Completely Uninstall Norton

Use Symantec’s own tool to completely remove any remnants left after uninstalling Norton products.

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039

Disable Data Execution Prevention (DEP)

1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.

2. Under Pick a category, click Performance and Maintenance.

3. Under or Pick a Control Panel icon, click System.

4. Click the Advanced tab, and in the Startup and Recovery area, click Settings.

5. In the SystemStartup area, click Edit.

6. In Notepad, click Edit and then click Find.

7. In the Find what field, type /noexecute and then click Find Next.

8. In the Find dialog box click Cancel.

9. Replace the policy_level (for example, “OptIn” default) with “AlwaysOff” (without the quotes).

WARNING: Be sure to enter the text carefully. Your boot.ini file switch should now read:

/noexecute=AlwaysOff

10. In Notepad, click File and then click Save.

11. Click OK to close Startup and Recovery.

12. Click OK to close System Properties and then restart your computer.
*This setting does not provide any DEP coverage for any part of the system, regardless of hardware DEP support.

:: Verifying DEP is Disabled ::

1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.

2. Under Pick a category, click Performance and Maintenance.

3. Under or Pick a Control Panel icon, click System.

4. Click the Advanced tab.

5. In the Performance area, click Settings and then click Data Execution Prevention.

6. Verify that the DEP settings are unavailable and then click OK to close Performance Settings.

7. Click OK to close System Properties then close Performance and Maintenance.

Using Linux

I’m the first to say that Linux has a way to go before it will unseat Windows, but it’s a lot closer that it’s ever been. I generally recommend trying a Live CD version first – that’s a Linux you can run from the CD without installing – to see if it supports your hardware fully. Lack of hardware support is the chief issue for new users.
HP makes drivers for its hardware for Windows, but does not for Linux. Getting your hardware to work means finding a user contributed driver.

Laptop compatibility is more difficult than desktop since laptops often use unusal hardware. I recommend a visit to Linux on Laptops, http://www.linux-laptop.net/, for specifics about which Linux distros work best for your laptop.

source: callforhelptv.com

Windows Can’t See USB Hard Drive

I see this a lot with USB drives. I found these general USB drive troubleshooting tips on the Microsoft support boards.

1. Access Disk Management and see if the USB device is listed. If so, and there’s no drive letter assigned, see if you can assign a drive letter to the device.

2. If the USB device is listed in Disk Management with an assigned drive letter, right-click on its listing and select Explore from the submenu. Hopefully, Windows Explorer will open and the device will be listed.

3. Connect the USB device *directly* to a USB port on the computer, not via a USB hub. Try different USB ports if your computer has more than one.

4. Do not use a USB extension cable.

5. Try alternate powering on/off methods. If the USB device contains its own power supply, try booting up with its power on, then try powering on only * after* the system has booted to a Desktop.

6. Try a different USB cable.

7. In the USB controllers section of Device Manager, uninstall all the USB controllers listed and reboot.
8. If the device in question is HD which you installed in a USB enclosure, jumper the USB external HD as Master (or Single if the HD is a Western Digital disk). A number of users have reported that jumper configuration corrected their non-recognition problem. In my own experience it didn’t seem to matter how a USB external HD was jumpered. But it may be worth a try.

9. If the device in question is a USB external HD, first check out the HD with the hard drive manufacturer’s diagnostic utility. If it checks out OK, and you can remove the HD from its enclosure (without voiding any applicable warranty), do so and install the HD as an internal HD to determine if there are problems with the drive.

10. If the USB device is connected to a USB 2.0 PCI card, try changing the PCI slot to which it’s currently connected to another one.

11. Access the website of the manufacturer of the USB device to determine if there’s any firmware update or info re the problem you’re experiencing or there’s any possibility that the USB enclosure itself might be defective.

source: callforhelptv.com

Transferring video from an analog camcorder to the computer

You can get an external box like the Moviebox, or you can get an internal TV tuner like Hauppage[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008OOWC/leoville0f-20]. Another choice would be to get a DV camera with something called analog passthrough.

source: leo.am

Extending the Contextual Menu (right-click menu)

It depends on what you want to add. If you’d like to add items to the Send To menu, you can just put shortcuts to the items in the hidden Send To menu in your user folder. There are many other programs out there that will add capabilities to the right-click menu. They do it by modifying the registry.

source: callforhelptv.com

Mysterious Startup Item

There is the tried and true ‘msconfig’, which is included in Windows and accessible via start > run, type msconfig. You might also want to try a better program than MSConfig. There is Autoruns, free from Microsoft (Microsoft recently acquired Sysinternals, so I’m not sure how much longer their software will be available. )

Simply disabling the entry won’t accomplish much if it is spyware or a virus, however. I recommend using Microsoft Defender , Ad-Aware, or AVG Anti-Spyware for a second opinion. If you are infected by spyware, disinfection is a time-consuming and difficult process. It’s often easier and more effective just to re-install Windows. The best way to disable a start-up item is to remove it from start-up via the settings within each program. I’ve seen those semi-anonymous startup items too and I don’t blame you for not trusting them—if it was reputable software, it should tell you what it is in the msconfig tab! And finding the location is a pain because Microsoft in their infinite wisdom has made it impossible to resize the msconfig window….argh!!! There is one trick you can use to try to figure out what that item’s full location is, though:

There is a line between “command and “location” at the top of the list of items. Click on the bar and drag it slightly to the left. That should expose another bar to the right of the Location option. Grab that bar, and while holding down the left mouse button to drag it, keep your mouse going to the right to open up a bunch of space for the Location tab. As you do this, a scroll bar will appear on the bottom of the window…keep moving that bar over until the scroll bar is a lot longer, to make sure you have the whole registry key exposed. Then, when you let go, you should be able to scroll over and see the whole location. It’s a kludge, but it works!

source: callforhelptv.com

Pre-Installed Software

When you buy a brand name computer, there’s a very high chance that it’s come pre-loaded with a ton of “useful” software, utilities, and helper applications. The downside of having all of this stuff at the ready when you fire up that computer for the first time is that it will use up a lot of resources.

One easy way to free up some resources—and hopefully gain back a bit of speed—is to go through your Add/Remove Programs list and remove any software you know that you’re not ever going to use. I also generally suggest using the Microsoft configuration utility (Go to the Start menu, click on Run, and type in ‘msconfig’). From msconfig, you can go to the Startup menu and see all of the things that are loading up on your computer every time you boot up.

There are probably a number of helper applications that you can disable (just uncheck the check box beside something to prevent it from loading at startup). That would include things like the iTunes or Quicktime helper applications, trackpad utilities and any other things like that that you’re not going to use.

Another thing worth mentioning is that anti-virus and firewall software can often take a big chunk out of your system resources, especially some of the big commercial security software that tries to do a trillion different tasks (like Norton, McAfee or ZoneAlarm). You can often use a much less of your system resources by disabling these and running something a bit more lean (like Nod32.

Free and effective Anti-Virus and Firewall programs can be found here: http://www.kevinsprograms.net.

source: callforhelptv.com

Securing Wi-Fi

One thing that’s worth remembering is that if you’re doing the setup for your wireless router’s encryption settings FROM a wireless computer, the moment you apply the new settings, you’ll lose your connection to the router — essentially your router will be encrypting the connection, but your wireless computer is still running unencrypted.

If this is the case, you can go to your network connection settings (usually there’s a small icon in the System Tray on the lower-right-hand corner of your screen that shows the status of your network connection, but if you don’t see it there you can get to the networking component by going to the Start Menu and selecting the Control Panel). From there, disconnect your current connection if necessary by right-clicking and selecting the disconnect option. There should also be a “View Available Networks” option — select that, and look for your network in the list.

When you try connecting to it, it should ask you for your new WEP password. Once you enter it in and hit enter, you should get your connection back.
Make absolutely sure that you write down your password and copy it exactly. If you’re entering a Hexadecimal key manually, remember that you can only choose 0–9 and A- F. And remember if you’re choosing the passphrase option, you have to type the phrase exactly the same on both machines, including capitalization and punctuation. And lastly, make sure the number of bits is set to the same number on both sides (most give you the choice between 64 bit and 128 bit keys).

One last note: If you’re choosing WPA on the router, you MUST have a computer/notebook that also has WPA onboard (some older machines don’t), otherwise there will be no connection made. In this case, you should step down to WEP on both sides of the equation…it’s less secure than WPA (which we recommend) but it’s better than nothing at all.

source: callforhelptv.com

Remote Desktop

Remote Desktop requires XP Pro on the host system. If you can’t get it to work, make sure port 3389 is approved outgoing and incoming. If you’re accessing the system from outside the internal (LAN) network, you need to forward port 3399 to the desired computer you want to access. If you can’t connect even after all that, it’s probably a firewall or router issue. Remote Desktop can be stymied by these. Try the free LogMeIn at logmein.com – it uses a central server to avoid router configuration issues.

source: callforhelptv.com