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How to Remove Google Redirect Virus

By on March 6, 2012 in , , ,

The Google redirect virus is one of the most annoying that we have dealt with. It will redirect most URLs from your browser back to the Google homepage. In particular it will redirect sites like Microsoft, CNET, AVG etc back to Google, so it makes it difficult to download any type of virus removal tools to eliminate the malware.

The Google redirect malware is quite tricky so start off with the steps below, but it is most likely that you will need to perform step (3) in order to actually remove it.

1) Check your hosts file

First make sure that your hosts file hasn’t been infected. The hosts file in Windows tells where to direct various URLs. Basically if you don’t see anything in the hosts file, it is clean. There will probably just be one line in there. The modern variations of the Google redirect probably won’t use the hosts file.

Your hosts file is located at:
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

2) Make sure your browsers aren’t using a proxy

Unless you are wanting to use a proxy, you should not have proxy settings enabled in your browser. The following provides a screenshot of how it should appear:

To view your proxy settings in IE:
Tools -> Internet Options -> Connections -> LAN Settings

ie proxy settings
You should not have anything in the Proxy server section. Some varations will perform redirects by using the proxy settings.

3) Use Combofix and TDSS killer

The only way we were able to remove this virus was with Combofix. However, the version of Combofix we had installed wasn’t working, possibly because the virus stopped it, so what you need to do is get the latest version of Combofix from a different computer, then load it onto your computer after you boot into safe mode. You will also need to get a download called TDSS killer. These downloads are all completely FREE.

Download Combofix from Bleeping Computer

Download TDSS Killer

Restart your computer and when it is rebooting, press the F8 key (repeatedly). It will boot to a menu, from here select Safe Mode. After it boots into safe mode, run Combofix, then run TDSS Killer. After this, your virus should be gone.

You may also want to investigate the folders that Combofix identifies and double check by searching the Registry to ensure they are removed. These folders and files will generally be in the user profile area and they are given weird random names.

Finally…Double check your user profile

If your infected files were in your user profile area, make sure they are gone. If you connect to a Windows domain, you will need to check that the files were also deleted from your roaming profile, otherwise they can get copied back down again when you login.

 

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Fix Signature Collision Error

By on December 23, 2011 in , , , ,

A signature collision is a rare but frustrating issue. The signature collision error will generally happen when you plug in two external hard drives or USB drives etc. We have seen the error when using two of the exact same drive. One of the drives will function, but both will not function at the same time and the error reports a “signature collision”.

How to fix signature collsion errors

Luckily, this type of error is very simple to fix. It took us a long time to figure it out, but it is extremely straightforward and you can fix the problem in less than a minute.

Click Start -> Control Panel

Open Administrative Tools -> Computer Management, then click on Disk Management within the computer management window.

fix signature collision error

When you click on disk management you will see a listing of all the drives under the right hand information column. The screenshot above shows the drive info in the right hand side, the drive partition information will be displayed under that.

Locate the drive with the error, it will say “offline”. Right-click on the drive name and select “online”. This will fix the signature collision error and your drives will now function.

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Safer Storage in Windows 8

By on December 6, 2011 in , , ,

Windows 8 is well under way and is due for release sometime next year. In case you weren’t aware, developer editions are already available for download. We have done quite a bit of testing on Windows 8 and so far it does look promising.

One of the features we are really excited about is Storage Spaces. This feature is intended to protect your data and make data loss a thing of the past.

Windows 8 will offer functionality that will protect your hard drives against crashes and data loss. Basically it works by mirroring your data across multiple drives, you can use two or even three drives. If one drive crashes, your data will still be accessible and you can then replace the drive.

This feature is not new and you can implement RAID based storage on Windows systems. However, it will be very handy to have this as a standard Windows feature and it will make it very simple to configure better data redundancy.

More info on this feature will be available soon. In the meantime, it is worth taking a look at Windows 8.

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Certificate Mismatch Errors in IE

By on November 25, 2011 in , , ,

When using Internet Explorer 8 or 9, you will receive certificate errors for certain sites. In many cases this is a good thing and you should always be careful when you come across certificate errors. However, there are some cases where you may want to turn off these warnings. For example, our mail login always throws up this error and accepting the certificate doesn’t always get rid of the problem.

fix certificate mismatch

You can easily turn off these warnings, but only do so if you know what you are doing. There are potential security risks by doing this.

To switch off the certificate mismatch warnings, click Tools -> Internet Options, then click on the Advanced tab.

In the advanced settings, scroll down until you see the following:

fix certificate mismatch

Simply uncheck the option for “Warn about certificate address mismatch” then restart Internet Explorer.

You will no longer receive the warnings.

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Extract Images From a Word Document

By on November 21, 2011 in , ,

Have you ever wanted to extract one or all images from a Microsoft Word document? Well, we have had to do it on various occasions when converting documents, so here is a quick way to extract all of the images embedded within a word document

Extract Images From a Word Document

Open the document you wish to extract the images from.

Select File -> Save As

extract word images

From the Save as type, select Web Page

Browse to a location where you would like to save the files

Click Save

You can now browse to the location where your file was saved. There will be a folder containing all of the images from the Word document.

 

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Critical Windows 7 Updates

By on November 9, 2011 in , ,

There are several critical security updates available for November 2011 and these should be installed as soon as possible. In particular, there is a serious security hole that is affecting the TCP/IP stack in Windows. The fix for this issue should not be ignored.

The critical issue (CVE-2011-2013) affecting the TCP/IP stack could allow for remote code execution on your system. This is affecting all versions of Windows, expect for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. You can read the Microsoft security bulletin about this issue here.

Besides this critical update, there are three other important security updates that also need to be downloaded. So be sure to have Windows Update turned on, or you won’t receive the downloads. You can also download the updates manually if you prefer. If you wish to update manually, the updates you need are: MS11-083, MS11-084, MS11-085 and MS11-086.

MS11-083 is critical and needs to be installed ASAP. MS11-084 can also pose some risk if not installed.

 

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Free Screenshot and Export Tool

By on October 19, 2011 in , , , ,

We have just released a new freeware application – Fast Screenshot,   which will allow you to quickly and easily take screenshots and export to image or PDF format.

This application is very lightweight and you will find it extremely simple to capture screenshots or custom areas. You can then export to your favorite image format for further editing, or you can export directly into PDF format.

download fast screenshot

Capture Options:

Desktop – Capture the full desktop area

Scrolling Area – Capture a scrolling area such as a web page or word document

Window – Capture a specific window or application on your screen

Region – Select a custom region to capture

Exporting:

You can export to various different formats such as .jpg, .gif, .bmp and .png. There is also the option to export directly to a PDF file. Just select “File” and you can view the export options.

Download Fast Screenshot

You can download right now. This application is 100% free – Click here to download Fast Screenshot

View the support pages here

 

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Windows XP is Turning 10

By on October 11, 2011 in , , ,

One of the best operating systems ever created by Microsoft is turning 10 in just a couple of weeks. On October 25, XP will celebrate its 10th birthday. Sadly, Microsoft does not have much love left for the operating system. Their advice is to upgrade now to Windows 7.

Windows XP was certainly a great advancement at the time and it enabled computer users to experience a new level of productivity and one of the biggest advances was in the field of digital photography. You could easily manage photos from any camera as well as managing photos on your PC and printing to a huge supported list of printers. Wireless also made big advancements in the XP OS.

Unfortunately XP has fallen behind in terms of security productivity and performance. Microsoft would argue that Windows 7 is more usable, but we disagree. Regardless, XP will no longer be supported after 2014, so now is a good time to upgrade to Windows 7. Windows 7 is an excellent OS and far better than Vista. If you do upgrade, you won’t be impacted by the arrival of Windows 8 either. So start planning the move, because it will need to be done eventually.

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If you still want to speed up XP, try Total PC Health.

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Use Write Caching for Better Performance

By on September 29, 2011 in , , ,

If you want to try and add some extra performance to Windows, you can try turning on write caching. This is defined below:

“Write caching” in a storage device refers to the use of high-speed volatile memory to collect write commands sent to data storage devices and cache them until the slower storage media (either physical disks or low-cost flash memory) can accommodate them. Most devices that use write caching require that power be supplied continuously.

To switch on write caching, you need to do the following:

Open Control Panel -> System, click on “Device Manager”

enable Windows write caching

In the device manager, expand the section for “Disk drives”, locate the disk you wish to edit, right-click on that disk and select “Properties”.

In the disk device properties, click on the “Policies” tab.

enable Windows write caching

To enable write caching, simply check the box next to “Enable write caching on the device”.

Because data is being written to a cache, it is possible that data could be lost in the event of a power outage. This is unlikely, but possible. So take that into consideration when using this option.

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For optimal Windows performance and reliability, try the download of Total PC Health.

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Speed Up Windows 7 – Remove Visual Effects

By on September 28, 2011 in , ,

If you want to add some extra performance to Windows 7, one of the easiest things to do is remove some of the visual effects. This can make a big difference to the overall speed, especially if you are on lower end hardware.

This tweak will only take about 30 seconds, so it is well worth a try. We always rate performance and productivity over visual effects so it is recommended.

Boost Windows 7 Performance by Tweaking Visual Effects

Open Control Panel and click on “Performance Information and Tools”, then click on “Adjust visual effects” in the left column.

adjust windows 7 visual effects

After clicking “Adjust visual effects”, you will see the following window:

adjust windows 7 visual effects

You can select various options, by default it will be “Let Windows choose….”

If you want maximum performance, click the option “Adjust for best performance”, then click “OK”. Alternatively, you can also select to adjust for best appearance, or you can select a custom setting.

If you choose the custom option, you can then choose which visual effects you would like to turn on. You can try the option for best performance, but if you find that you are missing some of the visual effects, you can just try turning on the ones you need, to see how it affects performance. You can use trial and error until you get the right balance.

Removing the visual effects should give a quick and easy performance boost. If you want more performance out of Windows 7, try the download of Total PC Health.

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