Windows Update problem after Windows XP SP3

A lot of people are apparently having a problem with failed Windows Update patch installations on machines with Windows XP Service Pack 3. The problem occurs regardless of whether Automatic Updates are configured or if instead the user manually visits the Windows Update site. The updates can be downloaded, but almost immediately after the installation is attempted, the following error message appears (in the case of using Automatic Updates):

Some updates could not be installed

The following updates were not installed:

<list of updates appears here>

(This problem does not appear to be dependent on any particular update.)

There is a Microsoft support article that describes steps that resolves this problem, although note that the description contained in the support article does not appear to directly describe the SP3 condition which apparently causes this particular problem. The specific cause has to do with a orphaned DLL that exists on the machine, but does not have a correctly correlated registry entry.

The Microsoft support article is here.

FYI, I used Method #1 of the two described in the article. Worked great for me!

Slower computers staggered by AVG 8.0 after system boot

I recently upgraded an older computer (733 MHz Pentium III; yes, very old!) from free AVG 7.5 to AVG 8.0. I then noticed some problems with the computer responding extremely slowly. Opening the Process Manager revealed that the problem was the process avgrsx.exe. It was taking up about 85% to 90% of the processor.

It turns out that when the system is booted, AVG 8.0 automatically performs a system scan. On slower computers like the one I’m describing, this process can really swamp the processor; in my case, for the first five or six minutes after bootup. After the scan is complete, the processor overhead for avgrsx.exe drops to zero except when opening an application, etc.

I’ve seem some reports that indicate that disabling the Link Scanner feature resolves this problem. I have not found this to be the case; perhaps people trying this “fix” happened to try it right around the time that the machine completes its initial scan, and thus saw the processor utilization fall about the same time.

Great little utility to print directory trees, folders and filenames

A friend of mine just pointed me to a really cool little freeware tool that solved an annoying problem I’ve run into many times over the years. If you have ever needed to capture or print out a list of files in a folder, or an entire directory tree from a Windows computer, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Of all the things that are possible from the Windows interface, this has never been straightforward. In the past, I’ve often resorted to taking a screenshot of the Explorer window, but this often is impractical as it is only possible if you have a fairly short structure to print out.

The tool is called YourDir. Like many freeware tools, the interface is a bit non-standard, but it outputs printouts, images, or .csv files, and you can choose to include files, or instead just output the directory tree. Overall it’s a breeze to use and neatly solves an annoying problem, so despite the slightly odd interface it provides a pretty ideal example of a useful utility. It’s really small (68 kB extracted) and as a standalone executable, requires no install.

Current version is 1.7; you can find it via Download.com here.

LG EnV won’t recognize .mp3 files

My wife really likes her LG EnV phone. One of the features she uses heavily is the .mp3 playback, along with a pair of stereo Bluetooth headphones. But at first, I was going crazy because I couldn’t get songs to be reliably recognized when they were added to the my_music folder on the microSD card. I thought perhaps there wasn’t a proper “refresh” or “rebuild” of the music database when starting the phone up with the new files on it. After a lot of wasted time, I finally discovered that the problem was with the .mp3 filenames (or more accurately, with the EnV’s music player’s handling of .mp3 filenames). If the filenames contain more than about 30 characters, the phone simply will not recognize the files.

Note this is the filenames (as in MyArtist-MySong.mp3) that you see as you are copying files to the microSD card, NOT the ID3 tags that are read by most music players. There also seemed to be a potential problem with some odd characters. So bottom line: make sure the files you put on the microSD card have filenames with 30 characters or less, and only contains basic characters such as alphanumerics, underscore, hyphen, etc.

Wiping data from a Blackberry 7100t

I needed to find a quick reference on how to reset my T-Mobile Blackberry 7100t before turning it in for an upgrade rebate. Although I found quite a few references for resetting many other Blackberry devices to clear personal data, I never did find specific instructions for this process for my model.

Finally, after poking around, I found it under:

Settings/Security

Edit the password field as if to change the password, and one of the available options will be “Wipe Handheld”. Select this, and you will be prompted to enter “blackberry’ to confirm. Wait a minute or two, and everything will be cleared and reset.

Installing a second wireless access point in a home network

Recently I decided to add an extra wireless access point to my home network, because I had poor coverage in certain areas. I’m pretty technically adept, but I’m also a strong advocate of leeching shamelessly from the experience of others who have gone before me, thus avoiding unnecessary pain So, while I had a decent idea of the best way to set this up, I went Googling for some confirmation of my plan of how to approach things. I was suprised that I couldn’t quickly find relevant info. Hence, after successfully getting set up, I decided to post this for the next person in my shoes.

First, some assumptions. The following is based on these specifics of my situation, so if your requirements are different, your mileage may vary.

Assumption 1: Typical home network with existing wireless; a single high-speed internet connection, feeding into a consumer wireless router/firewall/switch, with various computers attaching to the wireless router via wireless and/or wired connections.

Assumption 2: You simply want an additional wireless access point; i.e. you don’t need or want an additional subnetwork or routing.

Assumption 3: You don’t care to spend the money ($100+) to add a wireless network extender. These things exist, but unless you can’t use Assumption 4, they really don’t provide any benefit over an additional generic access point other than ease of setup (which we intend to address below).

Assumption #4: You have a wired ethernet connection to your existing home network available to the spot where you’d like to place your new wireless access point. (If not, you might want to reconsider Assumption 3.)

Assumption 5: You’re not interested in the bandwidth trade-offs and vendor-specific requirements associated with utilizing Wireless Distribution Systems (WDS).

Assumption 6: Because at this point you can usually find wireless routers cheaper than actual standalone wireless access points, you’ve got a wireless router for this purpose. (Wow, the assumptions are almost longer than the real info!)

What we’re essentially doing here is dumbing down your new wireless router to act like a plain-Jane access point (but with some extra switch ports).

Step 1: Physically connect a PC/laptop to the new wireless router. Do NOT use the WAN/Internet port; use one of the LAN/switch ports.

Step 2: Log in to the web administration interface of the new wireless router (see its accompanying documentation for default IP address and username/pass).

Step 3: Assign an IP address to the new wireless router that is on the same subnetwork as your existing home network, but not in the range given out by your existing wireless router or used by any other existing device on your network. For example, (using Linksys defaults as a reference) if your home network is 192.168.1.x, your existing wireless router’s IP address is 192.168.1.1, and the current DHCP range is 192.168.1.100 through 192.168.1.199, assign the new wireless router something like 192.168.1.2. You might be required to relogin to the web interface at the new address.

Step 4: Turn off DHCP on the new router. (You only want one DHCP service giving out IP addresses for your network)

Step 5: Configure desired wireless security (WEP, WPA, etc.)

Step 6: I shouldn’t have to say this one, but make sure to change the default password for the web admin interface.

Step 7: Connect one of the LAN/switch ports to the available wired ethernet connection to your network (see Assumption 4). Don’t plug anything into the WAN/Internet port of the new wireless router.

Step 8: Create profiles on the appropriate computers to access the new wireless router.

That should do it!