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altivoFinally slept through a whole night, and did not wake up congested or in pain. Much better day as a result of that.
Well, other than the usual work nonsense, that is.
Received some of the woven squares from others involved in the weaving exchange. They had a meeting this afternoon to swap squares, but I couldn't attend due to work. The group organizer called the library to see if I was there (she lives just up the street) and told Pat she didn't need to talk to me but would be right over to see me. Pat came back to my desk and said "Rita just called and she's coming for you. Just thought I should warn you in case you want to hide or something." She came by to bring me a stack of finished squares, so now I have more than half of the 20 squares I'll be receiving. I had been feeling guilty about not having finished all of mine for distribution yet, but I'm halfway through and found out that at least one person is just starting now.
Another machine at work died of the dreaded Symantec antivirus lockup. At least now I recognize it and know what's needed to get rid of it. As usual, I can't uninstall the product because it won't uninstall in safe mode and the machine won't boot in normal mode. But it can be removed by editing the registry in safe mode, and that's what will be required. We still have six or seven machines running with the product on them, but I'm going to start uninstalling it as a preventive measure. Three of them really don't need antivirus. The others do, but I can put Microsoft's Security Essentials on them. I will never buy anything from Symantec again.
Staff meeting tomorrow morning where we will divide up the stash of PEEPSTM so everyone can get started on the peep diorama project samples.
Gary and Red are at his agility class, and I'm waiting for them to get back so we can have our very late supper. Then bedtime, thank goodness.
Well, other than the usual work nonsense, that is.
Received some of the woven squares from others involved in the weaving exchange. They had a meeting this afternoon to swap squares, but I couldn't attend due to work. The group organizer called the library to see if I was there (she lives just up the street) and told Pat she didn't need to talk to me but would be right over to see me. Pat came back to my desk and said "Rita just called and she's coming for you. Just thought I should warn you in case you want to hide or something." She came by to bring me a stack of finished squares, so now I have more than half of the 20 squares I'll be receiving. I had been feeling guilty about not having finished all of mine for distribution yet, but I'm halfway through and found out that at least one person is just starting now.
Another machine at work died of the dreaded Symantec antivirus lockup. At least now I recognize it and know what's needed to get rid of it. As usual, I can't uninstall the product because it won't uninstall in safe mode and the machine won't boot in normal mode. But it can be removed by editing the registry in safe mode, and that's what will be required. We still have six or seven machines running with the product on them, but I'm going to start uninstalling it as a preventive measure. Three of them really don't need antivirus. The others do, but I can put Microsoft's Security Essentials on them. I will never buy anything from Symantec again.
Staff meeting tomorrow morning where we will divide up the stash of PEEPSTM so everyone can get started on the peep diorama project samples.
Gary and Red are at his agility class, and I'm waiting for them to get back so we can have our very late supper. Then bedtime, thank goodness.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-04 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-04 12:31 am (UTC)Yes, the impact on performance is amazing, and for little or no benefit. In eight years I've had to deal with two infections by things that might be called viruses or might be called trojans. Both slipped right through Symantec even though it was absolutely current and active. Neither was detected by Symantec scans after infection, either. Both had to be manually pried out of the machines by registry manipulation, deleting hidden files, etc. in just the right sequence.
This current problem has afflicted four Windows XP machines and one old Windows 2000 workstation so far. Apparently the virus definition file that is held in memory becomes so large that once loaded (which happens at boot-up) it is impossible for Windows to log a user in because there isn't enough RAM left to load the profile. Windows attempts various workarounds but all of them fail. You can boot in safe mode, but the uninstall for Symantec can't run in safe mode (incredibly brilliant design there, Symantec) and they have withdrawn their former "cleanup" program that could uninstall their product completely without requiring Windows services to do so. They have removal programs for individual versions of "Norton" this or that, but none for Symantec Antivirus. You have to use safe mode to get into the registry, then locate and delete hundreds of keys to be able to boot again. Then the machine is fine.
As far as I'm concerned, Symantec itself has finally become a virus, as difficult to cure as any other one known. Their excuse is that we're running an "obsolete version" of the product. Yes, apparently they stopped supporting version 9.1 last summer some time, but they never notified us even though we've been a registered "corporate" user for years. And if they weren't supporting it any more, why was it able to keep loading larger and larger virus signature files if it wasn't supposed to be working any more?
Like everything to do with Windows, it's all a money-grabbing scam as far as I can see. Convince people that they can't live with anything but the big name product, no matter how junky that product may be, and you've got a formula for market control that just won't quit.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-05 12:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-05 01:27 am (UTC)Of course you used to be able to buy a Dell with no OS at all, and install your own. Now they apparently won't sell one that way. They won't say why, but I'm sure Microsoft has done some dubious arm-twisting there. You can order a machine with Linux installed but it costs the same as one that includes Windows and a Windows license. That smells so slimy that I'm not buying for home again from Dell until the policy ends.