The following article (Written by Daniel Radu of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center) comes from the Microsoft TechNet Blog (LINK) http://blogs.technet.com/b/mmpc/archive/2010/09/01/rogue-msil-zeven-wants-a-piece-of-the-microsoft-security-essentials-pie.aspx . You should pay close attention to what the fake alert can look at in each of the browsers (At the bottom of the message you get “Upgrade to a reliable solution”).

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Rogue:MSIL/Zeven wants a piece of the Microsoft Security Essentials pie

A new rogue has started making its appearance from compromised websites: Rogue:MSIL/Zeven. We received a sample (70be8ca73142922fd78acf2aafa9f141a977f15a) and a URL and began our investigation.

Let us say from the beginning that the guys behind this rogue like to copy big-time. They start by auto-detecting what browser the user is currently using, and then faking the malware warning page if the browser is Internet Explorer, Chrome, or Firefox.  This is meant to be a social engineering scheme in order to trick the user into downloading and installing the rogue, relying on the user’s trust of his day-to-day browser.

The similarity between the fake warning pages is so accurate that it can trick even highly trained eyes.

In the Firefox page, for example, you can see it’s not the real warning page because they misspelled ‘out’ and wrote ‘Get me our of here’.

Chrome

Internet Explorer

But for all three browsers, a common indication that you are not looking at the actual browser warning is the offer of some sort of an “update” or “solution”. All the “updates” point to a copy of MSIL/Zeven that promises to provide “a new approach to windows detection”. Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome do not offer such a solution when a website is blocked.

When installed, the product looks very genuine: it allows you to scan files, tells you when you’re behind on doing your updates, and enables you to tweak your security and privacy settings. These features are usually available in various legitimate antivirus solutions. However, the features don’t work; everything is there just to look nice, not to offer any kind of protection (just like in all other rogue antivirus programs).

Of course once it scans your computer it’s bound to claim it found something scary (malicious), as shown below:

As usual with rogue scanners, although it “found” malicious files, it claims it cannot delete them unless you update. That implies that you need to pay for the full version, which has the ability to download updates. However, these files are totally bogus; no such files exist in the user’s computer.

If you decide to buy the product, this rogue opens an HTML window enabled with ‘Safe Browsing Mode’ and high strength encryption to “help” and ”protect” you while completing your purchase. Of course these features are totally worthless and don’t actually do anything in the way of securing your credit card details.

The main page of the rogue antivirus program itself looks awfully close to the Microsoft Security Essentials webpage – more copying from the bad guys. The people behind it have even copied the awards received by Microsoft Security Essentials and link to the Microsoft Malware Protection Center -  pretty sneaky of them.

This is a screenshot of the rogue’s main webpage:

And, by way of contrast, this is a screenshot of the genuine Microsoft Security Essentials page:

It seems that these guys want to profit on the good reputation and success of Microsoft Security Essentials in order to make money – but we remind our customers that Microsoft Security Essentials can be downloaded at no cost. And it really does protect your computer from malware!

We detect both the downloader of the rogue and the rogue itself as Rogue:MSIL/Zeven.

Until our next encounter: browse safely!

Daniel Radu
MMPC Dublin

The following items from the bing blog posting -

Are you a visual person? Try the image search feature that has endless scrolling results (Tip: this also works for any search result).  Then easily swipe through image previews and click straight through to the image host site.

Voice search is also great when it comes to your local business listings. Give it a try, even something complex, hold the phone to your ear and speak, or press the mic button—it’s that simple. 

The Android app also has a pretty smooth mapping feature. First, Bing will automatically find your current location. You can then easily discover new places by category such as restaurants, banks, theaters and you can choose whether you want walking or driving directions. Swipe through each step of your directions, and check out how fast the map pans and zooms.  For times when you only have one hand free and can’t pinch, there is the handy zoom-out button.

There are a bunch of other features we’d love to tell you about, like local listing reviews, ratings and news

Review – TGM Reviews the bing app 

- The voice search didn’t work for me (not sure if its my American “accent” or the fact that I own an EVO).  However the regular search gave me very good results. 

- Surf from within the bing window is smooth, and the pinch, spread, and double tap adjust the page your surfing nice and smooth. (The TechGeekandMore.com site – Full not mobile version looks great)

- Movies playing near you feature (If you turn on location on your phone) was very accurate for the area I was in.

- Maps feature is clean, I just wish it included street view not just aerial maps.

- Local feature (which include Restaurant, Shopping, Nightlife, etc.)

- News feature is simple and broken down very cleanly.

- Directions feature was easy to use and the function was smooth during the 1 time I was able to test it this evening. Directions worked better than the Google Maps version I usually use.

**Overall – This is something that I consider a “MUST HAVE” for the droid.

The following Microsoft Video shows some of the latest features to Windows Live Essentials

Windows Live Essentials – the essential software for Windows

Windows Live Essentials includes Messenger, Mail, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Writer, Sync and Family Safety. Essentials is available for free and in many cases may already be installed on your PC with Windows.

In the upcoming release, we focused on achieving  two important goals with Essentials:

1. Making everyday tasks simpler and enabling new possibilities on your PC
2. Connecting Windows 7 to the cloud

Windows Live Essentials beta requires Windows Vista or Windows 7, and is available in English, French, Dutch, Japanese, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, or Spanish.

As previously announced, this release of Essentials is focused on two things: connecting Windows 7 to the cloud services you already use, and making everyday tasks simpler, so that you can do more on your PC.

Connecting Windows 7 to the cloud

We’ve designed Essentials to connect your Windows experience to the web services you already use – not just the ones from Microsoft. The new betas of Windows Live Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Mail, Writer, and Messenger connect to photo and video sharing (SkyDrive, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, SmugMug), social networking (Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin), email (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail), blogging (Spaces, WordPress, Blogger), and document productivity (Office Web Apps) services. And the new Windows Live Sync keeps your files synchronized across multiple PCs and in the cloud.  You can even directly access your PC over the web with Sync’s new remote desktop feature.

Making everyday tasks simpler and enabling new possibilities

People like to get creative on their PCs as much as they like seeing what everyone else has been up to. Whether it’s Retouch, Panoramic Stitch, or Photo Fuse in Photo Gallery, Auto Movie in Movie Maker, or Photo Mail in the new Windows Live Mail, we think you’ll be excited by the new additions to Essentials that make advanced tasks, well, easy. If you haven’t yet tried PhotoFuse to merge together the best of several photos, it’s a lot of fun.

As soon as the beta goes live tomorrow (we’ll update this blog post when it does), you’ll be able to get it from here. (LINK: http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials-beta)

     One of the nice cosmetic features in Windows 7 is the great variety of themes that you can select from to change the appearance of your computer system.  I had not written this post earlier because somehow I seriously though that most people were aware of all their options.  However, after a recent road trip (with the W7 laptop) where I kept getting asked “where did you get those backgrounds for your computer”, I suddenly understood that their are a lot of people who just don’t know about the additional cosmetic changes you can make to your Windows 7 pc.  So with that being said, here is a simple way that you can add or change the look of your Windows 7 pc. 

For those who still aren’t sure here is a short video from Microsoft explaining “What is a theme” – (LINK)http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/what-is-a-theme

     Microsoft has always offered what they refer to as themes for Windows, to all the user to change the appearance of their system. In Windows 7, Microsoft has a 3 different options for themes, 2 of which may not be well known.  Everyone that has installed Windows 7 should be familiar with the personalization screen that you can find in Control Panel (Start Menu Button –> Control Panel)

When you click on Personalization, you get the following screen (This is the USA version, if you selected a different country during install of Windows 7 the pictures themselves may be a little different) where you can select the theme to use for your computer (Theme includes pictures –usually 5 or 6 in a group- plus color schemes and sounds).  In addition, by selecting at the bottom you can select how often the background changes and if you want a specific color scheme or sound and what screen saver to go along with your theme. 

     Now this post could end right here but that wouldn’t cover the 2 other ways that you can add to your choices in the personalization screen. 

Additional Themes Option #1 – The Hidden ones already on your pc

     So lets start with the option that is already on your computer but is hidden because they are considered to be for other regions or locations. (NOTE: you will need to have hidden files and folders showing in Windows. You can change that setting in control panel –> folder options –> View tab –> put a bubble next to “Show hidden files, folders, and drives)

1) Click on Start and then in the search box type the following

- C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT and press the Enter key

- you will see the following window (below), just click on the folder called MCT

2) The window that opens will show you the additional themes for Windows 7 for other regions or locations (Depending on the version of Windows 7 your choices may be a little different than the ones shown below).  In my copy of Windows I get themes additional themes from Australia, Canada, U.K, and South Africa (In addition to the US theme which is already showing).

- Once you are at the MCT folder open the theme for the country you like, and then you can either select the folder with the country name where you will see the pictures used in the theme or the theme folder itself to install the theme.

.

- If you select the folder with the pictures (below) you can right click on a picture you like and then select “Set as desktop background. (This will not make it into a changing theme, it will give you just that picture as your background. )

- If you choose to install the entire theme, once you have selected the Theme folder, double click on the file name.theme (in this example GB.theme). That will install the entire theme.

3) Once you have done that you can go back to your personalization folder in control panel and select the newly added themes. Once a theme is on your Personalization window, its just a matter of clicking on it to change between themes.

Additional Themes Option #2 –

Other than locating hidden Windows 7 themes in your computer, you can also download several windows 7 themes form the Microsoft Website.

Visit the Windows 7 Personalization page (LINK) http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/personalize

- Here you will find a large selection of themes you can add to your Windows 7 install.  Its also very simple and best of all its FREE!!!!

All you need to do is scroll down the page until you find a theme that interests you, you will see a download button just under that them.

- Click on download, it will be followed by a screen that will ask you if you want to Open or Save.  If you wish to save the themes for later just select save (and remember where you saved it to). If you just want to install select open and it will automatically install the theme on the computer for you. (NOTE: The theme will also become your default theme, so you will need to go back to the personalization folder to change it to something else.)

Themes take up a minimal space on a hard drive so don’t be afraid to download and try a few of these out. 

And with that you have another simple way of changing the look of your Windows 7 pc.  “I’m glad Windows 7 was my idea”.  OK it wasn’t but I have always wanted to be in one of those commercials so that I could say that.

     Since the beginning of Outlook, one of the little known tools that Microsoft includes is the Inbox Repair Tool.  The tool is designed to fix your pst file if it ever gets corrupted.  The following steps will help you fix Outlook if your pst gets corrupted. 

1 – Find your PST file.  If you have installed Outlook in with default settings, the PST file will be located in

C:\Documents and Settings\user_id\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook (Where user_id is the name of the Windows id that is signed in).

2 – Find the Inbox Repair tool for your version of office.  Unfortunately Microsoft stopped putting an icon in the start menu for the Inbox Repair tool after Office 97. 

To use the Inbox Repair tool, locate one of the folders by using Microsoft Windows Explorer, and then double-click the Scanpst.exe file.

The Scanpst.exe file is typically located in one of the following folders: ( Where disk drive is the location of your install, typically the C:\ drive)

<disk drive>:\Program Files\Common Files\System\Mapi\1033\

<disk drive>:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033

The Scanpst.exe file for Outlook 2007 is is typically located in the following folder:

<disk drive>:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12

The Scanpst.exe file for Outlook 2010 is is typically located in the following folder:

<disk drive>\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14

3 – Once you found and started the Inbox Repair tool (Scanpst.exe), type the path and the file name of the personal folders (.pst) file or click Browse to locate the file by using the Windows file system.

4 – Click on start.

5 – Once it completes, you should be able to start Outlook again.

     I am one who always believes in doing “Fresh” installs whenever possible, which means that you need to uninstall your current version prior to installing the new edition of the software.  However I came across this error when uninstalling the beta version

    It seems the error is caused by a missing xml file that should have loaded into the Grove portion of the install but didn’t.  When I installed my copy of Office 2010 Beta, I did a custom install and did not select Grove to install, so I will post the 2 possible solutions for this situation (With Grove and Without Grove)

To Check and see if you have Grove installed –> Go to ?:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office 14 or ?:\Program Files (X86)\Microsoft Office\Office 14 (the “?” in the address will be the location of where you installed your copy of office.  If you installed it with default settings then the “?” will be your “c:\” drive.  In addition, you will have (x86) in the address if you installed the 32 bit version of office in a 64 bit Windows Version)

(**Close all Office Files / Folders / Programs prior to attempting any uninstall)

Solution with Grove -

**You will need a copy of your installation source / CD for this solution
1 – Locate the Grove Folder on your Installation Source / CD

2 – Copy the setup.xml from the groove folder of the installation source, and paste it in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE14\Office Setup Controller\Groove.en-us\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE14\Office Setup Controller\Groove.en-us\ (Depending on the version you have installed)

3 – Try and uninstall (AGAIN)

Solution without Grove Installed or without the Office Installation Source

Go to the following Microsoft Support Page (LINK) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971179/

Using the Microsoft Fix It function found about 2/3 of the way down the page, click on Fix It and then select run. 

Microsoft Fix It will go in and remove the files

The entire process removed Office 2010 Beta in just a couple of moments. 

**The process can be used to remove any version of Office 2007 Suite or Office 2010 Suite

     I had not seen this error previously and started doing all the standard troubleshooting procedures and research, and discovered that this error happens both when adding a pc to a network or while trying to a new network drive to an existing pc. 

    The error itself seems to be triggered by the way Windows handles authorizations (I am assume on that, but due to the solution, it makes sense), and the solution is actually a very simple one. 

SOLUTION:

On the pc that is getting the error, go to Start –> (settings –>) control panel –> Administrative Tools –> Services.

- In Services you will find 2 items toward the bottom. Locate where it says Server and Workstation. 

- Once you find Server –> click on it 1 time to highlight it. On the top left you will see it say Server with a choice of Stop, Pause and Restart. Select STOP under server

- Now go down to Workstation –> click on it 1 time to highlight it. Again click on Stop.

      Now you will be able to add either the pc to the network or add a mapped network drive.  Once you have done either reboot the pc.  Simple as that.

     One of the many tools you can use to check/clean your pc is called the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool.  Every month when Microsoft releases its updates for Windows, they also include this tool, so as long as you have been doing your Windows Updates on a regular basis you should have the latest version of this software installed.

     The MS Software Removal Tool is overlooked many times, even by tech’s because MS does not have it install in your start menu and unless you know how to get to it, it isn’t easy to find (Not sure why this is done, MS should make this software easier for users to find, but that’s just my opinion).

     So if you need to run the Software Removal tool, how do you get to it?  Here are some simple steps for the MS SRT.

1) From your Start Button – Click on Start –> Run –> and type MRT in box and click ok  

2) You will see the Malicious Software Removal Tool Window open. Here is a Key (BIG KEY), make sure that on the top it says the current month (The new version comes out on the 2nd Tuesday of the Month with the standard Updates normally).

If you are in November and the Window says June (Example) then we have 2 things going.

-> Your Malicious Software Removal Tool is seriously out of date and will probably not be updated to cover all the new versions of Malicious Software.

-> You probably haven’t been doing your Windows Updates or your updates are not installing properly. In either case you need to address that.

If your MS Malicious Software Removal Tool is out of date, you can directly download the updated version from the Microsoft Website (32bit Windows LINK:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ad724ae0-e72d-4f54-9ab3-75b8eb148356&displaylang=en) (64bit Windows LINK: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=585D2BDE-367F-495E-94E7-6349F4EFFC74&displaylang=en) or by running your Windows Updates and making sure all updates are selected.

3) If your Malicious Software Removal Tool is up to date, then just click on Next, where you will get 3 choices.  If your pc is not showing any signs of infection and you are just running this as part of a regular maintenance program, you can select Quick Scan.  If your PC is showing signs of trouble (Infection, slowness, unable to access specific websites), then you will want to run a Full Scan.

4) Once you select the type of scan you want and click on Next you will see the scanning window.

5) Once completed, you will either be told your pc is clean or a list of the infections that were found and cleaned will appear.  Just hit finish. If anything was found, then I would recommend rebooting and then running the Malicious Software Removal Tool again after the reboot as many times, infections can reappear on reboot.

     Since the MS Malicious Software Removal Tool has a limited number of malware that its designed to clean (It focuses on the most common types) and because it does NOT have a live monitor feature, this software should only be considered an additional tool in the fight against the bad guys (Malware, Spyware, Scareware, Viruses).  This software is not a replacement for an anti-virus product.  If you need an anti-virus product Microsoft offers Microsoft Security Essentials  (LINK: http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/), in addition to the many offerings both paid and free from other vendors (LINK: http://techgeekandmore.com/2009/11/05/software-what-every-windows-pc-user-should-have-installed-to-secure-their-pc-part-1-anti-virus/)

The patches will fix security holes in:

• Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
• Windows XP Service Pack 2 & 3
• Windows Vista Service Pack 1 & 2
• Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2
• Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2
• Microsoft Office XP
• Microsoft Office 2003
• Microsoft Office 2007
• Microsoft Office 2004 (Mac)
• Microsoft Office 2008 (Mac)

     Those running Windows 7 do not have any scheduled patches for this coming Tuesdays release.  As always please make sure that you run Windows update either by going to the Microsoft Update site (http://www.update.microsoft.com) or if you are using Windows Vista from the start menu go to Control Panel –> Windows update –> Check for new updates. 

     Remember fixing security holes in your operating system, is like fixing a broken window in your home.  You can lock your house door all you like, but if you don’t fix the window, bad guys will have an easy time getting into your home.

     So far the Technical Preview has been very smooth and stable.  Office 2010 does take a little getting used to as some of the features have moved locations with the use of the Office Ribbon.

     Here is the email that Microsoft has sent out.

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Subject: Microsoft Office 2010 Beta Coming Soon – Technical Preview Program to Close 
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:24:52 -0700
 
 
Hello Alex,
Thank you for continuing to utilize, evaluate and provide feedback on the Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview.
We wanted to notify you the Office 2010 Beta will be available for you to download next month (November 2009).
The Beta release of Office 2010 marks the end of the Technical Preview program you currently belong to. We will release the Beta on public download sites, where you can download and install a newer build of Office 2010 client software. At that time, you will also get your first look at the exciting new features we have added to server products such as SharePoint.
What this means to you as a Technical Preview Program participant is that the Office 2010 Connect site that you have been using will essentially be shut down and you will be directed to the Beta site (location to be announced) for Beta downloads, product information, links to forums, and more. We will provide you with links to the new Beta site on the current Office 2010 Connect site, but product downloads, articles, product information, and newsgroups currently found there will no longer be available on Connect.
In the weeks between now and the release of Beta, you can still access all of the Technical Preview materials on the Office 2010 Connect site.
A reminder, you can access connect at http://connect.microsoft.com/office.
You can also access product news and updates at http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/.
Thank you for your participation!
The Microsoft Office 2010 Team