A 19GB Outlook .pst file. December 3, 2011
Posted by very in : Microsoft, Resources, Tech, Troubleshooting, Windows , add a commentI’ve been getting a lot of calls regarding unresponsive Microsoft Outlook. After a few troubleshooting, I found out two of the callers have a 19GB .pst file. So what I’m doing right now is archiving the folders based on the date.
After the archiving done, it is necessary to compact the current working folder. It will reduce the size of the .pst file.
Posted from Los Angeles, California, United States.
Malware Alert: Cloud AV 2012 November 26, 2011
Posted by very in : Announcement, News, Resources, Security, Tech, Troubleshooting, Windows , add a commentOn Wednesday November 23rd, 2011; the day before Thanksgiving Day I received a call.
“Hey, just want to let you know I was using my computer and Cloud AV 2012 just installed itself.”
Yeah, that’s a Malware.
I was getting ready for my Thanksgiving trip, so I had to work on this malware problem later. Bleeping Computer has a great instructions on removing Cloud AV 2012.
I am documenting what I’m doing to remove Cloud AV 2012.
- I want to know if Combofix can completely remove Cloud AV 2012. I ran Combofix in Safe Mode with Networking. It took about 15 minutes for Combofix to find some malware and removing them, unfortunately it is not enough.
- The next step is to run Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware.
- I ran Spybot – Search and Destroy to clean up whatever part of malware it can find.
- I ran Combofix again, and it found a few leftover Cloud AV 2012 files.
- Reboot the computer a few times and so far I do not see any suspicious activities.
I’m going to put this computer on quarantine for a few days and see if Cloud AV 2012 is completely gone.
Posted from Los Angeles, California, United States.
Windows 7 on Mac mini. November 23, 2011
Posted by very in : Apple, Microsoft, News, Resources, Tech, Windows , add a commentWhen running windows on virtual machine is not enough, I fired up Boot Camp on the Mac mini to install Windows 7.
Previously I was running Windows in Parallels 7, unfortunately there are some hardware that wouldn’t interface correctly in the virtual machine.
Posted from Stanton, California, United States.
Persistence of bootkit November 2, 2011
Posted by very in : Announcement, News, Resources, Security, Tech, Troubleshooting, Windows , add a commentPlatform: Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.
Symptoms, but not limited to:
- Search results using browser search box including Chrome and Internet Explorer 9 Omnibox are redirected to other sites.
- Internet Explorer is running in the background on login, using large amount of memory.
After long troubleshooting sessions I figured out that a bootkit was present on this computer.
A bootkit hides itself by modifying the master boot record.
The particular bootkit I was dealing with was not detected by Combofix, Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware and many others. The only anti-malware program detected the bootkit was Hitman Pro 3.5.
If you are dealing with a persistent malware infection that redirects search results, try using numbers of anti-malware softwares. In addition to that, search for “Google redirect virus” using an uninfected computer. The malware redirects search result system-wide. On the infected system, search results were redirected on Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome and Firefox. The malware will redirect search results on any browsers installed on the system.
It is almost 5 o’clock in the morning. I have not had a minute of sleep. I’ll clean up this post later.
Posted from Los Angeles, California, United States.
Windows 7 Experience Index on 2011 15-inch MacBook Pro Core i7. May 5, 2011
Posted by very in : Announcement, Apple, Mac OS X, News, Resources, Snow Leopard, Tech, Troubleshooting, Windows , add a commentI finished installing Windows 7 on 2011 15-inch MacBook Pro Core i7 through Boot Camp early this morning. Why you asked? Because there’s a specific audio software that would run on Windows. I tried using virtualization within Mac OS X but it performed so poorly. I did upgrade the RAM to 8GB.
Anyway, here’s the Experience Index:
