Removing or Deleting the Hosts file in XP

I have encountered a malware program that changes the attributes of the hosts file after it becomes modified by the program. This results in the in ability to easily modify the file. There is a procedure that I have used to modify the attributes of the hosts file.

You can use Trend Micro's HiJackThis to view your hosts file and see if there are additional lines in the file.

1. You will need a boot CD for XP. Most often it is your XP install disk.

2. Use the repair utilities to get to the command line.

3. Use these commands to unhide the file and allow it to be modified.

Attrib -R C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Attrib -H C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

4. Reboot the PC and then navigate to the hosts file.

5. Now you can remove all of the entries in the hosts file that have been added by the malware program and save it using NotePad or HiJackThis.

OpenDNS a success.

It's been a couple of weeks since I implemented OpenDNS on our systems here. Very easy to implement and a great price. I now have inexpensive web content filtering, without the yearly cost of maintaining a list if I was to purchase of some content filtering software or appliance. I would recommend this services to any small to medium sized business.

DiscountDoorsAndWindows.com - Buy AJ Doors and Windows

Finally, I have some products up on AJ Manufacturing's ecommerce site. DiscountDoorsAndWindows.com is hosted by volusion and is a great piece of software for doing a ecommerse site quickly and effectively. I have used this software before and it great for exporting and importing data without extra fees. Integration into Worldship and other third party software is a snap.

This site will contain some of our standard door and window products, but will also contain clearance items with huge price savings.

Lost XP Built in Driver List

I set up a new computer for our AJ Manufacturing DC where they ship our Postframe Doors and Windows as well as our Access Doors for the HVAC industry. I ran into a problem when I tried to install an impact printer. The driver file is provided with XP and I was unable to download it from Okidata. I needed to install the built in driver, but it seemed that I was unable to view XP's built in driver list when installing or adding a new printer.

Here's the solution. Proceed with the install as normal and when the dialog box asks for printer model and it does not show any printer models, then press "have disk" and navigate or browse to C:\I386
In there is the Built in print driver list. When you hit OK, the XP built in list of printer drivers will show again for you.

AJ Manufacturing AHR Expo 2009 Promo Access Video

Here's a video I created with the help of Bob Kortbein our Access Door Sales Manager. It was created for the AHR Expo 2009 show. Not too exciting, but every once in a while I get to work on some fun stuff like this. I filmed some footage of our Robotic Welding Cell and our Turret press station. ajdoor.com

UPS Worldship ODBC error

UPS Worldship integrations can be quite easy, but I have found that when integrating it with MS Access, the date format that is exported does not play well with an Access date field. The error I received is the following...
ODBC Error: State= 22005 Error. Invalid character specification (null).

The trick to making this work is to change your field type in the Access table from a date formated field to a text field. Then you will need to change the text date into something that resembles a date format and then move it to a table that uses a date field.

Now I am able to append my Access table with each shipment processed to provide our AJ Manufacturing sales staff with tracking numbers.

Welcome...

Hello.
I created this blog to include any IT tricks that I may happen upon. You may find this info useful, but my primary intention is to use this as an archive of tricks\tips for me to refer to as I sometimes end up revisiting an issue that I have already tackled. I know I have researched computer and software related issues many times on the internet and I have found answers, so hopefully you have found what you are looking for.

Brian

IT Director

ajdoor.com