Musings, Ramblings and Other Assorted Rubbish

I keep about 10 of theses in my office to help with every thing form virus/spyware removal to re-imaging full labs and I have recently ran into a problem with Avira's AntiVir program not updating correctly.  It seems this program, although free, requires a license file (hbedv.key) to update the virus def. file.

  Here is a link to the updated .key file
http://dlce.antivir.com/down/windows/hbedv.key

Next I had a problem with downloading the update multiple times in the same room (this thing is several Megs). To fix this, I found the update link to get the file it downloads:

http://dl1.avgate.net/down/vdf/ivdf_fusebundle_nt_en.zip

Finally, I started having problem with Antivir grumbling that the virus def file was corrupt and found that the defs were for a newer version of the program. Here is another work around:

• Prep Work:
• Download the current version of Antivr to a clean computer. 
• Use 7zip to extract the .exe file to a folder 
• Rename the basic folder to antir (optional) and copy to a USB drive or a network drive
• Download the update file above
• Boot up a computer with UBD4wWin disk and use the Antivir on the USB drive.

BTW here is the update to the Adaware program on the Disk:
http://download.lavasoft.com/public/defs.zip

This stuff works in a pinch, but I would advise you to update you UBD4Win iso soon.
And for those that are scratching your heads asking what I am talking about, go here:
http://www.ubcd4win.com/

Haven't seen this problem before...
A computer had a few viruses and some spyware, but when I removed them the computer starts up and can not start explorer.exe.  I could get to a blank desktop, but there was not a start menu or desktop icons. I had to do CTRL-ALT-DELTET to get to the task manager and run anything.  I was able to get to every thing I needed except explorer.exe which would give me an error about not being able to find it - DANG. 

First, go to c:\windows and rename explorer.exe to zexplorer.exe and try to launch it. If you get your desktop back, then go to regedit and change 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon  to zexplorer.exe

Open regedit and delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\explorer.exe then restart the computer.

I found a great Open Source product the other day while looking for a way to monitor me network @ work.. Untangle (UT).  Here were my requirements:

• Had to be Open Source (schools have little enough funding)
• Should have firewall and IDS/IPS components
• Would be nice to have QOS
• Must be transparent to my users
• Must have good/active user forums
• Must be Easy to maintain

I set UT up as a transparent bridge and stuffed it in between my last switch and router where it can see all traffic going into and out of my network. I tested it for a while in my office before deploying it on my network and decided that I liked the interface.  It's been up for about a week now and no problems in production.  I will caution you, that is you are going to run it headless, you will need to enable SSH.   I know it may sound goofy, but it didn't occur to me to do it during my testing because I had access to the console but 10 min. after I put it on the network I needed wanted to access something that was not on the web interface.   Also with SSH you can modify (with extensive help from the forum) the default install to add among other things nTop, a nifty little program to show bandwidth usage and network usage statistics. 

Considering I have nothing more than time invested in this machine, I would say it serves my needs quite well.