::This is a fix to fix the Microsoft update service on Windows XP that was broken by Microsoft

net stop bits

net stop wuauserv

regsvr32 /u wuaueng.dll /s

del /f /s /q %windir%\SoftwareDistribution\*.*

del /f /s /q %windir%\windowsupdate.log

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\atl.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\jscript.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\msxml3.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\softpub.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuapi.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuaueng.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuaueng1.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wucltui.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wups.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuweb.dll

net start bits

net start wuauserv

wuauclt.exe /resetauthorization /detectnow

We always knew that ClamAV was a wonderful open source project. Many open source projects that are as large as the ClamAV anti-virus project typically have 90% of what end users want and 100% of what they need most. However, a really interesting contest was sponsored by LinuxWorld that tested a variety of open and closed source products. Guess which product was one of only three that caught 100% of the viruses tested? That’s right, ClamAV!

As far as I’m concerned, the only feature ClamAV is missing right now is a realtime filesystem scanner that Symantec and some of the others have. Of course, no one would ever need this if they simply didn’t use Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Windows in general, but everyone knows that won’t happen any time soon.

Check out the article here:

System Configuration Collector (SCC) collects configuration data of systems in snapshots. The structure of the snapshot allows SCC to compare a snapshot with the previous one and to detect changes in the configuration. Upon detecting changes, SCC adds the differences to a logbook. The snapshot and the logbook are converted to HTML for local inspection. Optionally, the SCC-files can be send to a system running the SCC server software. On the server, summaries of the SCC-data are generated and search/compare operations on the snapshots and logbooks are available via a web-interface.

The logbook is a starting point in case a system “suddenly” does not work correctly and the administrator is wondering what he/she has changed in the last weeks or months. As most of us know by experience, configuration changes can have accidental side-effects on (other) systems. By examining the entries in the logbooks and considering the consequences, the cause of an actual problem might be found more easily than by just trying to remember the changes that were performed.

The snapshots can be used to compare the configuration of two systems. Imagine systems, that are supposed to be identical, but behave differently. Comparing parts of the snapshots of the two systems can indicate the cause of the difference in behaviour.

The client and server software of SCC is available in the native system install-formats for HP-UX, Solaris, Linux (rpm), FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and in source tar-balls. The client part of SCC is also available for Windows systems

There is an interesting article linked over at Slashdot.org on how many of Microsoft’s customers are bailing on Microsoft’s highly dubious “software assurance” program. Simply stated, Microsoft Assurance was a scheme cooked up to get more revenue out of customers by having their customers locked into paying for a yearly maintenance contract so the customer would be guaranteed the upgrade price instead of the full price. Turns out that Microsoft isn’t cranking out new releases as quickly as they had “assured” their customers would be the case. A recent Forester study now shows customers are opting out because they aren’t getting much new product for the price they are paying. They are now choosing to simply pay the full retail price when they are ready to, which, contrary to what they were told by Microsoft, is still a better deal.

This is yet another reason to consider open source software. With open source, you can upgrade when you like and you don’t have to worry about missing out on an upgrade deal for features you may not want or even feel like allocating valuable resources towards implementing them either.

See the full story here.

LimeSurvey (formerly PHPSurveyor) is a set of PHP scripts that interact with MySQL or MSSQL to develop surveys, publish surveys, and collect responses to surveys. Once a survey has been created, data can be inserted into the survey either by a “pretty” public screen which presents each question one at a time, or by a quick and nasty data entry screen. It includes the capacity to generate individualized “tokens”, so that invitations can be issued to participants. It also has the capacity to set conditions on whether questions will display (branching), numerous question types, and a basic statistics function.