T,W,Th,F shutdown /l /r /y /c

Now you can also do the same thing with the Graphic interface. To activate the GUI Open a command prompt and type: shutdown /i you will then be presented with a window that will look like this:

From the dropdown menus you can choose equivalent selection for the command line switches. Using this method to reboot the remote server takes the Remote Desktop out of the active services list and has been a great help in reliably rebooting the remote servers. This is a great help when you cannot get physically to the server Console and perform the reboot. This command line utility is present in Windows XP, Sever 2003, Windows Vista and Windows 7. I’ve not attempted this from a Server 2008 machine yet but, if it is not available there I will update you.

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Remote Desktop

Here is another Post that must have tasted good because, WordPress ate it when I converted. It should still be useful to someone out there…

When Windows XP came out, we were introduced to the new and improved remote desktop. It’s Great! Believe me, I use it regularly.

Well, when you use it to connect to XP workstations you get to connect to the console session. However, when trying to connect to a Server 2000 or Server 2003 machine you get connected to a “Remote Desktop” not ever to the console. Well, this really kind of bugged me but not enough to worry about. Until now. Now, I use a couple of programs that run as a service but only interact with the console session. So, when you log in remotely it trys to start another instance of the program causing errors. Well, I finally got off my butt and found a way to connect to the console session using Remote Desktop.
Read more

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WordPress and Smileys

I don’t know about you but, sometimes on the web (twitter especially) the humor or sarcasm meant in a statement can be lost. So, I always try to add a little smiley so people know I’m not such a big jerk.  On a similar front, WordPress will convert text smileys into their graphic equivalent . The problem is, I can’t ever remember what the  “Proper” text for the smiley is supposed to be.

I did a little searching (via Bing, BTW)  and came across this list of smileys that will work with WordPress. And since they will work with WordPress, they must be good to use other places, right?

Well, here is a sampling of the text smileys and their graphic partners below. If these still don’t work for you in WordPress I would suggest checking out the WordPress Codex on Smileys for help.

Smiley images and the text used to produce them*:

* In some instances, multiple text options are available to display the same smiley.

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• Pretty URLS for WordPress on IIS

Pretty URLS for WordPress on IIS

I’ve been playing around with my site again. Trying to work out the beauty of my urls. I thought they looked pretty good… Well, similar to what I’m used to from BlogCFC anyway. The urls were like this: www.owenwebs.com/index.php/xxxx/xxx/xxx etc.. Which is not too bad… Better than the default: owenwebs.com/?p=13 or something silly like that. But, I’ve seen them better around the web. And made it a goal to get mine to work that way also.

After a bunch of Google-ing I found several solutions for IIS and settled on this solution for my “Pretty Permalinks“. This utilizes a ISAPI url rewriter from Dean Lee. Here’s how I went about making it work:

First, to use this method you will need to have desktop and Administrator access to yuor Windows Server. If you have that, go download the latest zip for your OS from the  Google Code repository.

1. Unzip the recently downloaded  file to a new or existing directory. You will see the file called “wp-url-rewriting.dll” once you “unzip”.
2. Open the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.  You can get to this by clicking  “Start” then “All Programs” then “Administrative Tools” then “Internet Service Manager (IIS) Manager”.
3. Expand the “Web site” directory and select the icon for your website. For example, if you are using the “Default Web Site” for WordPress you would click that icon.
4. Right-click the icon and select “Properties” from the menu.
5. Click the “ISAPI Filters” tab and then click the “Add” button.
6. Choose a name for the ISAPI filter and type it in the “Filter name” field.
7. Click “Browse” and select the ISAPI filter (wp-url-rewriting.dll) that you unzipped into the directory in step 1.
8. Click “OK.”

Check in the ISAPI filter area to make sure the status of the new “.dll” has a green arrow pointing upward. If you see that arrow, that indicates the filter is working properly. If you dont see the green arrow you will need to “stop” and “restart” the IIS Admin service.

Next you need to configure WordPress to use the new Permalinks. To do this:

1. Login to the Admin panel and navigate to Options –> Permalinks.
2. Choose permalink structure the click “Custom Structure”  and remove “index.php” from the url.  The new structure should look something like this: /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/
3. Save your changes.

That’s it… Load your Website and refresh the changes, you should now have nice pretty permalinks. And, if like me, you started off using something like http://yourwebsite.com/index.php/page1 then those old urls should still work as well. So no lost traffic.

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Free Programs You Need

Free is good!

And in this case Free is GREAT.

Here are some of my favorite FREE programs that I use on a regular basis. Techie or not these programs will make a good addition to your arsenal.

If you have a favorite useful program that is not listed please post it in the comments… (make sure it’s FREE )

Top Free Programs you NEED!

1. Acrobat Reader : come on, you need to be able to open all those PDF’s.
2. Mozilla FireFox : Yes, get this browser! It’s safe, fast, free and fancy… well maybe not fancy but, it’s free!
3. Internet Explorer 8 : OK, I know I just said get FireFox but sometimes you NEED IE to access some sites. IE 8 is Microsofts newest release and appears to be better than previous versions.
4. Zune Software : Ok, Ok.. Don’t get a Zune, I don’t care but, do use the software, it’s really great for managing your mp3s, videos, podcasts, etc… Give it a try. It is a little big 100 meg(ish) download but, worth it!
5. Audacity : Everbody needs to record some audio. Audacity is great!! I used it to create some funny Station IDs for brink.fm
6. Open Office : Open Office is a perfect, Free solution to shelling out 100′s on MS Office.
7. Foxmarks/Xmarks : Ok, now that I’ve got you using FireFox AND IE 8, you’ll want to synch your Favorites.. Foxmarks is the perfect solution.
8. Tweetdeck : For the twitter obsessed… this is a must!
9. AVG Free : AVG is a good, free, light on memory Antivirus. Unlike McAfee and Norton this AV wont bring your computer to a crawl.
10. Tools: These I will combine into one: Adaware, Malware Bytes, Spybot, HiJack This, and Combo Fix

*Update:

I’ve forgotten a few and had been adding them as comments… I’m going to add those to this post in a new list:

1. Windows Live Essentials : Windows Live Essentials gives you instant messaging, e-mail, blogging, photos, and more.
2. Jing : Jing is a GREAT and Free program that you can use for screen captures and Screen Casting.
3. 7zip : 7zip is a utility to compress and decompress zip archives.
4. Mozy: Can’t believe I forgot this one… Mozy is online backup. They have a free (for home use) account for up to 2gig of backup. or for $5 a month you can get unlimited backup.
5. Live Mesh : Synchronizing life. Sync, share, and access the information you care about—wherever you happen to be.
6. …. check back for more

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