Visual Basic Command Line Compiler errors

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I had a client that kept having a windows popup with this info: Data Execution Prevention, To help protect your computer, Windows has closed this program. Name: Visual Basic Command Line Compiler. Publisher: Microsoft Corporation.

He would click Close Message, but it would keep popping up continuously. As I looked, I found that it was a terrible Keylogger virus. I used MalwareBytes’ Anti-Malware to kill it and did some manual cleaning after. I did see that it captured many user names and passwords — very nasty!!

[FIX] Start Menu icons are missing or deleted after malware

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There is a new piece of malware making the rounds that hides or deleted your Start Menu icons/shortcuts. The program folders in the All Programs button are still there, but they show up as Empty.

I really didn’t want to manually restore each one, and I couldn’t definitively figure out if those shortcuts are saved with System Restore (very doubtful). So here is how I found them:

[Instructions based on Windows XP]

Start menu > Search > click All Files and Folders > type *.LNK for the file name > click More Advanced Options > check all three boxes starting with “Search” > click Search.

In this case, I found all the shortcuts here: c:\documents and settings\[user]\local settings\temp\smtmp\1\ STRANGE

I then had to manually move them to c:\documents and settings\all users\start menu\programs

Any better methods — please comment!!

[UPDATE 2/15/12 : Here is a support page from ESET that has a utility that might fix this easily. If you try it, please comment.]

[FIX] Can’t open EXE files AND can’t open REG files to fix it

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I don’t know why this happened (although registry corruption is my guess), but a user of mine lost the ability to open EXE files, so when I went to fix that using Doug Knox’s EXE fix, it wouldn’t allow me to open the REG file either. Since I couldn’t open EXE files, I couldn’t open REGEDIT to insert the REG info. Here is a summary of the issues:

“Windows cannot open this file:
File: firefox.lnk

-Use web service to find appropriate service
-select program for list”

I managed to bypass this and access firefox by choosing ‘select program from list’ and then choosing it. I then found the web site with the .lnk fix and found i couldn’t open the download:

“Windows cannot open this file:
File: lnkfile_fix.reg

-Use web service to find appropriate service
-select program for list”

When i went on the start menu an clicked run and typed regedit i got this message:

“Windows cannot open this file:
File: regedit.exe

-Use web service to find appropriate service
-select program for list”

CREDIT: User calumtm http://www.computer-juice.com/forums/f48/lnk-file-association-fix-9352/

 

My workaround came from the same post, which is taken from Doug Knox’s page:

“If your EXE file associations are corrupted, it can be difficult to open REGEDIT, or to even import REG files. To work around this, press CTRL-ALT-DEL and open Task Manager. Once there, click File, then hold down the CTRL key and click New Task (Run). This will open a Command Prompt window. Enter REGEDIT.EXE and press Enter. Thanks to Nigel Andrews for this tip.”

[SOLUTION] Windows Update Error 80072EFE on Vista

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I was working on a Windows Vista laptop that was infected and all the user files were hidden. This is my third computer with similar symptoms this week… After running MalwareBytes’ Antimalware, some things just didn’t “feel” right and Windows Update wouldn’t work, with this error: Error 80072EFE.

After reading some, I found this post, which had the solution: run Kaspersky’s TDSSKiller. It found a boot sector virus; I chose to Restore the boot sector (which can be risky). It did the trick!

[SOLUTION] Transfer QuickBooks user dictionary

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I have used my QuickBooks 2008 for 2 years and have built up a big user dictionary for the spell check, but when I switched computers and installed QuickBooks 2011, it kept asking me to change misspelled words again. I searched and couldn’t find good instructions on how to move the dictionary over, so here is what I did:Mountains Photo

1. Close QuickBooks on both computers.

2. On the old computer (assuming XP), open Windows Explorer (or click My Computer), go to

3. On my Windows 7 new computer, I copied to

To verify your work, go to Edit menu, Preferences, Spelling and look in the chart for the manually entered words.

These steps should work for most QuickBooks editions and operation systems, although you may have to tweak some steps based on your configuration.

 

[SOLUTION] Reinstall Symantec LiveUpdate

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I ran into a situation where the LiveUpdate component wasn’t working properly for Symantec Endpoint Protection. It is a long story, but it was mainly because the newest version of LiveUpdate was uninstalled. If you need to reinstall LiveUpdate without reinstalling the whole product, you can find links here:

http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/home_homeoffice/products/lu/lu/files.html

It has LiveUpdate 3.3 for Symantec enterprise products and LiveUpdate 3.5 for personal Norton Antivirus, etc.

[SOLUTION] HP nc6400 wireless button not working

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I was working on setting up 10 HP Compaq nc6400 laptops and one would not allow the wireless button to light up in blue. The driver was installed, but it didn’t show any networks in range.veroxybd.com

My fix was to press F10 as soon as I turned on the computer, went the the System Configuration menu, Built-In Device Options, and I changed Embedded WLAN Device Radio from Enable to Disable (use the arrows)*. Hit F10, then ESC, Save Changes and Exit. I booted into Windows, shut down, then went in to change it back to Enable. Once I got back to Windows it worked!

*If your setting is set to Disable, set it to Enable and it should fix your problem.

[SOLUTIONS] load needed DLLs for kernel

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Here is the error message:

Windows could not start because of an error in the software. Please report this problem as: load needed DLLs for kernel. Please contact your support person to report this problem.

What programmer wrote these lines of code??  Could it be any LESS helpful.  I’ll try to shed some light to help.  This post is for professionals and experts, so I didn’t find an easy solution and some methods here are beyond a normal home user.

Some results on Google suggest messing with the MBR and Boot Record, but I suggest waiting to do that until other troubleshooting is completed.

Here is my own troubleshooting method for this problem after dealing with it:

1. Check the motherboard for bad capacitors.  Some reports of users replacing the hard drive, reinstalling Windows and still having the problem (no it’s not a scratched CD!).

a. The best case scenario would be to put swap hard drives with a working second identical computer to see if the problem is something other than the hard drive.

2. Run a chkdsk on the problem computer.  Sorry, I will leave that to you to look up.

3. Hook up the bad hard drive to another computer (or use something like the Ultimate Boot CD) to check the WINDOWS\SYSTEM32  directory for these files plus check their size and version against other computer with the identical OS and Service Pack:

bootvid.dll    (source)  — this was the source of my problem

kdcom.dll      (source)

hal.dll             (source)

ntoskrnl.exe  (source)

Sadly for me, this wasn’t the only missing files, so it was indicative of a loss of a group of files.  This may indicate that you have a failing hard drive. When I replaced bootvid.dll, my computer did boot.

4. Now to more extreme measures.  Microsoft suggests doing an in-place reinstall, which I never liked.  Here are a few links for the things I tried, but wasn’t my root cause:

a. http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-xp/load-needed-dlls-for-kernel/133655.html

b. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061112202439AAwbirg

Please help others by commenting here on what worked for you or other advice I can add.

[SOLUTION] There was a problem setting up Microsoft Office Home & Student Edition 2010

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Last week I worked on a computer where the user bought Microsoft Office Home & Student 2010 online and downloaded it from Digital River.  He downloaded (on Windows Vista SP2) and ran it, but it gave an error on Step 4 or 4:

There was a problem setting up Microsoft Office Home & Student 2010: There was a problem setting up Microsoft Office.  Try running Setup again.  If the problem continues, contact Microsoft Product Support.

In most forums online, it pointed to this Microsoft Support page, which wasn’t the problem for my user:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2445957

This does describe the problem perfectly, but it didn’t apply.

Many forums recommended a Clean Boot and uninstalling all Microsoft Office products, but I didn’t feel like this would help.

As I investigated more, I was curious as to what “Microsoft Office Click-to-Run” in the Programs and Features was.  I removed it and ran the installer again.  Now it came up with a different error:

This product must be installed to Q:. Ensure that Q: is unused and try again

Scratching my head, I noticed that the downloaded file (x16-32007.exe) was only a few megabytes, which I thought was very strange.  I searched for help and found this thread:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/officeinstall/thread/10c7fed0-d7eb-403c-b03c-6713d9e376e1

This actually was helpful.  NOTE: Most forum commentators blame this error on the Q: being mapped already.  This computer didn’t use Q:, but rather was an error, probably because I removed the Click-to-Run setup.

Here is the answer to the problem quoted from there (thanks Niyamath Khan):

Go to the site where you purchased Office 2010, and sign in with your LiveID. Then click on the “My Account” link at the top of the home page to access your Office downloads. Click on the Download button for the suite you purchased, and then click on the Advanced Options link below the “Download Now” button. There will be a version of Office 2010 listed that is not Click-to-Run and does not require an available Q: drive.

The user went back to digitalriver.com, logged in, and I was able to find the 32-bit full 550MB download.  I had some difficulty getting the huge file to open, but once I did, everything was perfect — no thanks to Digital River pushing my user this silly version.

Gateway GT5412 sound stopped working

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I worked on a client’s Gateway GT5412 desktop computer this week where it was not putting out any sound to the speakers.  The first thing I did was to plug the speakers into my iPhone, which resulting in the speakers working fine.  I then put headphones into the rear green jack and just heard the left ear humming.  I tried the front panel, too, but with the same result.бизнес

I found the sound card driver and updated it, restarted, but had the same result.  I didn’t find anyone via Google that had this problem before.

To fix it, I told an old PCI sound card from an old Windows 98 Gateway and put it in the new one.  I disabled the SigmaTel sound chip and Vista was able to find the driver via Windows Update automatically and the sound worked through there.

If you experience the same thing, comment here.