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Posts Tagged ‘Windows 7’

Growl for Windows Live Messenger

27 Jun

Finding scripts to work with Growl or Snarl is not the easiest thing in the world. I re-wrote a simple script to show most of the variables of msn messenger for use with Growl.

Two ways to install

1: Complete Growl Script Here

2: Or do the following.

Get Growl Notify here: http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/help/growlnotify.aspx and you’ll also need an icon, i took a generic msn icon and just placed it in the windows folder. Using Msn plus just add a new script and paste this code in and it should basically work.

 

var shell = new ActiveXObject("wscript.shell");
var Growlexe = ‘"’ + MsgPlus.ScriptFilesPath + ‘\\growlnotify.exe"’;
var GrowlIcon = ‘"’ + MsgPlus.ScriptFilesPath + ‘\\icon.png"’;

function OnEvent_ContactSignin(Email){
var cmd = Growlexe + Email + ‘" signed in " /t:"Windows Live Messenger" /i:’+GrowlIcon+”; 
shell.Run(cmd);
}

function OnEvent_ContactSignout(Email){
var cmd = Growlexe + Email + ‘" signed out " /t:"Windows Live Messenger" /i:’+GrowlIcon+”;
shell.Run(cmd);
}

function OnEvent_ContactBlocked(Email){
var cmd =  Growlexe + Email + ‘" has been blocked " /t:"Windows Live Messenger" /i:’+GrowlIcon+”;
shell.Run(cmd);
}

function OnEvent_ContactUnblocked(Email){
var cmd = Growlexe + Email + ‘" has been unblocked " /t:"Windows Live Messenger" /i:’+GrowlIcon+”; 
shell.Run(cmd);
}

function OnEvent_ContactPsmChange(Email){
var cmd = Growlexe + Email + ‘" has changed PSM " /t:"Windows Live Messenger" /i:’+GrowlIcon+”; 
shell.Run(cmd);
}

function OnEvent_ContactNameChange(Email){
var cmd = Growlexe + Email + ‘" has changed Nick name " /t:"Windows Live Messenger" /i:’+GrowlIcon+”; 
shell.Run(cmd);
}

 
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Posted in Windows TIPS

 

Stop viruses attacking from within installer files

14 Jun

Here is a nice little tip for those who like to install software. Recently unscrupulous people have been building windows installers that although look genuine are not – they can contain viruses. A little tip is to get hold of 7zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) and then right click on the installer and then select open under the 7zip folder. You should be able to open the installer file up and see what it inside. Below is a picture for a DivX installer and as you can see there is a file in there called “new.exe” – this is a virus and my virus detector never saw it coming. I just extract the real installer and then check that too – if it looks clean i continue to install the application.

Fig1. Contains a virus.

image 

 

Fig2. Pulled the real installer out and opened it to check it

image

After you have installed the application, you can breath a sigh of relief that it wasn’t virused.

 
1 Comment

Posted in Windows TIPS

 

HardLink Shell Extension (Vista & Windows 7)

14 Jun

Here is a complicated but great advanced tip for windows. If you are someone who has to regularly re-install your computer and you find you loose important things such as Windows Live Messenger Emoticons (like i do) then this should help keep them in place if you do loose the rest of the system. Hardlink Shell Extension is a graphical add-on to an already well established Windows Function called Symbolic Links. You can essentially move the MSN emoticons cache system to a protected area on the disk, in this case a hidden partition. What i have done on my laptop is created a new hidden partition and then moved the emoticons cache to that and then using hardlink shell extension i have created a symbolic link back to the original location – this allows any updates, changes or added icons to be put in the correct location but that “actual” files are stored elsewhere.

Illustration 1 is the original place for the msn messenger cache files (the purple means its a symbolic link)

image

Illustration 2 is the new location and yet windows see’s this as transparent and therefore the above picture is what windows uses to store its files.

image

What does all this mean. Well if you accidently mess windows up – your files are still there upon re-install and just need the paths altered to the new place once again using hardlinks and then all your updated emoticons are all in place and ready to use :)

 
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Posted in Windows TIPS

 

Rollback RX vs Comodo Time Machine

27 Jan

I have always been a fan of programs that can restore a PC in the event of a disaster such as corruptions and virus attacks or just software you cannot be bothered to uninstall. There is a major piece of software out there called Rollback RX that does exactly that. Unlike Windows restore, you can choose to restore or exclude certain files from being restored in an emergency. Windows restore has the idea that if you have a problem, it can restore everything including out of date documents and not restore anything new since the restore point was made – this is highly annoying, especially if you have spent hours writing a document and then the computer fails and needs a restore.

Rollback RX and Comodo Time Machine are very different in the approach, it creates a restore point when ever you need it to and the restoring of a computer can take as little as a few seconds. I have set my computer to make a backup which again only takes a second to complete during every boot up – i can also make a backup when i am installing software etc. The good thing is that when i need to restore, i just press restore, choose a point to restore it to and then reboot – once the computer comes back online its at exactly the same point i need it to be and with the technology that is used i can restore all documents etc from before i needed to restore.

This process has many great delights which i am very pleased with and for a long time i was using Rollback RX – but recently found that my favourite company “Comodo” also recently brought out a product that does exactly the same thing but is completely free called “Time Machine”. This product is totally fantastic and i love it to bits, i can literally not worry about my computers health as much as i would have if the program was not around. It literally can prolong the life of a copy of windows and if you are like me and enjoy trying out new software all the time – you’ll know that the computer can get clogged and prone to slow downs and even viruses – but with this program, you can reset your computer after any period of time back to the very first snap shot and the computer will be back to exactly how you like it before messing around with it. :)

if you are interested in Comodo Time Machine then please check out http://www.comodo.com for more information – trust me – if you use it, you’ll never look back :)

2010-01-27 13 36 07

 
2 Comments

Posted in Technology

 

Windows 7 EFS Problem Solved

16 Dec

This is a Public retraction to Microsoft after giving there EFS on Windows 7 a 0/10 score and saying it was useless. A few days after writing my blog entry about the EFS system, i was contacted by a gentlemen in American called Mike Grass who works for Microsoft and actually designed the EFS system on the latest Operating System. Mike had been looking around the net for anything to do with the EFS in Windows 7 and happened across my site and saw the problems i had wrote about. Mike contacted me and offered to help. After writing emails back and forth to get an idea of how my system was set up he went about duplicating my system setup to see if he could get the same results.

I was honestly thinking it was just my copy of Windows 7 that was causing problems and that i must have done something during the setup to cause it to not work correctly – but after nearly 2 weeks, Mike has finally duplicated the exact same problems – and has determined that the problem lies within the Anti-virus program i am using called Comodo Anti-virus / Firewall.

Of all the problems i guessed it was, i never suspected that it might have been my Anti-Virus program causing the problems. Mike is now working on a permanent fix for the problem with the EFS system and may contact Comodo regarding the problem. Even if no fix is produced, its nice to know I’m not bonkers but there is a solution out there and it wasn’t really anything to do with the Windows 7 system that was causing it.

I would like to publically thank Mike Grass from Microsoft for all his help and his hard work in his own time for finding a resolution to this problem.

 
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Posted in Blog, Technology

 
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