On Tuesday (November 18th) The ZoneAlarm Pro firewall software will be free for 24 hours. It is in celebration of Check Point’s 15th anniversary.
ZoneAlarm Pro is an antispyware, firewall, and ID protection suite that normally costs $39.95.
At 6 AM PDT, Tuesday morning this page:
http://download.zonealarm.com/bin/free/sum/index.html
Will become live and provide instructions for downloading your free copy.
In addition, they will be offering a 50% discount on their airport friendly laptop bag.
Earlier this week I wrote about how AVG prompted for the removal of a critical windows file. This was due to an invalid signature that made User32.dll look like a virus, when it wasn’t. If you “Healed” the file, Windows would no longer boot.
On Thrusday, AVG announced: “As a follow-up to the rapid distribution of recovery instructions and repair CDs, AVG Technologies is offering all affected users a free license or license extension”
The free subscription would cover AVG 8.0, a free upgrade from 7.5, and also a free upgrade from the free version.
Now the interesting part is AVG has said that not all users would receive the free upgrade – only affected users.
No word yet as to how they can tell if you have been “affected” by the issue. The company said it will notify customers that were affected by the problem starting on November 24th, and let them know how to receive an upgrade.
This makes me ask a few questions. First, how can they determine which customers are affected. Secondly how can they tie that to contact information?
I have been digging up as much information possible about Windows 2008 R2. Mostly because I fear that Windows 7, and 2008 R2 will be another smack down for us in regard to application compatibility.
According to a Windows 2008 server blog:
WoW64 support for 32bit applications is now an optional feature in Server Core R2 and is not installed by default. This enables you to further reduce the footprint of Server Core if you remove it from the image. I’m interested in hearing feedback on our decision to not install this by default – is this a good idea, or will you always need to install this because you have 32bit code you need to run?
Hmm. This is a post referring to the Core version of Server 2008, but still it is an interesting development that you can totally turn off 32 bit support. The disturbing part from a compatibility standpoint is that it is not installed by default. Even our 64 bit compatible remote control has some elements that are 32 bit only. With no way to port these to 64 bit it immediately would render our products, and many others useless – at least until the customer added 32 bit support again.
I would hope that Microsoft would wait until R3, or Windows 8 to default to 64 bit only. Otherwise we will quickly need to update our Agent Settings application 
From time to time I have accidentally typed in the wrong address in Outlook. To make matters worse the wrong email address comes up every time when I start typing.
I searched for quite some time trying to figure out how to remove items from the list – until finally I discovered the obvious.
To remove an item from auto-complete simply select the address with the cursor keys, and press the delete key. Poof the entry is gone.
In their quest to compete with the iPhone, Research In Motion has developed the BlackBerry storm. For quite some time BlackBerry has had a grip on the corporate environment. That was starting to fall apart with the iPhone.
We can attest to that from our own informal sampling here. For a long time we would only get requests to create BlackBerry compatible applications. These days it is about 50/50 with the iPhone and BlackBerry.
The new interfaces sports a few unique features that may please iPhone haters. The screen actually indents when you press it – so when you type on the visual keyboard it actually feels like you are pressing buttons. It also has excellent integration with Microsoft Exchange – something the iPhone has, but it is still far from what it should be.
Still, the look is missing that something special that the iPhone has:
And it is lacking in specifications. The stock $199 model (That Verizon will subsidize) Comes with only a 1GB memory card. In contrast the $199 iPhone comes with 8GB.
Still I think in the corporate environment the BlackBerry will win over for now – it has some of the best tools for controlling and monitoring use.
We are starting to toy around with a few test apps on the iPhone here…maybe we will get one of these also and see what type of apps we can come up with 🙂
Microsoft has recently released patch MS08-068 – Another SMB remote code execution bug. It allows anyone who exploits the flaw to take control of that computer. If you have not gotten the patch yet – I would get it as soon as you can.
The disturbing part is that Microsoft knew about this flaw as far back as 2001. According to Microsoft, they held back on releasing a fix because it would immediately break many applications that require SMB signing. For example, on the MSRC blog, a Microsoft employee states:
…the impact would have been to render many (or nearly all) customers network-based applications then inoperable. For instance, an Outlook 2000 client wouldnt have been able to communicate with an Exchange 2000 server. We did say that customers who were concerned about this issue could use SMB signing as an effective mitigation…
I could buy that. IF IT ONLY AFFECTED WINDOWS XP. But the bug in question also affects Vista, 2008, and 64 bit releases. Many applications were simply broken with the release of Vista. Why not just allow them to break and keep them secure? And why does it take 7 years to figure out this application compatible work around?
In our remote programs, like remote reboot, or remote desktop enabler, we need to use 4 different methods to authenticate via SMB with a remote host…to cover all of the versions of Windows. Now I can understand why this is the case! Because the SMB server in windows is a spaghetti code mess that probably has 10 more security holes the hackers already know about, Microsoft knows about, but still has not found a fix for them yet!
Sorry for the rant, but if you do have an internet facing machine I suggest disabling file and printer sharing, and make double sure these ports are firewalled.
VMWare’s competitor, Parallels, has just released 4.0 of their Virtualization product. It is a Mac only product, but many Windows users (like me) only use Windows in a virtual environment on a Mac.
From Parallels, here is a list of new features:
Redesigned User Interface – provides quick access to all virtual machines. Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac also improves upon earlier iterations by introducing support for video boosters such as DirectX 9, DirectX Pixel Shader 2.0, and OpenGL 2.0.
New Virtualization Engine – Called the adaptive hypervisor, it consumes 15 to 30 percent less resources than previous versions. “The adaptive hypervisor gives our users the resources they need on the fly,” said John Hermes, chief technology officer at Oklahoma Christian University.
Power-saver Feature – it reduces the platform’s drain on battery life by up to 20 percent. The new platform is also specifically designed to take advantage of the capabilities inherent in the latest dual-core and quad-core processors from Intel.
Security and backup – A complete set of antivirus, firewall, scanner, recovery, filtering and identity protection capabilities powered by Kaspersky Internet Security. Even better, the new platform now embraces the latest backup and restore capabilities from disk-management software provider Acronis.
I am downloading a trial right now to take it for a spin…here is the download location for those who are interested:
Yesterday the AVG virus scanner accidentally marked User32.dll as a virus.
Since this is a critical windows component, it has caused many machines not to boot. Two of our XP machines experienced the issue here, but it has not seemed to have bothered our Vista installs.
This happened because their scanner contained an incorrect virus signature that led it to think that user32.dll contained the Trojan Horse PSW.Banker4.APSA. AVG then prompted to delete the file (Heal). Luckily we did not do that 🙂
If you are running AVG, and you deleted the file, you will need to run system recovery or boot from a CD like BartsPE and restore it from c:\windows\system32\dllcache
Within a few hours AVG updated their signatures, and it no longer has the incorrect entry.
Microsoft has announced some of the new features of 2008 R2, a server update that will coincide with the release of Windows 7. Starting with R2 all server releases from Microsoft will be 64 bit only. From this point on Microsoft will no longer ship a 32 bit server OS.
One of the more interesting things I found in the Windows 2008 R2 reviewer’s guide is some new features in Remote Desktop:
• Multimedia Redirection: Provides high-quality multimedia by redirecting multimedia files and streams so that audio and video content is sent in its original format from the server to the client and rendered using the client’s local media playback capabilities.
• True multiple monitor support: Enables support for up to 10 monitors in almost any size, resolution or layout with RemoteApp and remote desktops; applications will behave just like they do when running locally in multi-monitor configurations.
• Audio Input & Recording: VDI supports any microphone connected to a user’s local machine, enables audio recording support for RemoteApp and Remote Desktop. This is useful for VoIP scenarios and also enables speech recognition.
• Aero Glass support: VDI provides users with the ability to use the AeroGlass UI for client desktops; ensuring that remote desktop sessions look and feel like local desktop sessions.
• Direct X redirection: DirectX 9, 10 and 11 applications will render on the server and will be remoted using bitmaps (requiring Direct3D-compatible hardware). If the application supports the new DirectX 10.1 API with remoting extensions the DirectX (2D& 3D) graphics are redirected to the local client to harness the power of the GPU on the user’s local device, removing the need for a GPU on the server.
• Improved audio/video synchronization: RDP improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2 are designed to provide closer synchronization of audio and video in most scenarios.
• Language Bar Redirection: Users can easily and seamlessly control the language setting (e.g. right to left) for RemoteApp programs using the local language bar.
• Task Scheduler: This adds the ability in Task Scheduler to ensure that scheduled applications never appear to users connecting with RemoteApp. This reduces user confusion.
Those are some nice updates, but the most interesting feature described in this document is the new RemoteApp and Desktop Web access.
It promises to:
“ensure a consistent list of applications is available to the user at all times, no matter the desktop OS used. The default web page provides a fresh and inviting look and feel and includes a new Web-based login with integrated single sign-on.”
Hmm. No matter what OS is used. This little line of text means a lot to me. Currently the web based login is just a glorified link to the RDP client. It has a page with an embedded ActiveX control. If what they say is true, and any operating system is supported, it means they have designed a web-friendly way to connect to a machine – without using ActiveX.
This will be one of the first things I check out when I get my hands on a copy of 2008 R2.
The noise about Windows 7 is growing. If you haven’t heard, Windows 7 is the next version of Windows. Microsoft has said that it will be released fourth quarter 2009.
If Windows Vista is the Windows ME of the new millennium, then Windows 7 should be the Windows XP. If you have ever used Windows ME you will know what I mean. I have done some research to find out what the 5 biggest features will be
1. Sensors – Windows 7 will have context-aware support through a new sensors API. For example, a location sensor can tell where your computer is, and applications that know about this can take advantage of this. My tin-foil hat is starting to spin on this one. Still sounds like a cool feature
2. Accelerators – These should really be called specialized shortcuts. Here is aan example of how accelerators work. Anywhere within Windows you can select text, or speak commands through a microphone, and windows will take action. A few that are built into IE 8 already would include: ‘Define with Encarta’, ‘Email with Live Mail’, and ‘Search with Live Search’.
3. HomeGroup Networking – This part of windows will do many of the same things that Network Magic does right now. Essentially it simplifies the process of setting up your home network.
4. Improved Explorer Windows Explorer will be updated with many new features. A resizeable search box, a simpler toolbar, and a new view style called content. The content view style is a preview mode for images and other things like PDF files, and word documents.
5. UAC Improvements – The favorite feature of Vista (Just kidding). Microsoft has totally reworked this to make it more customizable. Four different levels of UAC notification will be available:
1. Never Notify- The user is never notified when a program tries to install software, or make changes to the computer.
2. Only notify me when programs make changes – The user is not notified when software is installed, only when programs try to make changes to the computer and windows settings.
3. Always notify – The user is prompted when a programs try to install software or make changes to the computer.
4. Always notify me and wait for response – The user is notified when a program tries to install software, or make changes to the computer, and Windows will wait for the response.
All of these are a welcome change. I can’t wait to get my hands on the first public beta.
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