Avoiding Browser Notifications

Recently, it seems that many of the web sites that I go to want to push notifications to me. My browser is set up to ask me if I want to allow or block these notifications, but there have been times when I've selected "Allow" but later want to stop those notifications. This can occur when I'm in the middle of typing during a notification and something I type is interpreted as selecting "Allow" on the notification. It can also occur when I initially opt to allow notifcations from a particular site, but then change my mind later (typically because the site is far too pushy in the frequency of notifications).

The article "How to stop those annoying website notification prompts" describes how to disable / turn-off / block notifications from various web sites in popular web browsers Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. The PCWorld article "How to turn off web notifications in Chrome, Edge, and Firefox" describes blocking these website notifications from popular browsers Chrome, Firefox, and Edge and, at the time of this writing, demonstrates an example of a site that asks if I'm interested in notifications from their site.

Additional References

• How to stop those annoying website notification prompts
• How to turn off web notifications in Chrome, Edge, and Firefox
• Chrome: Turn notifications on or off
• Web Push notifications in Firefox
• Turn ON-OFF Microsoft Edge pop-up notifications
• Customize website notifications in Safari on Mac

Norton Security's "Coming Soon"

I recently had the Norton Security installation on a laptop start acting strangely. When I explicitly opened it, the Norton Security window showed only "Coming Soon" where it normally would have had more and different information. An example of this "Coming Soon" page is available online in the Community forum.

This "Coming Soon" notice apparently occurs frequently for users of Norton Security because there are numerous forum entries on this and Norton Support has a message titled "Coming Soon" that outlines dealing with this. The referenced Norton Support message provides detailed instructions for addressing this "Coming Soon" message. The first recommended step is to "Run LiveUpdate" and restart the computer when the update has completed.

If running LiveUpdate and restarting the computer does not fix the problem, the next recommended step is to "Download and run the Norton Remove and Reinstall tool" (which is available at http://liveupdate.symantecliveupdate.com/upgrade/RnR/NRnR.exe). This step removes the current (old) version of Norton Security and re-installs a new version of Norton Security.

I, in effect, skipped to the last step because I thought I might have a virus or malware causing issues (they often attack the antivirus and security applications first). I approached this first by turning off access to the Internet from that laptop. I then downloaded the Microsoft Emergency Response Tool (msert.exe) on a different computer and ran it against the laptop. The "Quick Scan" found no issues, so I ran the really, really long "Full Scan" and it did not find any issues either. I then removed Norton Security from my computer manually and downloaded and reinstalled Norton Security and now it seems to work correctly. I probably could have saved considerable time and hassle to simply following the steps for dealing with Norton Security's "Coming Soon" that I later found online.

I never actually needed to call the Norton Customer Service line, but I did note that there are some seemingly fraudulent numbers listed on the web for Norton Customer Service. It's likely that calling one of those fake numbers would lead to scam similar to the Facebook customer service number scam I wrote about earlier. There is a Norton Customer Support number, but one should always get that number directly from the web site rather than via web search. As of this writing, "I see the message 'Coming Soon'" is listed as one of the "top solutions" that "other customers are asking." It is also one of the "Hot Issues and Fixes for Norton 22.10.1.10."

Facebook Does Not Provide a 1-800 Customer Service Telephone Number

Facebook does not advertise a telephone number for their customer service department. The best way to contact Facebook Customer Service is via the Facebook Help Center. As the How to Contact Facebook page states, "Unfortunately, there is no way to directly contact Facebook - you can't call, text, email, or otherwise speak to an employee or affiliate of Facebook. You can, however, use Facebook's Help Center to diagnose and report a problem with your account."

The Facebook Business forum includes a post called "How do I contact Facebook Customer Service?" that emphatically states (I'm adding the emphasis): "NOTE ON PHONE SUPPORT: We do not post a phone number for Facebook support. If you see a phone number for Facebook support, it is a scam." That post also provides links to Facebook Help on Keeping Your Account Secure and Avoid Spam and Scams. The Facebook Support Inbox is an appropriate place to contact Facebook support. The Facebook Safety Center also provides links to resources linked to using Facebook safely that includes information on hacked accounts (the best way to report to Facebook that you think your account has been hacked is to go to https://www.facebook.com/hacked).

The reason I am writing about this is because I'm aware of someone's Facebook account being hacked earlier this month and the approaches to dealing with that hacked Facebook account led to far more serious consequences than the hacked Facebook account by itself presented. It had appeared that a friend had sent a personal message on Facebook to see her video (it was a generic message and turned out to have been sent with nefarious purposes by someone who had hacked this person's Facebook account). When the video was clicked on, the recipient's Facebook account was also compromised. When that account started sending out similar suspicious personal messages to friends on Facebook, one of the recipients rightly observed that this indicated a hacked Facebook account. At the point of awareness of this hacked Facebook account, the best move would have been to report this to Facebook via https://www.facebook.com/hacked.

Unfortunately, the owner of this hacked Facebook account panicked when the alert friend warned of the account hacking. The owner of that hacked account searched on Google for "Facebook customer service 1-800 telephone number" and clicked on one of the links returned on the first results page. This linked-to page listed a 1-800 number allegedly for Facebook customer support and the Facebook account owner called that number. The people who answered the number sounded polite and helpful and quickly convinced the Facebook account owner to give access to the computer the account owner was using and then proceeded to install nastiness on that computer that resulted in the need for a complete wiping of the machine and re-installation of software. What started out as a hacked Facebook account with damage limited to what could be done with that account led to damage to the person's entire computer and the potential to have much more information lost if not handled quickly.

Here are current results of a Google search for "Facebook customer service 1-800 number":

I marked out the actual 1-800 numbers so that no one would accidentally use one of these numbers in attempt to contact Facebook Customer Support. It's also interesting that one of the results shown is for a customer called "CustomerSupportNumber" and I suspect that has nothing to do with actual Facebook Customer Service and all numbers listed there should be ignored (I'm surprised Facebook allows this account to exist and I intentionally do not link to it here). It is also worth noting that the first two results returned from the Google search appear to be fraudulent Facebook Customer Support pretenders because they do advertise a telephone number.

It seems easy to avoid problems like those discussed here, but in moments of panic and shock about a hacked account, it can also be easy to forget and fall into traps like those presented online by people alleging to be Facebook Customer Service and providing telephone numbers to contact them. In the case of Facebook, a telephone number advertised online should never be used. In more general cases, it's always best to find the contact number from the desired recipient's web site rather than from a Google search. In other words, the only telephone number for Faecbook Customer Service that could be trusted is one listed on the Facebook main page (look for https://www.facebook.com), but even that can lead to a mistake as the "CustomerSupportNumber" account on Facebook purports to provide Facebook telephone numbers, but I am guessing those are no better than the ones returned by the Google search.

VLC Player: Windows 10 Lacks a Native DVD Video Player

I don't watch videos on my Windows-based laptop very often, but recently wanted to be able to play DVD videos on a long road trip. Without realizing that Windows 10 had dropped support for playing back video on a DVD, I placed the DVD with a movie in the DVD player and was disappointed when Windows 10 did not know what action to perform on that DVD. When I next had a Wifi connection, I saw that Microsoft had a Windows DVD Player app offered for $15, but I decided to look for third-party alternatives first because the app's average rating is pretty low and I wasn't used to paying extra for an app to play DVD videos.

I found the useful articles How to play DVDs in Windows 10 for free and Windows 10 won't play DVDs unless you pay Microsoft $15. The first article succinctly states, "Windows 10 won't play DVDs natively, and Windows Media Center is gone." The second article reiterates this, "Microsoft chose to omit the Windows Media Center app from Windows 10, and it wants $15 for the new Windows DVD Player."

Both of the articles referenced above referenced the same freely available alternative to Microsoft's Windows DVD Player. The VLC Player is available at http://www.videolan.org/ and the VLC media player was exactly what I was looking for. The VLC media player page describes it as "a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols." The page also highlights that VLC media player plays numerous formats and codecs, is completely free, and "runs on all platforms" including Windows.

Fast Startup is Only Desirable When It's a Complete Startup

After upgrading a Windows 8-based desktop PC to Windows 10, I started seeing the regular error message: "Failed to connect to a Windows service: Windows couldn't connect to the Group Policy Client service. This problem prevents standard users from signing in."

This issue, as the message states, prevented users other than the Administrator from logging in or, if they managed to login, prevented them from doing very much. This was an intermittent issue that seemed to be occurring on an increasingly frequent basis.

I found the fix for this on the Windows 10 Forums thread Can't connect to Group Policy Client service where windowsmith advised turning off "Fast Startup." As documented in The Pros and Cons of Windows 10's "Fast Startup" Mode, "Fast Startup ... doesn’t always work perfectly, and there are some downsides that might convince you to turn it off." Turning off "Fast Startup" has led to a much more positive experience using our Windows 10-based desktop.

Several sites explain how to disable/enable Fast Startup including the post that helped me realize this was the issue I was facing. The gist of the approach is to use Start → Settings → System → Power & sleep → Additional power settings → Choose what the power button does → Shutdown settings → [uncheck] Turn on Fast Startup (recommended). I have "Fast Startup" checked/enabled on my Windows 10-based laptop (came from Windows 7) without any obvious negative issue, but "Fast Startup" seemed to cause far more trouble than any achieved benefit on my Windows 10-based desktop.

Since unchecking/disabling "Fast Startup", I haven't seen the "Windows couldn't connect to the Group Policy Client service" for over a week and I formerly saw it almost daily.

Viewing TCP/UDP Information on Windows

I occasionally need to quickly identify which ports are being used on a Windows-based system. This post briefly summarizes the two approaches I typically use to do this.

The netstat tool is a command-line tool that can be run in the "Command Prompt". I typically like to use the netstat options -n, -a, and -o. The available netstat commands can be viewed on the command line by running "netstate/?"

When I want the ability to easily sort the output, the graphical tool TCPView is handy. Although this often requires a separate download the first time it is run, it is a small tool that is quickly downloaded and easily installed by unzipping it. The executable can then be run by clicking on Tcpview.exe. The graphical tool displays (and allows sorting by) process names, process identifiers (PIDs), protocols, local and remote addresses, local and remote port numbers, and states.

TCPView is provided by the wholly-owned Microsoft subsidiary Windows Sysinternals as part of its Networking Utilities.

When a particular process ID is needed, it can be found through Windows's Task Manager or on the command line with the command tasklist.

Windows Vista User Profile Service Failed

I recently could not login to my account on an old laptop with Windows Vista and was presented with this message: "The User Profile Service service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded." Fortunately, this was easily remedied by following the steps outlined in Microsoft Article 947215 ("You receive a 'The User Profile Service failed the logon' error message"). That article outlines three methods for resolving the issue (fixing the user account profile, copying data to different profile, and deleting the error SID and creating a new profile).

I used the first approach (fixing the user account profile) by following the steps on that article:

1. Restart machine and enter "Safe Mode"
   • Typically done by clicking F8 while restarting and selecting "Safe Mode"
2. Run the Registry Editor (regedit)
   • The registry can optionally be backed up before editing it.
3. Access "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList" folder and then the "S-1-5" subfolders with really long names and containing ProfileImagePath in registry
4. Rename the folder with .bak to not have that extension and rename the one that started without extenson to have .bak extension.
5. Change RefCount's value to zero and change State's value to 0.

After following those steps (which are explained in more detail and illustrated with screen snapshots in the Microsoft Article 947215), closing Registry Editor, and restarting the laptop, I was able to log in again. I took this opportunity to create a separate Administrator account as advised in this Microsoft Community Question.

Microsoft Safety Scanner and Security Essentials

I decided to download and run the freely available Microsoft Safety Scanner after reading Gregg Keizer's ComputerWorld article New malware scanner finds 5% of Windows PCs infected. There is a very large button at the top of the page that one can click on to download the Microsoft Safety Scanner, but there is much more on the page. Roughly half of the lower portion of the page contains links and details about Microsoft's Security Essentials product ("a no-cost service for genuine Windows PCs"). The other half of the lower portion of the page contains links on Windows security and links on the most common threats found on PCs.

The Microsoft Safety Scanner page states that this application is designed to run alongside already installed antivirus software. In other words, Norton, McAfee, or other software does not need to be uninstalled or disabled to use Microsoft Safety Scanner. After downloading Microsoft Safety Scanner, I only ran the "Quick Scan" option because that covers the most common threats and doesn't take very long. There is also a "Full Scan" option available, but it is warned that this might take "several hours" on some computers.

The next image shows the Quick Scan progress being made. By the way, don't trust the green progress bar. When it reaches the end, it simply starts over again. Reaching the end doesn't necessarily mean you're almost finished.

I was pleased to see that my currently installed protection software appears to be doing its job. The results of the Microsoft Safety Scanner were what I was hoping for: I'm one of the ~95% (at least on that particular PC) free of the identified issues.

These results show not only that my currently installed software protection package is working, but also demonstrate that the Microsoft Safety Scanner was able to run without conflict while I had my currently installed software running. In fact, my currently installed software protection suite notified me on the download of Microsoft Safety Scanner that it was a safe download (not malware).

Because I still have a paid subscription to a competing suite of protection software installed on all of my Windows-based computers, I am not downloading Security Essentials at this time. However, the sentence (quoted from Microsoft Safety Scanner page) "Genuine Windows customers get a complimentary subscription to Microsoft Security Essentials, the award-winning antivirus software that helps you protect your PC." regarding Security Essentials is worth considering when it's time to renew my subscriptions, especially for my older PCs.

My recommendation is that anyone with a Windows PC should download and run the freely available Microsoft Safety Scanner to ensure that they are not part of the ~5% affected. This product downloads and runs quickly (if Quick Scan option is selected) and is advertised to not conflict with existing software. A subset of these people may also be interested in downloading Microsoft Security Essentials as a permanent computer protection package. Unlike Microsoft Safety Scanner, Microsoft Security Essentials is NOT designed to run with other antivirus software and that other software should be uninstalled before installing Microsoft Security Essentials.

As difficult as it is to believe, I know several people with Windows-based PCs that do not have antivirus or protection software installed on their computers or who have allowed subscriptions to updates to installed protection software to expire for many months or even years. For these people in particular, downloading and installing Security Essentials seems like a good idea. I believe downloading and running the "temporary" (10 days) Microsoft Safety Scanner is probably a good idea for all people running Windows-based PCs.

I've helped several people clean up their systems after allowing protection software to get significantly out-of-date or after not having any protection software installed at all. It would definitely have been easier on them and they might have even avoided loss of their computers for hours or days and loss of data had they had software like Security Essentials installed. As a side note, I have also found helpful freely available tools such as McAfee Labs Stinger (or other McAfee free removal tools), Norton free tools, and information on viruses, malware, and spamware that is available on many of the protection software vendors' sites.

Conclusion

I believe that all Windows users should have protection software installed on their machine, particularly if they access the Internet (including downloading e-mail messages). The freely available Microsoft Safety Scanner should be run by all Windows users because it is fairly quick to run and does not compete with installed protection software. Windows users who don't have any protection software installed should install either Security Essentials or some other protection software immediately.

Installing Google Chrome on 64-bit Windows 7

I kept getting an "Unknown Installer Error" when trying to run ChromeSetup.exe after downloading it from the main Google Chrome download page.  The only way I could get it to work was to download it via Google Pack for Windows 7.

The Google Pack includes free software beyond Google Chrome such as Firefox with Google Toolbar, Google Picasa, Google Earth, Adobe Reader, Google Apps, and Google Desktop.  This provides a single convenient mechanism for downloading several useful free products for a new machine or machine requiring installation of new software.