Error Code 66A when Updating Microsoft .NET Framework 4 from Windows Update

One of the first thing that I normally do after installing Windows is to disable the automatic Windows Update. Although automatic update is a very convenient way to keep Windows up to date, but I personally do not like Windows or any third party software to automatically do things in background without my knowledge, unless I schedule it to do that. All I need to do is manually check for updates using Windows Update in Control Panel every Patch Tuesday (second Tuesday of each month) as that is when Microsoft releases security patches.

The recent Patch Tuesday released 2 updates and 1 security update for Microsoft .NET Framework 4 with a couple of other updates for Windows. All updates installed without problems except the 3 updates for .NET Framework 4, failing with the error code 66A (Windows Update encountered an unknown error). I tried to install one by one but still no luck.

At first I wanted to reset the Windows Update components using the official Microsoft Fix it 50202 tool but after thinking for a while, this error code 66A should have nothing to do with a broken Windows Update since other updates were able to install except for .NET Framework 4.
My guess is that probably Microsoft .NET Framework 4 has somehow got corrupted and needs to be reinstalled. Instead of uninstall and reinstall Microsoft .NET Framework 4, I should try the repair option first. Go to Control Panel > Programs and Features > select Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile from the list and click on the Uninstall/Change button. The Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile Maintenance window will open and select the “Repair .NET Framework 4 Client Profile to its original state”. Click next and follow the on-screen instruction.

After finished repairing .NET Framework 4, I went to Windows Update again and try to install the 2 updates and 1 security update. This time Windows Update reports “The updates were successfully installed” with a checkmark which means the repair fixed the problem and allowed the updates to be installed. I have no idea when or how did the Microsoft .NET Framework 4 got corrupted in the first place.

Operate Task Manager from Excel with Useful Suspend Process Command

TaskManager.xls is a simple taskmanager implemented in an Excel spreadsheet. It can show you the list of the running processes; and terminate, suspend or resume selected processes. In Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 easy way to command Task manager would by by pressing CTRL + SHIFT + ESC.

When working on a PC that has been compromised by a virus or spyware you will find yourself with the Task Manager disabled. Malware creators like to disable Task Manager so it makes solving the problem and removing the issue difficult. When you are stuck with such problem, one easy way to ensure the processes running on your computer is to use a Task Manager that you can run from MICROSOFT EXCEL!

TaskManager.xls is a simple taskmanager implemented in Excel/VBA. You can use the command column (Column A) to execute commands on the processes. You can use the following commands:

r -> Resume process
s -> Suspend process

t -> Terminate process

Push  button “List processes” to list all processes:

TaskManager.xls can't be ran in Openoffice. You need to view this app in windows and in MS office. I've not tested this app on MAC as well, if anyone test it let me know.

Download Excel Task Manager

Choosing a Safe Password

Remember Rule #1...It's golden - Easy to remember is easy to steal, it is as simple as that. Human beings think that it is OK to use a simple and easy password, without thinking a way to choose a safe password. Having as easy password is risky especially when your password protects some sensitive information like emails, online banking, etc.

A huge number of security risks start with a stolen password. This makes it very important for a user to know how to set a safe password. From security point of view a secure password is a combination of random numbers, letters, upper & lower case characters. Passwords like these can be hard to remember so people write them down, which is a bad habit (as bad as a weak password). So, it is important to have a password that can be remembered and can be categorized as a safe password and this software will create safe password for you and teach you how to remmember them by using phonetic pronunciation.

The PC Tools Password Utilities includes useful features to make creating, checking and managing passwords much simpler.

Included in Password Utilities are my two favorite features:

Password Generator - is an offline version of the web-based Password Generator which allows you to securely and easily create passwords locally on your own PC.

Password Checker - a new feature that lets you check the quality and strength of a password. By entering your password in the checker it will run a series of tests on the password to indicate how strong it is, and therefore how easy it may be to guess or crack.

Download PC Tools Password Utilities here.

Block Unwanted/Suspicious Websites with HostMan

You can block any unwanted/Suspicious sites through a Windows file called hosts file. Yes your right, if you know how to edit then you don't need to shell out extra buck for a website blocker software. But unfortunately, editing it manually is quite difficult specially for ordinary windows user. To make this simple, I will present you to a free software called HostsMan. HostsMan is a free application that enables you to manage your Hosts file with just a few clicks.

The usage is simple, to add a website to block, from the main screen click Open Hosts icon. This will open the hosts editor, click Add to create new entry. From the host names field, enter the website address of the site you want to block. For example, you can put facebook.com  or any other social networking site. Click Add to save the new record. That's It! Block websites will be in effect on the next reboot.

Download HostsMan

Simple way of backing up and reloading your Windows XP Drivers

Some of you might be tired of installing drivers whenever you install fresh copy of Windows XP, I know  I am.. In this tutorial I will show you how you can back up your drivers and save them to your USB flash drive or CD/DVD disc. Here is a BAT script that will help you backup your drivers so you dont have to go through the drivers process again whenever you reinstall your Windows XP.
Copy and paste this script in Notepad  or your favorite text editor and save it as DriveCopy. Rename the TXT extension to BAT. Viola, now you have the batch file.

echo off
cls
pause
md \olddrivers
cd \olddrivers
xcopy c:\windows\help /h /y
xcopy c:\windows\inf /h /r /y
xcopy c:\windows\system /h /r /y
xcopy c:\windows\system32 /h /r /y
xcopy c:\windows\system32\drivers /h /r /y
pause

When you open this script it will start copying files into your C:/ drive hidden folder called olddrivers (you have to unhide them in folder options to see them). After you reformat, you go to device manager and reinstall the question mark drivers. When it ask for the cd, put it in.

Quick Tip - Change the conversation view in Gmail

Something interesting that caught my eye on the Gmail' settings tab while I was messing around with options. Google: Gmail Team implemented new option which allows you to have under 25 convos on a page size which is a great idea. Simply go to your Gmail's settings layout and pick 10,15 or 20 from the drop-down menu. Before only available options were 25, 50 and 100.

These new settings are handy if u don't recive too many messages or if you want to improve Gmail's performance. Gmail loads a lot faster if it only has to fetch 10 conversations instead of 25.

VirtuaWin Review – The Virtual Desktop Manager

It’s been couple of days now since I last reviewed a piece of software so I guess it’s time. This time I am going to review a tidy little application called VirtuaWin.

VirtuaWin is a virtual desktop manager for the Windows operating system that allows you to manage multiple applications over virtual desktops (or workspaces). Some of you might be familiar with this idea if you’ve used one of the many flavors of Linux.

Main thing I love about this app is the size. The binary is only 382kb and downloads in just a few seconds. It’s also very easy to configure. The only tuning I had to do was name the four virtual desktops I was going to use and assign them each a hot key. I’ve set VirtuaWin up to use the Windows Key plus the numbers 1 through 4 (respective to the virtual desktop I created).

There are many of options that can be set but really the name and hot keys were all I had to do to get it going . One option I would consider setting up is the mouse functions. You can set VirtuaWin to let the mouse direct which virtual desktop is selected. I did try it out and it was pretty awsome. When I would move the mouse off the right side of the screen it would move over one virtual desktop and when I moved the mouse off the bottom of the screen under the taskbar it would go down one virtual desktop. OK so my terminology is a little off but if you look at the screen shot that shows the little tray icon you will see what I mean. It’s separated into four quadrants.

On the VirtuaWin website you can find a bunch of add-ons (called modules) and icon sets. It’s a very configurable and customizable program.
The one and only thing that I was able to find that I didn’t like was the sheer amount of settings. You can get quite involved in tweaking. My personal preference is dead simple and I’m not a huge fan of tweaking. I prefer to run things more or less “out of the box”. Anyway, once I figured out which options I needed to change I was all set to go in just a matter of minutes. It took me a lot longer to write this post than it did to figure out how to use the program.

You can get VirtuaWin here.

Win7 Performance tweak

Hey everyone I've been tweaking with my machine lately testing a lot of different thing's/setting's and I thought I would share this with the my readers.
It tweaks your performance by turning off useless thing's like screen slowly coming up when you click on a tab. With my setting's it's immediately faster than "stock" if you have a low end computer.

You can find it by going to Control Panel >System >Performance Information and Tools >Adjust Visual Effect's. This may be one of the oldest thing's you could use but im simply posting this as a "noob" tutorial.
Once you get the the screen adjust the setting's so everything look's like mine.

Once these setting's are applied your computer will be much faster with page loading and will be a less hog on your processor. This will still be able to run Aero if your machine is applicable to do so. It's very handy and work's like normal with little to no difference. I know this isn't the best "tutorial" but I know it will help some people out at least.

Find Font Names from Images with WhatTheFont

Have you ever found a picture containing pretty fonts and you don't know its name, WhatTheFont will help you identify the name of the fonts used in the picture.

All you have to do is submit the image url and it will be processed. Alternatively, you can even uploade images that are stored on your computer.

After uploading is done, WhatTheFont tries to find the closest matches from their database. I find this a very useful tool for Web Designers. They also have iPhone application available. Hopefully we will see the Android application soon.

[WhatTheFont Website]

URL Snooper

URL Snooper allows you to extract links that are masked or hidden behind scripts and/or server redirection. It uses WinPcap and acts as a small network sniffer, that automatically filters all URL requests that it encounters. You can further filter the list to only show multimedia links.

For example when user tries to download Adobe Flash Player, by default they will be asked to download the Adobe Download Manager first and then the download manager will then automatically download the Flash Player without showing the URL to the user. So let's give URLSnooper a try to identify those hidden URLs.

Look for http exe file and you should see a few of them. It is pretty obvious that the Adobe Flash Player installer setup file is http://fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_ax.exe while the other two is the McAfee Security Scan and Google Toolbar.

Note: This program is donationware. It is free to try, but the author accepts and encourages donations towards further development.

[Download URLSnooper]



Configuring an SSH tunnel using PuTTY for Windows

SSH tunneling permits you to establish an encrypted network tunnel between your home machine and remote site. This how-to will help you establish an SSH tunnel with Putty, a free software client. We will be connecting to the computer at 130.225.220.38 (port 80) through the server at tech-globe.net (port 22), using the local port of 8088.

1. Start Putty by double-clicking the Putty icon or opening it through the Start menu.

2. Click "Session." Here you will enter the details of the forwarding server you are connecting to.

3. Enter the address of the server that is running SSH in the Host Name field and the port number in the Port field. In our example, the address is tech-globe.net and the port is 22.

4. Select "SSH." Click "Connection" in the left pane, then "SSH," then "Tunnels." Here you will enter the information regarding the computer you are ultimately connecting to.

5. Enter the port number you wish to use as the local port into the Source Port field. This is the port that you will connect to using the program you wish to tunnel with, and cannot be in use by any other application. In our example this port is 8088.

6. Enter the address of the computer you wish to ultimately connect to followed by a colon and the port number into the Destination text field. In our example, this is 130.225.220.38:80

7. Select "Local," then click "Add."

8. Click "Open" to begin your SSH session. You will be prompted for your username and password.

How to Extract from/Fix corrupted zip files tutorial

It is very uncommon that a zip archive gets corrupted but when it happens it is impossible to extract any content from zip files not even those uncorrupted files inside zip or self-extracting archives. If you are in such situation where you need to fix or repair corrupted zip files then here is freeware tool Zip2Fix which can help you in extracting partial content from corrupted zip or sfx files.

I'm going toshow you how you can extract files from a corrupted zip archive. I also consider this to be a "fix" because it creates a new archive with the files that aren't corrupted.

1. Download zip2fix. You can get it here.

2. Now that you downloaded it, extract the file and then run it . No need to install It's portable ;)

3. Now, just click "Open", and browse to the corrupted .zip file you want to extract from.

4. As soon as you open the corrupted zip file, zip2fix will automatically start scanning the archive and detect which files are actually corrupted.

5. It will also make a seperate zip file with the files that aren't corrupted so you can extract those later.

Thas it. Now, just extract your files from the new archive that was created.

Security Safety Tip: Disable Root SSH Login on Linux

One of the major security holes you could open on your server is to allow directly logging in as root through ssh, because any cracker can attempt to brute force your root password and potentially get access to your system if they can figure out your password

It’s much safer to have a separate account that you regularly use and simply sudo to root when necessary. Before we start, you should make sure that you have a regular user account and that you can su or sudo to root from it.

To fix this problem, we’ll need to edit the sshd_config file, which is the main configuration file for the sshd service. The location will sometimes be different, but it’s usually in /etc/ssh/. Open the file up while logged on as root.

vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Find this section in the file, containing the line with “PermitRootLogin” in it.

#LoginGraceTime 2m
#PermitRootLogin no
#StrictModes yes
#MaxAuthTries 6

Make the line look like this to disable logging in through ssh as root.

PermitRootLogin no

Now you’ll need to restart the sshd service:

/etc/init.d/sshd restart

Now nobody can brute force your root login, at least.

Solution to Erase Login History from CuteFTP Quick Connect Bar

Solution to delete the connection history individually for CuteFTP quick connect bar. It’s either you had to keep it or delete everything on the list, but not anymore.

1. Click on Tools at the menu bar and select Global Options. Alternatively you can use the hotkey Alt+F7.
2. Click on Security tree at the left hand window.
3. Check “Remove Quick Connect & Connect to URL history upon program exit“.

4. Click OK.

Once you close Cute FTP, the quick connect history will automatically be removed. It seemed easy but not easy enough since we have to do that in options and not from the quick connect bar itself. By the way, only the Professional and Home version has the quick connect bar. The Home version of Cute FTP doesn’t have that.