Recording TV Programs:

Our ancient VCR (tape recorder) in the TV room is starting to act up and we are looking around for a replacement. Of course VCR is the technology of the previous century - we should probably get a DVD recorder or, better yet by far, a DVR (digital video recorder).

Enter the brand new computer. It turns out that a computer with a TV tuner card can make a dandy DVR, and this new one with lots of power, high-quality graphics, and Windows Vista Ultimate with Media Center is a perfect candidate.

TV Tuner Card:

I have Windows Vista 64 with Media Center, so I ordered the AverMedia Media Center Upgrade Kit from NewEgg.com, a PCI-E tuner card. I chose that product for its features but even more because of the good recommendations from purchasers on NewEgg.com. The card includes two tuners, one for analog channels (broadcast or cable) and the other for digital (broadcast or cable).

Installation:

I installed it in a PCI-E slot, rebooted, and Windows automatically installed the drivers. There was no need to use the drivers on the included CD-ROM; I’m confident that Windows used appropriate drivers. With the kit also came a remote control and remote receiver, for which Windows also found and installed a driver.

I connected the cable TV signal to the analog tuner, and the included “test” antenna to the digital tuner, and immediately tuned in all of the analog cable channels and eight digital broadcast channels.

I’m not an HDTV enthusiast, at least not yet. I know almost nothing about home-theater PC (HTPC). But this was trivially simple. What we have here is a card that is designed to work specifically with Windows Media Center (MC), a Microsoft software package found on some XP and Vista machines. The card came with no other software except drivers - it would be useless without MC, and MC cannot play or record TV signals without a TV tuner card. They go together hand in glove, and they worked together right out of the box with no coaxing at all.

Performance:

• The quality of the analog cable programs is better than my desktop TV, and they have equal signals off the same splitter.
• The quality of the digital programs is stunning.
• MC and the tuner immediately detected and cataloged every useful analog cable channel.
• Using a tiny “test” antenna supplied with the kit, the system detected all of the major local broadcast stations. That test antenna is all I need.
• MC can play one program from one tuner while recording another program from the other tuner.
• With MC not running, the computer’s CPU usage is 1% to 2%. With MC playing a program it is about 20%, and with MC both playing and recording it is about 25%.
• The card’s tuner chips felt warm to the touch, but not hot.
• I ran a CPU exercise program called HeavyLoad while MC was playing and recording, and the program played without a hitch with CPU usage bumping up between 90% and 100%. Nothing overheated.

Features I’d like to have:

• The documentation was nonexistent. I have no idea how some of the included parts are even supposed to be used.
• It has no FM tuner, which would be very nice with MC.
• Though there are two tuners on the card, MC will not show picture-in-picture.
• The tuner is capable of playing QAM (unencrypted digital cable signals) but MC will not take advantage that capability.

Bottom Line:

It works exactly as advertised and I’m glad to have it. I wonder if we should just build another, cheaper computer and dedicate it to DVR as a replacement for the VCR. Still expensive I guess.

An alternative is to rent the DVR from our cable provider Comcast, which would require us to upgrade the cable from Standard to Digital, and the rental plus the upgrade would cost us $16.00/month or about $200.00/year. At that rate we coud pay for an $800 computer in four years … hmmm.

I’ve been watching the comments - both internally and externally - about yesterday’s launch of the Hyper-V Beta (yes, I know I’m on vacation, but this is exciting to watch), and I thought I’d list the answers to a few commonly asked questions.

1. Q:  How do I install Hyper-V on my 32-bit server?
   A:  You don’t.  Hyper-V is 64-bit only, and requires that you have an Intel or AMD processor with Virtualization extensions (Intel calls their’s VT, AMD calls their’s AMD-V).
2. Q:  How do I manage Hyper-V remotely?
   A:  It’s not terribly easy to do with the beta.  If you’re running Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V Beta on another machine besides your Hyper-V server, you can use the MMC Management Console to connect to your Hyper-V server remotely (which, in fact, you *must* do if your server is running Server Core). 

   If you’ve only got one server, you can use Terminal Services to connect to your Hyper-V server and run the MMC Management Console - though, you’ll run into issues controlling the Virtual Machines with VMConnect if you don’t have the Integration Components installed. 

   You can also use WMI calls to manage a Hyper-V server remotely.  The documentation for that should be online shortly, if it isn’t already.

   We’re going to make remote management easier to do in subsequent releases, so please stay tuned.

3. Q: I’ve been using Hyper-V Beta for quite some time, and…
   A: No, you probably haven’t, unless you’re a TAP customer.  You may very well have used the Hyper-V CTP that was released along with Windows Server 2008 RC0 and RC1, but the beta has quite a few improvements over the CTP.  If you’ve only looked at the CTP, you really should take another look. 
4. Q: How do I install the Integration Components on Windows Server 2008?
   A: You don’t need to.  The Integration Components are now *part* of Windows Server 2008.  Each IC should be available to you the first time the OS boots to the desktop.
5. Q: I don’t have mouse integration or the Synthetic NIC in Server 2008 Setup / WinPE.  What gives?
   Q: I can’t PXE boot my VM.  What gives?
   Q: I don’t have a network card in my Windows XP VM.  What gives?
   Q: etc…
   A: PXE booting requires the Legacy Network Adapter.  It will not work with the Synthetic Network Adapter.  Similarly, since there are no Integration Components for Windows XP with this beta, the Synthetic Network Adapter won’t work.  You’ll need to use the Legacy adapter.

   Also, the Integration Components, including the VMBus which makes all of our synthetic devices work, are not available at install-time on Windows Server 2008, or Server 2008 WinPE.  You won’t have mouse integration, synthetic storage, or the synthetic network adapter until setup is complete and Windows has booted for the first time. 

6. Q: How do I install Hyper-V on Server Core?
   A: Execute these two commands:

   BCDEdit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto
   start /w OCSetup Microsoft-Hyper-V

7. Q: The installation documentation doesn’t say anything about that BCDEdit command - which one is right?
   A: We both are.  Running the OCSetup command will make the same change to the BCD store that the BCDEdit command does, but it will only do it after the required reboot, which means that even after the first reboot, the Hypervisor will still not be running and you’ll have to reboot a second time.  Running the BCDEdit command first will make sure that the Hypervisor will be running after the first reboot.
8. Q: How do I upgrade from the CTP release?
   A: You don’t.  There have been a lot of changes, and upgrading isn’t supported.  Back up all of your VHD files, and record all of the settings for your VMs, then clean install Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V and set up your VMs again. 
9. Q: VMMS fails to start with error code 87 - what’s up with that?
   A: This beta release works on en-US builds of Windows Server 2008 *only*.  If it’s not en-US, you’ll likely run into the error code 87 issue. 

Hope that helps!  If you have any other questions, please leave them in the comments, and I’ll get to them as soon as I can.

Trojan.Win32.LinkReplacer (also know as “Trojan Win32 Link Replacer” or “Trojan.Win32 Link Replacer”) used to be a real virus, now fake anti-spyware software like IE Defender will display Trojan.Win32.LinkReplacer as their scan result to trick user to buy the fake anti-spyware program. The fake anti-spyware program usually get installed onto your PC without your permission, through Trojan, malware and virus (or you could get it by installing a fake video codec). fake anti-spyware will display the Trojan.Win32.LinkReplacer fake system alerts or fake security alerts to trick user to buy the Paid Version of the fake anti-spyware program.

The possible error messages are either “Your browser was hijacked by Trojan.Win32.LinkReplacer”, or “Your browser was hijacked by Trojan.Win32 Link Replacer”. As discussed previously, these messages are completely misleading. You can safely remove Trojan.Win32 Link Replacer by following our manual removal instructions if you are familiar with regedit and dll files. Good luck!

It is extremely important to remove Trojan.Win32.LinkReplacer from your computer. You can try our recommended SpyHunter* Spyware Detection Utility, which is very intuitive and highly efficient. Trojan.Win32.LinkReplacer can be removed automatically. However, if you are familiar with registry edit and dll files in Windows, we strongly recommend you to try the Trojan.Win32.LinkReplacer manual removal instructions. It might take time and patience, but it is equally effective if you get it right.

As always, we will constantly update the instructions to combat against Trojan.Win32.LinkReplacer and its variants. Please feel free to post comments if you have any questions or suggestions regarding Trojan.Win32.LinkReplacer. This is a great community and I am sure that you would find the answers. Good luck!

Download SpyHunter* Spyware Detection Utility

Manual Trojan.Win32.LinkReplacer Removal Instructions:

Unregister Trojan.Win32.LinkReplacer DLL Files:
(Learn how to do this)
windivx.dll
ecxwp.dll
stream32a.dll
vipextqtr.dll
sysdivx.dll
VideoMP3.dll
PowerVideo.dll

Find and Delete these Trojan.Win32.LinkReplacer Files:
(Learn how to do this)
windivx.dll
ecxwp.dll
stream32a.dll
sysdivx.dll
VideoMP3.dll
PowerVideo.dll
vipextqtr.dll
gebca.dll
mljge.dll
ddcbyvt.dll
advrepkon.dll
mlljh.dll
ibpmxtbv.dll
tdlRMS.dll
lcxmehhg.dll
hdbxuqje.dll
ddccd.dll
sgqddvym.dll
ljjhedc.dll
ddayv.dll
vkcxxfvi.dll
ssqpo.dll
cabvie.dll
ddcdedd.dll
advpac.dll

Remove Trojan.Win32.LinkReplacer Registry Values:
(Learn how to do this)
bb5be1c92c299a1c6bcfe67655b0a0c7
9a9f57899a28547b04fc2da3700c95cf
7a329404de21925daacbbbee093ff6dc
7d4b39e4cab018496e2fe9bf9c3234b2
69c9be662f7f284aae171adeb136cb24
396955766b2e512bc3545a24bc485dbe
5f9523529ce2cac480acbda2b8bf4e1e
6d3c4dbecf4aaf1ae826a0a7edde5951
8266c79a434aed795a5f3f7abb0aff0d
696ce23305a35bb118afc42d58845791
7df5417b22988d88e8080a44392ade95
cbdc7b3033e82c2065a1b48061b2ca01
1bc5752bd72f44f004d9f061dd7f9e00
bcf3a381bbe26d9c1ec24bac8b18f567
1057a2dcd13130963be0a51c41dc4d1c
e05997f932f826f0271cf32d00bbd3be
c18c3b4771120703624baaf835feecd8

Download SpyHunter* Spyware Detection Utility.

You can also download the free version of Avira Antivir to remove the spyware (update)

Trojan.Win32.LinkReplacer Variants: Trojan.Win32, Trojan.Win32.agent.akk and Trojan.Win32.Obfuscated.gx

IEDefender Descriptions:

IEDefender also known as IE Defender 2.2 and IEDefender 2.4.4 is a counterfeit anti-spyware / anti-malware software. IEDefender Popup usually come up after you installed a Trojan, virus and fake software.

It is very important to remove all the components of of the IEDefender popup and all the malware and trojans that it might have come bundle with (such as zlob.trojan, trojan.vundo and Trojan.Downloader). To effectively remove IEDefender Popup, we have created a manual removal instructions which is easy to understand.

Download SpyHunter* Spyware Detection Utility

Manual IEDefender Popup Removal Instructions:

Unregister IEDefender DLL Files:
(Learn how to do this)
mp3avi.dll
XunLeiBHO_Now.dll
alisj.dll
VideoMP3.dll
PowerVideo.dll
sysdivx.dll
windivx.dll
1200955100.dll

Stop IEDefender Processes:
(Learn how to do this)
IEDefender.exe

Find and Delete these IEDefender Files:
(Learn how to do this)
IEDefender.exe
mp3avi.dll
XunLeiBHO_Now.dll
alisj.dll
VideoMP3.dll
PowerVideo.dll
IEDefender.lnk
sysdivx.dll
windivx.dll
1200955100.dll
iedefender.db1
iedefender.db2
iedefender.db3
iedefender.db4
iedefender.db5

Remove IEDefender Registry Values:
(Learn how to do this)
Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\IEDefender.exe
09D72564-27E2-4F12-8AB6-03F83E4567DE
741403DD-46A4-4D58-8FA7-427335C3BBF6
2B659BB5-3E85-4BC6-BAFC-98FEDFF3AE99
0EEDB911-C5FA-486F-8334-57288578C627
F10587E9-0E47-4CBE-84AE-7DD20B8685CC

Download SpyHunter* Spyware Detection Utility

IEsecurepages.com Descriptions:

Download SpyHunter* Spyware Detection Utility.

You can also download the free version of Avira Antivir to remove the spyware (update)

If your Internet homepage has been hijacked to “IEsecurepages.com”, it’s very likely your computer being infected with Zlob.Trojan. The “IEsecurepages.com” website pops up a warning message stating that you have Virus or Trojan in your computer. If you click OK, it will redirect you to buy one of the products below:

(more…)

The latest Get a Mac ad for the holiday season, which also happens to be the least snobbish, is simply adorable. Although I wish Santa played a had more to his role than just blowing a whistle. And in case you’re wondering, it’s not CG, it’s a stop-motion animation by LAIKA/house. Now I’ve got that tune stuck to my head, with those lyrics.