Gordon's WebLog

During March 2006 I started using the Panda Internet Security Suite 2006.

All went well, until mid-May 2006 when an updated version of the software became available.

Immediately my web browsers started acting up. Pages - which were ALWAYS on line - could not be displayed, or displayed with multiple headers or headers with what appeared to be HTML code above them.

I contacted Panda by email, fully explaining my problems, and suggesting that they had only appeared after upgrading the software. They requested all sorts of system file information which I did not feel able to provide them with.

It was only after quite some time , and much head scratching, that I tried to go back to the original installation. A quick uninstall of the updated version and a reinstall of the original and - lo and behold the problem went away.

So far Panda have not been able to reproduce the error.

Hmmmmm. Very strange !

UPDATE. Panda have, after 8 days, now acknowldged that they are already aware of this problem and are contacting the developers. Why on earth did they not withdraw the upgrade and advise all their users ?

Yes, it's happened. And at first I thought I had lost about 8 hours work.

I am running TAMB on a USB drive in the office, and the main TAMB program crashed and corrupted the user.xml file.

Luckily It did not affect the template, css or images, and I was able to re-create the user.xml file from another one (amending all necessary details) - with a bit of foot stamping and head scratching. Of course I also had to re-create all of my custom tags as well.

Just goes to show. BACK UP ALL FILES REGULARLY.

Note. This posting is

Came across a very strange problem the other day.

I installed a program which relied on a windows system service being run. Every time I re-booted my PC or tried to run the program I receives a message that the service could not run on the local machine. On trying to mstart the service manually I was again informed of the error.

Despite diligently searching Microsoft's web site for over 2 hours, I was unable to find a resolution of my problem.

Now I am a member of several forums on the Internet, and I quickly posted a plea on them. I received several suggestions, all of which I tried without success.

Finally I received a suggestion from Dean on the Etomite forum. He remembered a similar problem and eventually found that there was a file in his root (C:/) folder called "Program". After deleting that file his system services resumed normal operation.

A quick check revealed no such file. However, some days later I had occasion to check another folder for a hidden system file, and it struck me that the rogue file might also have these attributes set. On checking the root folder and showing hidden and system files, lo and behold, there it was. The file was of zero bytes length but it certainly affected my system as, once deleted, all services resumed as normal and my new program functioned correctly.

Now just where this file came from I cannot imagine. Despite my system being behind a firewall, with full anti virus checking, with adware, spyware and anti Trojan programs running it appears that I must have picked up "something" from the Internet

Just goes to show. You can't be too careful.