Posts

Showing posts from 2014

Remove browser hijacker malware

For conduit, white smoke, babylon, anything opencandy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCandy ), and other browser hijackers I usually do the following. 1. uninstall these and anything unrecognizable from add/remove 2. in EACH browser   a. remove any add-ins/extensions   b. change the default web page/home page   c. remove any search engines that you don't recognize, set default to google 3. delete anything from c:\program files, c:\users\appdata that appears to be from the malware 4. run a full scan of Malwarebytes, and possibly other scans 5. probably also a good idea to clear your cache and cookies I also heard that some trovi malware is also changing browser shortcuts on the desktop, and has a scheduled task to change these shortcuts. I haven't seen this personally, but it's worth checking. Apparently ADWcleaner is good at removing this. My rule of thumb is that if it takes longer than 30 minutes to an hour to fix I'm going to re-install

Delay dropbox startup in Windows

Image
Dropbox was slowing down my startup after logging in, so I wanted to delay startup by a minute or so to allow my computer to be usable earlier. The normal settings only allow it to either start up immediately, or entirely manually. Below are instructions on how I got it to start after 2 minutes. I did this in Windows 7, but it should work similarly in Windows 8, 8.1, and probably Windows 10. This also works with other programs, so you could stagger startup items instead of having them all hammer the system at once. 1. Disable the normal dropbox startup.   a. Click on the dropbox icon, click the gear icon, and click Preferences...   b. Uncheck "Start Dropbox on system startup". Click OK 1. a. Click Preferences... 1. b. Uncheck Start on system startup 2. Open the task scheduler.   a. From the Start menu, click All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and Task Scheduler.   This can also be found in the control panel under System & Security, A

Lockdown Browser 1.0.7.02 LAB SCCM deployment

Image
I needed to update from Respondus LockDown Browser Lab version 1.0.5.14 to version 1.0.7.02. This is how I've done it as an SCCM application. This could probably be modified to be used in some other deployment solution, but I've tested it with SCCM 2012 R2 and Windows 7 clients running 32 and 64 bit versions. After 1.0.7.02 was activated this error shows on 1.0.5.14 Install Shield files and installer folder First, you'll need to create setup.iss files. Instructions can be found here:  http://www.respondus.com/update/2009-11-d.shtml Here's their instructions for convenience: First, be sure that Respondus LockDown Browser isn’t already installed on the computer. If it is, then un-install it before continuing. Download the full installer (LockDownSFX.exe) from the Respondus website.  BE SURE  to obtain the .exe via the admin login for your institution since the installer differs for each institution. Run the installer and select the "Click Here&quo