Vista and McAfee Woes

Talked about forever, rumors and promises mixed together, and finally SP1 came out as a regular update. I took a deep breath and held it; the anxious tension making my heart race and my palms sweat. What have I to fear? My reasoning self-assurance was of no comfort. Then I clicked the update button. Not long after I discovered the need to breath; this was going to take quite some time. I waited, watched, and dutifully did what I was told. Trust? Not really but, I do have faith in Restore Point. That was a good idea well implemented.

At first glance, everything seemed to be alright, which is suspicious in itself. This is Windows Vista: temperamental at best; a nightmare more often than not. Why must they insist upon reseting all of my desired settings to their own ludicrous defaults? Only I know what is best for me and my PC, not Microsoft! Even my Hotmail account was dysfunctional for several days, and I didn't know about it until all of the backlogged messages burst through at once. What has that to do with SP1? Who knows, maybe it's just a coincidence. Why are there no "lemon laws" for software, particularly operating systems? Ironically, I went to msconfig to lock out all future updates; now I won't be tempted to allow the tyrant "one last chance".

Realize that all of my security applications were disabled for the install, as recommended of course. So, the first discoveries occurred immediately following restart. As I attempted to re-secure my system. My replacement choice for the resource hungry McAfee Security Suite included ClamWin AV which would no longer load due to some esoteric error which I did not think to record. With no suitable alternative at the ready, I was forced to re-install McAffee. Now, which of the remaining security applications must remain disabled to avoid internal bickering? Ah yes, the Comodo firewall I had been training for weeks. And naturally, the on-access scanner added due to the lack thereof within ClamWin.

Due to a previous issue with the McAfee "Quick Clean" which required a re-install, I knew that SpyBot would be reported as incompatible and "...must be un-installed prior to..." This is simply NOT TRUE! They can be taught to play nice with each other and make a very nice team; each one senses and reports a little differently in accordance with their parameters. Sometimes they report together but, generally one or the other finds something amiss. Therefore, I left SpyBot and TeaTimer unloaded while I got McAfee back on-line. Next was Comodo Anti-Malware which would have reported and stopped the install but, works wonderfully in the background otherwise.

Somewhere along the line KeyScrambler got knocked out; MetaCrawler flawlessly pulled up the necessary page for a quick and painless re-install. What I did not know was whether there would be issues with CCleaner and Total Privacy 5 as they were added to the mix without McAfee's presence. Proper set-up with each cleaner is essential to both proper operation and clean start-ups and shut-downs. CCleaner is set to run at start-up as soon as it is loaded, then shut down; this works out fine because McAfee loads first and keeps control until it is finished. TP5 is set to load to the system tray in anticipation of an eventual shut-down; Vista recognizes and waits for TP5 to finish prior to actual shut-down. SpyBot has a delayed run option which is wonderful as this application takes even longer to load and run than CCleaner. The two of them fight over resources when started together which makes boot-up even slower than waiting three minutes for everything else to finish.

As a final tweak I have disabled every available splash screen except SpyBot. All of the others will appear in the system tray should I be wondering about progress. The final indicator of imminent start-up is the three minute SpyBot timer; this will take several minutes to update and run then, I'm good to go once again. Everything is now updated, cleaned, and standing at the ready...

"In the true Literary Man there is thus ever, acknowledged or not by the world, a sacredness: he is the light of the world; the world's Priest; guiding it, like a sacred Pillar of Fire, in its dark pilgrimage through the waste of Time." -Thomas Carlyle

Total Privacy 5 - Software Review

Pleasant surprises are always welcome on my world; today's GOTD offering is right up there with discovering a new friend.

Background from the download site:

"Total Privacy provides the most advanced information removal solution for protection against today’s malicious online and offline threats. Total Privacy 5 makes use of the most advanced washing and shredding methods available today to make sure that your own private business and computer use remains exactly that - private.

Securely clean Internet tracks, system activities and program history information stored on your computer with this safe and easy-to-use Windows privacy protection tool. Also Wipes the free space to make sure that previously delete files cannot be recovered. Supports all major browsers in addition to over 450 popular third-party applications.

My initial summary for the GOTD site:

Get this program installed NOW! I am a supporter of multiple security
products and Total Privacy 5 just hit the top of today’s list of MUST
HAVE security applications. All issues are clearly explained in a
separate description box on mouse-over so you know exactly what it
intends to clear. I strongly encourage, no I insist, that you do NOT
check any box you don’t understand! Has several “exclude” functions
such as the cookies list. Take the time to set this one up properly. My
PC runs CCleaner on start-up; the only thing I’ve run is Flock >
GOTD > TP5. This is the summary from my test run; Total Items: 43;
Custom Items: 14; Total Recovered: 3MB disk space, 29 Files, 7 Registry
Entries. Be careful with index.dat and registry streams - these
erasures WILL affect certain performance and display properties. The
full report will be available shortly on my blog, “V-O-I-D: What’s
REALLY out there?”.

The Full Report:

All of the following items were listed after CCleaner and the download; some files are there because of the TP5 download, others were not listed at all by CCleaner. I use my cleaner at least once a day on start-up, mostly to clear the useless files and registry entries that accumulate throughout my workday. As an Internet Investigator of many genres, there are also instances wherein I encounter files which I do not want in my possession, nor bugging my machine. Set-up of Total Privacy will take a little time, especially when preserving certain settings such as cookies.

In the case of cookies and dat files it is best to make a written note of those for which you are uncertain prior to erasing them. When next you encounter an item from this list you will recognize it as being from either: a friendly program with a funny named cookie, or an executable you got AGAIN from an unknown source. The latter case goes beyond the scope of this post to explain.

This is what Total Privacy 5 found and erased:

Document History 1 file; Start Menu Clicks 5 files; index.dat 3 categories/files 39 items and 96KB; Favorites Order History 1 item; Downloaded Components (DO NOT check box unless you want to eliminate your plug-ins!) 8 items and 4MB; Messaging detected ALL installed IM clients and offered 3 items for clean-up on each; Custom Plug-in Cleaners, checked "show only detected programs" and found 16 (Again, read what each does as you may want to keep certain items - my quarantine list from SpyBot being one of them.); Warning: Windows Direct Input will erase all user generated data files; Windows Temp 3 files and 270KB; Sys Temp 4 files and 3MB; DO NOT CHECK Registry Streams or Registry Streams MRU as this will adversely affect the PC you have set up as you want it! It also detects MS Office .doc files accessed even when opened with OpenOffice.org

Read the description box for everything you ever wanted to know about what you are about to obliterate. Most people can safely use one of the 3-pass options, mine took less time than a single intake of breath! It also has start-up and security management tools. Altogether, I am impressed enough to give this one a 10/10 rating for PC cleaners and highly recommend you get to the GOTD site and get this one installed while it's free.

A quick trip back to GOTD revealed this post direct from the application provider:

Regarding the question about how Total Privacy affects the registry, many privacy items are stored inside the registry (MRUs, Registry streams, history information for many programs, IE AutoComplete data and much more) and so, if you select to clean any of those items, Total Privacy will obviously have to access the registry to remove selected values.

Accessing the registry to remove any of those items is completely safe and Total Privacy is smart enough to only remove items that do exist (as opposed to some other similar applications we encountered before that just try to remove anything and everything without any safely checks first).

Total Privacy was tested on Windows Vista, XP, 2003 and 2000 and so it targets the correct registry locations depending on the operating system you are running.

I hope I was able to shed some more light regarding this question. If anyone have any questions or comments (good or bad) that wish to discuss with us feel free to contact us directly at http://www.pointstone.com/support/support.asp

Comment by Steven Martins — April 1st, 2008 at 6:25am

Another positive reinforcement from the GOTD comments section:

Mr Martin

I just downloaded the program and started reading the comments, as they sometimes influence my decision to install the program. This is the first time I have seen anyone associated with the program present and fixing problems as they occur — not to say it has never happened — it is just a first for me.

Don’t know about anyone else but this REALLY impressed me. Want you to know Mr Martin that because of your interest in helping us with bugs and gliches, even though you will show no profit from our download, that I will be buying the product directly from the site as opposed to taking it free. It is rare and refreshing in todays product market to see integrity in ones work and creation. It gives me the impression that questions and problems would be addressed by your software support system quickly and efficiently.

Thanks GAODT for the numerous free and useful products and games you have given me.

Comment by MamaBunny — April 1st, 2008 at 9:04 am

The State of the Union

This is NOT a political blog by any means, though perhaps some astute Poli-Sci major will risk tagging me at some point. I am not a WASP; my spiritual beliefs having long ago transcended mere religion. I can not claim to be a political independent for I am most assuredly affected and dependent upon the ruling party of the time. Or am I? How long ago did our publicly elected officials lose control of this country? Big Brother is WAY beyond our bloated system of government.

Speaking of bloated...

The "new" Vista OS is even more over-burdened by itself than ever. At its core the system has not changed; it has been modified at the surface to present a pretty face. It has also become more intrusive and insistent. Turn off UAC and install Firefox, Flock, or SeaMonkey. Then, add NoScript and Spybot to your security arsenal. To speed up page loading install AdBlockerPlus and FlashBlock. I also use Comodo BOClean anti-malware and KeyScrambler for additional layering. Check keyword "security" in my tag cloud, or (The tag cloud is dynamic and may not contain the keyword I mention!) go to w2wMarketing and enter the keyword search term there.

OK, so social commentary includes politics of sorts; tell me what doesn't? Politics of Love. Office Politics. Social Convention. Peer Pressure. You name it.