The Reimage Blog

Reimage’s internal reporting system has been showing that there is an increase in the number of repairs with the following combo: Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Media Player 11. So why are we seeing more of these upgrades? It seems like people that chose to stay with their old PC do not upgrade to Vista (here is an odd case. The reason may be that:

1. Their hardware  wouldn’t support it well (too weak and Vista drivers that are needed for legacy hardware are sometimes hard to find).
2. It is expensive to pay for a new PC that also runs Vista well (it also may backfire at times), most people settle for their good old PC with good old XP but add to it latest updates from Microsoft.

However, newer versions of IE and WMP were designed for newer PCs and tested and optimized for Vista (and not for the discontinued XP)… XP users who try to maximize their experience by upgrading to IE8 and WMP11 absurdly get a slower and slower PC and a user experience which is worse than before!

This phenomena is called “bloatware“. Now, usually an obvious solution for bloatware is uninstalling the bloat and making it float by finding more lightweight alternatives (e.g. Foxit Reader instead of Acrobat Reader). However, after you’ve installed IE8 / WMP11 it is very hard to uninstall these applications especially if you’re not a geek.

References from the web:

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/12551/new-media/slow-take-up-of-internet-explorer-8-on-day-one  
http://www.freewarefiles.com/review_5_51_40237.html
http://forums.techguy.org/multimedia/544911-media-player-11-slow-load.html
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/30563022/windows-media-player-11-r.aspx
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=241585
http://www.aeroxp.org/board/index.php?showtopic=9699
http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/Media-Player-11-using-50-CPU-running-really-slow-t160970.html 

Part of the challenge Reimage encounters in the course of our marketing efforts is the public’s confusion on what we do. Being an innovative technology this is not surprising. However, it gets really insulting when we are compared to registry cleaners.

According to WikiPedia:

A registry cleaner is a type of software utility designed for the Microsoft Windows operating system whose purpose is to remove redundant or unwanted items from the Windows registry. However the necessity and usefulness of registry cleaners is a controversial topic, with experts not agreeing on their benefit. The problem is further clouded by the fact that malware and scareware is often being associated with utilities of this type.

Here is what the award winning technology writer, Ed Bott, has to say on registry cleaners:

Don’t run registry cleaner programs, period. I won’t go so far as to call them snake oil, but what possible performance benefits can you get from “cleaning up” unneeded registry entries and eliminating a few stray DLL files? Even in the best-case scenario the impact should be trivial at best. Maybe a second or two here and there, maybe a few kilobytes of freed-up RAM, and I’m being generous.

Ed, of course, is not alone in feeling uneasy about the usefulness of registry cleaners. Indeed, both Microsoft and Washington State’s Attorney General are pursuing legal action against companies that dupe users

into downloading a fake scan (of the computer) and then duped into paying for software they don’t need.

A 160 year old saying by Abraham Lincoln still holds true you can fool some people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all of the time. A public outcry is mounting via the Internet on the deceptive nature of the registry cleaner industry. One of my favourite excerpts is:

(It) really looks classy on the outside, but it finds loads of errors to begin with and when you re-boot and run (the software) afterwards, you get load more errors. Very strange as (the program) was meant to have fixed the errors beforehand.

I don’t want to point my finger at a particular company or product but a simple search of the the registry cleaner previously reviewed, for example, yielded 443 complaints made on ComplaintsBoard.com, have a look. It’s an interesting read.

Final words on the matter are given by Chris Pirillo a leading technology blogger and former PC technician:

And in case your wondering how Reimage.com fares when pitched against a registry cleaner, have a look at this previous blog post.

Social networks are fast becoming a security hazard. Yet another virus, this time on MySpace. We expect anti virus vendors to add detection for it over the following 24 hours.

How the malware spreads is not clear as of yet, but the screen-shot below shows an example of how a popup windows shows up and asks you to download an XP update when you visit an affected profile page.

Click on caption view full size

Last Monday it suddenly struck me: Technology (really) creates antagonism. New technologies that emerge and sweep aside old practices are initially resisted and eventually, unavoidably, adopted. In business theory it’s called the product life cycle, where 2.5% of the potential market are deemed “early adopters” and love the new tech. Eventually the rest of the market follows (defined in biz theory as Laggards).

The most interesting case of this is, of course, “King” Ludd the fictitious leader of the Luddite movement that  objected to the

“new wide-framed automated looms that could be operated by cheap, relatively unskilled labour, resulting in the loss of jobs for many skilled textile workers“.

The Luddite movement resorted to sabotage and grew so strong during the 19th century that it even clashed with, but was eventually routed by, the British Army. Progress won, tears were shed, and humanity marched on.

This is a major issue for any new technology – how do we reel in the “early adopters” and route the Luddites? It’s a challenge, no doubt. The key, of course, to avoid massive resistance, is by not antagonizing anyone but by directly improving people’s lives.

Let’s meet Hal the IT administrator, I came across this amusing YouTube video from Symantec a while ago. The video makes a great point of a real professional who suffers the pain of having to go through a manual repair process of a server.

Hal illustrates a real pain, he hates this part of his job and would love to have it automated. Sure he does, right? Wrong! Over the past months (and particularly since Reimage’s version 1182) I have heard from countless PC repair professionals that Reimage: (a) makes their PC software repair process so much easier (b) saves them time (c) gets the job done, while in the past they would have reinstalled the OS, erasing all data and applications. “Oh” I keep asking, “when can we expect you guys to to subscribe then?”, “don’t know” is not an uncommon reply. Amazingly, many won’t subscribe, despite admitting to Reimage’s benefits. One technician said: “The better you guys get, the more inclined my boss will be to fire me“.

So that’s what it boils down to: exposing inefficiency in the system. It’s true, Reimage does not have a 100% run rate (nor does it plan to), but this runs deeper. It is, in essence, a conflict between the modern and the pre-modern (a concept odd to apply to Software repair, but valid none-the-less). It actually deals with the PC repair industry’s (in) ability to look boldly ahead and realize that from now on it is the job of machines to repair their kin and that humans, in this occasion, are irrelevant.

Rise of The Machines. Not.

This, however, does not in anyway mark the end of the PC repair profession. Far from it.  Indeed, PC repair professionals will always have the important challange of setting up networks, troubleshooting, repairing hardware and most importantly providing the priceless human interaction we all cannot live without. Customers will always pay more for a professional to help them with descisions, dillemas, problems and queries. Reimage fits this vision perfectly. We repair the software while you, the PC repair professional, do so with your own logo keeping your customer unaware of any third party application. Everyone wins.

Looking through the Microsoft knowledge base, I stumbled upon this neat little list of the most popular KB articles of the last three months. Through these popularity ratings, you can see the information that most people are looking for, and this can give you a vague idea of the most common problems encountered.

Number 17 on the latest chart is an article describing the manual solution for a corrupted registry.

For those among us who are less familiar with the way the operating system works – The registry contains almost every configuration setting in Windows XP; core operating system settings (Hardware settings, passwords, system file locations, drivers and services) are stored alongside custom user settings and software installations. It consists of a set of files (not readable in regular text editors) which are an easy target for viruses and malware, since they can do a lot of damage with very little effort!

Corrupted / Missing Registry files

The solution suggested in this post is a rather lengthy process, and requires you to be familiar with fairly advanced tools – recovery console, command line tools, etc.

Even if you are a power user or technician, this process will get you up and running with a clean copy of the registry – as it was when you first installed XP! This means you’re gonna have to install all your hardware and software from scratch!

Although I am hardly objective about the product I helped develop (it’s my baby!! ), here are two FACTS about Reimage:

1. Reimage fixes this problem automatically and then proceeds to address other issues!!

2. Reimage will save as much information as possible – in over %90 of cases, nothing needs to be reinstalled!!

25 minutes, no hassle, no “know-how” (Just find yourself another PC and get our boot CD), and other problems repaired along the way vs. hours and hours hassling with a command line tool and reinstalling your stuff. You decide.

Anti-Virus 2009 nearly swindles another helpless victim! Reimage’s R&D Director’s girlfriend was saved from paying the ransom!

A long, long, time ago, a computer virus was a program that would delete some files, format your disk and generally vandalize your PC. Nowadays, viruses are about making $$$. Viruses have become a $14 billion Dollar industry that is all about stealing your money with bogus software or generate traffic to websites.

These virus conglomerates function as corporations, they have R&D, Marketing & Executive Training. These “corporations” would pay an employee 4 years of tuition fees and after that he is bound (in more than one way) to work for them. He is bound to them through the widespread phenomenon of kidnapping his \ her family for years to make sure they put in some extra effort.

Definition: A virus is an application with malicious intentions !

Spyware, Malware, Virusware, Adware, Junkware, etc – is a the security industry way to sell you the same product with a different name, it is still a virus. Same as selling the same coco drink in a different bottle. In this case, every product is a billion dollar market !

So today the virus industry came knocking in the form of the amazing “Anti Virus 2009″, aka “Anti Virus 2008″, “Malware labaratory”, etc. This program is NOT an anti-virus … It is actually a virus that is telling you that you are infected and should pay $29.95 for a quick repair. This is a simple ransom demand for a hijacked PC!

Look how the virus is telling you that Google is telling you to use it… very clever! (click on picture to enlarge the picture).

The follow-up question is: why aren’t the anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-adware or anti-junkware programs removing such a hoax? In brief, it may be because you do not have the anti-anti-virus (your anti-virus many not cover this).

Viruses are recognized today by behaviour and by known patterns. The best viruses are changing fast. Actually they change faster than the anti virus companies that try to stop them. It’s a cat and mouse game. In this case, the mouse is smarter, faster and better financed than the anti virus companies.

More screen shots of the virus in action

Why am I writing about viruses in the Reimage blog?

The PC in question had a leading, updated, anti virus. But that anti virus missed this particular virus. Typically, several other AVs did not find anything as well. However, Reimage did [yes, I am promoting Reimage ].

There are so many different methods for getting into one’s PC and staying there. To date, there is no technology or product besides of the human brain (and Reimage), that can understand the problem and act to resolve an issue.

Here is a part of Reimage’s log dealing with the “Anti Virus 2009″:

Notice the Suspicious files? This is Reimage’s unique mechanism to make a near human decision. For example, would you leave: “C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\675873\\675873.dll” on the system? Do you even know what it is?!

Reimage removed all the bad files even though NO ONE recognized them. For our manual R&D tests we use www.virustotal.com. This site scans files with 30 known anti-viruses.

We also had a slight miss, when we recognized a self extracted picture collection – BUT, REIMAGE DOES NOT INFLICT DAMAGE!

Here’s is the picture of the repair

Note – the message saying that the PC has Viruses is not ours … this is the virus inventing numbers

My first post and I am doing it without my PC, why? Because my Vista is down again.

One of my Vista’s 500,000 objects has probably been overrun by another object causing my entire machine to hang and run slowly. Don’t get me wrong, I think that Microsoft are doing an amazing job building the most common and scalable platform that anyone ever made – but, with so many moving parts, statistically, something will not work right.

So, what can I do now, having no PC to work with?

I tried to update my Vista to service pack 1, had a whole problem with that too, after 2 days of “fun” I found that I had to remove some files, reinstall some KB and pray. Nothing helped.I can spend hours, or days, understanding what is wrong with it. Frankly, I have better things to do. Alternatively, I can reinstall my PC – because when my Vista was new it worked (quite) well… Right now my backup is at about 39% …

Reinstalling is actually a pretty bad option, which is frustrating. I need to backup my documents, licenses, software, reinstall all over again, find the drivers, re-enter the licenses and hope that I am not going to forget anything.

I would gladly use our own product Reimage but we are not supporting Vista, my R&D team is promising me a working product by mid 2009 …

Googeling “Vista Repair”

Being at this “frustrating” situation I was even ready to pay for a simple promise, so I googled “VISTA repair”. I did not expect anything but a scam. There are so many products promising me that they can miraculously fix my PC.

All of those registry cleaners, registry scanners, registry thingies, registry sliders, registry fixers & mixers, registry and registry optimizers. Why the Registry ? it is just one big sitting database of Windows. It just became such a buzz word.  If it was fixing star-trek ships, it would be “Re-modulating the buffers”. The registry is a database, called Configuration Manager inside the windows kernel – nothing really to optimize there, it is working very well from the days of NT 3.51 (15 years ago),  these folks would go through this big database and look for something that looks like a file name, these programs will check if this file name exists on the disk. If not, they will delete it from the records. By definition, Windows automatically ignores these keys. In essence, these registry cleaners do nothing.

The registry industry marketing is amazing- “I had 2498723762348 errors and my [insert the product name here] fixed it for me”. Random name, random state. My mother would buy that! Furthermore, when they scan the system they would associate the location of a key to a group and write: you have 74 errors in your fonts!

Windows has about 100 different sub systems, .NET components, network subsystem, video, drivers, synchronization, security, internal / external application communication mechanisms, etc. PC repair is not that simple …