Some Notes on the Machines

Here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/archive/2008/08/28/8904493.aspx

is a tool, by a Microsoft rep, which will reliably remove .NET frameworks. Very useful when the uninstallers fail. However, any other .NET frameworks you are using on the machine will probably need reinstalling, and the author recommends the following:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/archive/2008/03/07/8108332.aspx

be done first.

If you see this when trying to install hardware in Windows:

“Cannot install this hardware”
There was a problem installing this hardware

An error occurred during the installation of the Device
The system cannot find the file specified

all is probably not lost. Backup and then delete the REG_BINARY value ‘CONFIG’ (not the “network” key) from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network. Restart the system. The problem will often be solved.

After malware and other registry corruption issues, CMD and control panel items and other things stop working. Use the following as a .REG file to fix it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\open\command]
@="\"%1\" %*"

Kaspersky is giving us all an excellent rootkit expunger, called TDSSKiller:

http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208283363

These look very interesting to me:

http://www.cilsoftware.com/cstuneup.htm

http://www.360amigo.com/en/node/21

A current page by Norton seems to be here:

http://us.norton.com/support/kb/web_view.jsp?wv_type=public_web&docurl=20080710133834EN&ln=en_US

To delete service of name “servicename”, one can simply do this:

SC delete servicename

The “SC” command has lots of other uses, too.

This one is very good:

http://majorgeeks.com/ATF_Cleaner_d4949.html

A truly excellent system cleanup utility:

http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html

Defrags the page file, the virtual memory disk file or files, at boot:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897426.aspx