MyPcHealth Blog

How to disable the Ease of Access icon / control panel item

nospam@example.com (MyPcHealth) — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:57:31 +0100

This has been widely talked about on the web with most people saying it cannot be done. This is correct for Group Policy, Microsoft have kindly not offered the possibilites to do this (thanks)

So anyway i had a client asking to have this disabled so i decided to look into this further and i have managed to come up with a work around solution. Essentially the method is to rediect the Ease of Access executable to another file which states that it is disabled. So how do we go about this ?

Solution
--------

Firstly we have to create a file that will essentially says that it has been disabled. The easiest way to do this is to create a batch file (vbs cannot be used). Open up notepad and enter the following text :

Echo Off
cd \
ECHO The Ease of Access tool has been disabled by your System Administrator
Pause

You then need to save the file i suggest "Easeofaccess.bat" . This can then be either placed locally on the computer or in a network location that we will point to later. Double click the file just to check its working it should bring a window up like below :

Now you know the file is working we need to direct the Ease of access button on the logon screen and the control panel to this file which ultimately will stop the tool working. To do this you need to add a registry key to the computer:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\utilman.exe]

Then you need to add a string value into the key you created :

debugger Value/Data = "location of where the file is located. Use UNC for network path"

See image below :

If you wish to do this across a whole network you need to great a group policy that adds this registry key in to each computer and make sure that the users have permissions to run the file you created above from its stored location. Maybe netlogon folder may be appropriate. So once thats all done all you need to do is log off or reboot the computer and try the ease of access. When you click on the ease of access icon it should open the file you created. If you get the following error message :

This means your path to the file you created is incorrect.

Hope that helps you if you would like to remove access to "ease of access"

Windows Cannot Connect To the Printer

nospam@example.com (MyPcHealth) — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:54:06 +0100

Recently i have started to get computers not assigning printers that are sent down via Group Policy. This was happening on both Windows 7 32 bit and Windows 7 64bit. Some computers in the same OU had the printers but others didnt. If i then tried to add a printer manually i got :

Windows cannot connect to the printer.
operation failed with error code 0x00000002

This error message occurs because it appears the the printer spooler has devloped an error. There are a couple of things you could try. In my situation both these worked.

1. A simple reboot of the machine (my computers were not being shut down at all)

2 Restart the printer spooler by doing the following :
Right click computer, select manage
Click 'services and applications', then click 'services'
Scroll down to 'print spooler', right click and select 'properties'
Click 'Restart' to restart the service.

Once you have completed these steps if you are deploying by group policy the printer automatically appears. If you are doing a manual install of a printer you need to rerun the wizard.

Kyocera C5250DN 2KV_3F00.003.007

nospam@example.com (MyPcHealth) — Thu, 10 May 2012 11:52:34 +0100

What im trying to achieve is to update the Kyocera's firmware to try and stop an error message F186

After many searches to try and find the firmware So I actually cant believe that "Kyocera C5250 2KV_3F00.003.007" has no hits in google or yahoo. I mean its pretty relevant when searching for a firmware update for that printer model.

Specs Being :
Model : Kyocera C5250DN
System Firmware : 2KV_3F00.003.007
Engine Firmware : 2KV_1000.006.002

Tbh i couldnt even find a way to do a firmware update even if i did find the download so i thought i would check out the web based interface for an option to upgrade the firmware. All i found next was i had problems logging into the web based interface as it asked for a password which i never set. Anyway bit of googling did reveal that the default password for Kyocera was :

Default Password : admin00

However this hasnt bought me closer to actually performing a firmware update on the Kyocera C5250DN.

If i manange to achieve this i will edit this blog and let you know how....

What is PCI\ven_8086....

nospam@example.com (MyPcHealth) — Tue, 01 May 2012 10:47:44 +0100

What is PCI\ven_8086&dev_2e17?
What is PCI\ven_8086&dev_2e14?

Well i had trouble finding out what these items were. When looking at the bios i found my motherboard was an EM64T inside a dell Optiplex 780. When looking at the dell website i couldn't find the drivers. After some searching these items were related to :

PCI Serial Port Driver is the Intel AMT SOL (serial over Lan) Driver
PCI Simple Communications Controller Driver is the Intel management Engine Interface

(Please see my previous blog about these items)

The hardest part of getting these working was finding the correct version on the Intel Website as even its automated driver software didnt find it. In the end the heci driver had the following information :

Title : Chip Set:Intel AMT HECI Driver
Version : A02
OEM Name : Intel
OEM Ver : 5.2.10.1023 PV
Computers : OptiPlex - 960, 760, 780
Oses : Windows 7 32-bit Professional, Windows 7 32-bit Ultimate, Windows 7 64-bit Professional, Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate, Windows Vista 32-bit Business, Windows Vista 32-bit UltimateWindows Vista 64-bit BusinessWindows Vista 64-bit UltimateWindows XP ProfessionalWindows XP x64 Professional Client
Languages : Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese-S, Chinese-T, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish
Created : Wed Mar 10 14:44:36 CST 2010

and the Intel Management Engine was for a Intel 945 Express chipset. This allowed me to get both missing devices working.

Hope this information helps others who have these devices missing.

Missing PCI Serial Port Driver and PCI Simple Communications Controller Driver

nospam@example.com (MyPcHealth) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:21:50 +0100

So i thought i would share my latest round of agony with drivers. I was upgrading a computer to windows Windows 7 and i came across the following 2 missing drivers :

PCI Serial Port Driver.
PCI Simple Communications Controller Driver.

Both appear in the section unknown devices.
Ok so what are the PCI Serial Port Driver and PCI Simple Communications Controller Driver? After some research i found out that they were the following :

PCI Serial Port Driver is the Intel AMT SOL (serial over Lan) Driver
PCI Simple Communications Controller Driver is the Intel management Engine Interface

They are quite hard to find as there are different version for different intel chipsets. You can try using the intel driver update utility on their website or you can go into your bios and find what version motherboard / chipset and search the site for the correct version.

Once i had downloaded them i still had problems. I was getting a Yellow exclaimation on the PCI Simple Communications Controller and an error :

Windows encountered a problem installing the driver software for your device
Windows encountered an error while attempting to install it.

When you look at the driver in the device manager you get the following error message:

The name is already in use as either a service name or a service display name.

To fix this i had to delete the following registry key and its contents:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\systems\currentcontrolset\Services\MEI
Remember that editing the registry can cause problems and should only be done your are comfortable

Once the key has been deleted then navigate to c:\windows\system32\drivers and delete the file HECI.sys.

A reboot and reinstall of the driver is then successful.

Hope this article helps anyone who may have had the same experience as me.

Click Here for the Intel Driver update utility.

Windows 7 Other User login problem.

nospam@example.com (MyPcHealth) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 10:47:57 +0000

Today i came across a problem where everytime i booted the computer after pressing ctrl alt delete it would come up with other user. I then had to click this to get the list of my users / domain login. I tried various things to get it working including looking at the registry settings. In the end i couldn't find what was causing it. So i decided to do a little googling and just like before, could i find the answer? nope. The search criteria i was putting up just wasnt bringing up the correct results. In the end i managed to find a solution which i thought i would share with you to hopefully save you ages trawling the web.

To stop the computer always starting with other user at login. You have to remove the fingerprint software installed on the computer. It appears that the fingerprint software is making it start on other user in order to allow you to login using a fingerprint. If you want the software to stay installed im sorry to say then there is nothing you can do to stop it constantly loading with other user on the screen as its default user.

Would just like to say thanks to the microsoft technet forum for the help in finding a solution. However shame the search criteria sucked!

What is ACPI\TOS6205 driver

nospam@example.com (MyPcHealth) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:06:32 +0000

The internet can be such a great place for resources, but it is also an absolute mess. There are too many junk websites trying to get you to sign up for their product, too many old pages and old links that never get taken down. For instance today I have spent absolutely ages looking for a driver for a Toshiba Prostege R830. In the device manager it gave a clue ACPI\TOS6205. I couldn’t see anything in the list of drivers from Toshiba, so I thought I would pop it in Google and it would be easy. Was it easy…. NOPE ! I constantly found websites that gave you lists of drivers but not really telling me the information I required, I only wanted the 1 driver and on the list no reference to TOS6205. Not only this, others wanted you to download their software and it all become a bit of a pain the bum really. I don’t want junk software installed on the computer. In the end I managed to work out from a mixture of websites cross referencing that the ACPI\TOS6205 driver was in fact the Bluetooth Stack driver. So I popped back to the Toshiba and downloaded it from this site as I know is safe.

It is ridiculous that it too so long to work out what the device was. So hopefully writing this blog will allow others to find the information quicker.

ACPI\TOS6205 driver is the Bluetooth stack driver

Xbox Live Gold Membership Free Trial

nospam@example.com (MyPcHealth) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 10:32:24 +0000

So here it is the reason you have come here, it is because you are looking for something for free. Well you must realise in this day and age everyone is trying to make money. So sites that promise free codes may want you to jump through some hoops and fill in surveys to get a free xbox code. However after this you still may not even receive the code, yet they have got information from you and wasted your time. Other sites require you to register for a small fee again on the promise but don’t always deliver. The most blatant of all, is the offers that are too good to be true or cut price codes; often you pay for them and never get the codes, so the whole system is a con.
So bearing this in mind you have to be very wary of what links you follow and what companies you purchase from as there are lots out there trying to take your money. These comments go the same for free points too. The best thing to do is make all of your purchases through Microsoft.

Hope that this blog post has been informative for you.

Click here For your free 3 month xbox gold membership trial code click here

PSN - Playstiation network down again

nospam@example.com (MyPcHealth) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 23:50:32 +0000

So .. having a nice game of Fifa 12 this afternoon with a friend. Getting my arse handed to me but i still plod on ... and i get disconnected from the PSN network. PSN decided to give my friend a 3-0 victory even though the game was 0-0 ... well that sucked.... anyway it appears the situation has got worse... cos after going round said friends house for dinner i return only to find that the playstion network is down for all. The error message im getting is : (8071D36) god knows what it means ... they probably been hacked again. But hey goto to the PSN website and they say its down :

http://uk.playstation.com/psn/support/

I know its a free service, but to be honest they have already lost our sensitive data... They should be making sure we stay as customers. This instance is another example why others are turning to the xbox !

Windows 8 Download - System Requirements

nospam@example.com (MyPcHealth) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:15:15 +0000

So as the release for Windows 8 gets closers Microsoft have unvieled its Windows 8 consumer preview . So from today you will be able to download windows 8 and try it for yourself. It will give users an insight into how Windows 8 will look and feel. This release however is some way off what the Final product will include. Microsoft have not currently given a final release date for the Full Completed Version.

From what i can assertain these are the System Requirements for the Windows 8 Consumer Preview although cannot completely verify this at the moment, however im sure these will not be far off:

• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster

• RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)

• Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

• Graphics card: MicrosoftDirectX 9 graphics device or higher

Click here if you wish to download Windows 8 Consumer Preview

I have to say im still unconvinced about using an Operating system thats deisnged around tablet devices and handhelds on a desktop computer. But we'll just have to wait and see !

System Check

nospam@example.com (MyPcHealth) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:53:11 +0000

Ok, So i have just come across this Rogue Scamware software called System Check. Its probably been out for a while but just had my first instance of fixing it. Its a pretty horrible peice of software that doesnt just hide files and folders it also deletes all your shortcuts (.lnk files) in your start menu. It makes it look like your harddisk is failing in front of your eyes. But instead its just messing with your system. It was a bit of a complex removal which im gonna type up soon. When i have finished the removal guide i will post the link to it here.

Edit here we go :
System Check Removal Guide.

Safe Surfing All.

Punkbuster - Kick for no reason

nospam@example.com (MyPcHealth) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:37:24 +0000

Punkbuster

So since the release of the Punkbuster 2.287 :

Monday 01.23.2012 [11:30PM]
Version 2.287 of the PB Client for BF3 has been released to our PB Master Servers for auto-update and to our website download page. This is a maintenance release.

I have not been able to play BF3 without being kicked. I don’t even make it into the game before I’m kicked. Punkbuster gives you a message saying you are being kicked for 0 minutes and gives the restriction/reason as nothing. Also I was receiving you were disconnected from the game. I was pretty annoyed as I spent ages trying to uninstall / reinstall Punkbuster. I tried deleting all the registry entries and files from the local profile. Absolutely nothing worked for me. Interestingly I have just been to the Punkbuster website today and found this a new release :

Thursday 01.26.2012 [4:30PM]
Version 2.288 of the PB Client for BF3 has been released to our PB Master Servers for auto-update and to our website download page. This update addresses a problem many players were having with version 2.287 regarding anti-virus conflicts.

So hopefully when I get a chance later to update it everything will be ok. But considering all the problems I have will BF3 I may have to consider my options and play something else.….

To get the latest version of the software visit the Punkbuster website.

Fifa 12

nospam@example.com (MyPcHealth) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:03:39 +0000

Fifa 12

I absolutely love football games and spend many hours playing them. So I thought I would write my thoughts on Fifa 12. Every time a new version of Fifa comes out I dread what changes they may have made. It seems you only just seem to get used to it and then they change it again. So the major change they I can’t stand although I’m sure I will get used to is the pressing/tackling of primary and secondary players. The circle button is now a tackle button, using x to press no longer continues in to tackle when you get close. Be warned if you press the circle button when you’re not near the ball your defender will do a stupid big step thing that will put him on the back foot and you will lose momentum and the attacker will breeze past you. It’s so frustrating especially when circle button used to be used to call a second defender to press the ball. The second defender “press” button has been changed to R1 and it no makes it more awkward to press with your defender and a second defender. It’s a seemingly small change but really makes a serious difference in game play and as a consequence it has become a lot harder to defend.

Graphics and gameplay have always been excellent. The way the players move are life like, however again in a real life game often a player who makes a slide tackle and wins the ball is quicker to his feet than the player he tackles unfortunately this is still not the case in Fifa. You can tackle time after time and still not win the ball. In regards to graphics and gameplay there are still a few bugs with the game. One of which you lose the graphic for aiming the penalty or not getting the kits coming up. They have however improved on the game jumping stopping, then jumping on, although it’s not fixed.

Moving on to the features of Fifa 12, they have changed up how the online ranking works. Now you play in a division and get points for winning and drawing a match. You get promoted to a higher division if you hit the required points or relegated if you don’t get out of the relegation points target. Not a bad system and obviously it pairs you up with players in your division and with similar strength team to the one you picked. In Fifa 12 you pick the team before it pairs you up so none of this swapping team to counteract the strengths or weaknesses of your opponents. Once your team is locked in it goes off and finds an opponent and you can’t change your team. Another feature is the ability to play Fifa for money, but unless you are excellent at the game I think I wouldn’t bother.

What I’m most disappointed on is they still have not created a section where you can play 2v2 easily. The only way you can do it is by joining a 2v2 lounge. Join a session and hope that more than 2 players each side join. If they do you either have to wait for them to leave or shout at them or quit yourself. Its absolutely ridiculous, you should be able to limit the session to 4 players that way no-one else can join and mess it up. Please EA sort that out. It would also be nice if when I have a friend round my friend and I can play us Vs two other people online. Currently you can only play 1 player on the console and the others online.

Overall it’s a great game but to be honest would most people buy it weren’t for the new league and squad updates and the fact that it’s like sheep following the herd?? ………. probably not.

For a list of new features/extras visit the EA Fifa website

Battlefield 3

nospam@example.com (Administrator) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:31:58 +0000

So I have time to play battlefield 3 since its release and I thought I would share my experiences of the game with you.
Once I had purchased BF3 from a local retailer, the excitement grew as I had been keeping tabs on the trailers and was waiting with patience. Having played all the previous versions of Battlefield I could see this was gonna be great.

Installing

Once I was home I couldn’t turn the PC on quick enough. When the computer was loaded I put the cd straight into the drive. I expected there to be updates so I knew there could be a wait. However once I had installed the latest version of origin I hit my first snag. It said it wanted to download the game from the internet! Not on my slow connection (See Previous Blog) I thought to myself there must be able a way to install it from the disk. There are plenty of articles out there on this issue if you just search google install BF3 from disk. After quite some fiddling I managed to get it installed from the disk. From what I remembered I think I cancelled the install and deleted the download data. Exited origin and ran the installer again from the disk. To get it installed. Once it was installed there was about a 400meg update to be installed. After that it was time to PLAY !

Game Play - multiplayer

As with previous versions of the battlefield game the more you play and score points the more items weapons and features you will unlock. Unfortunately if you are joining late you will find people with other more powerful weapons so it can be a bit of a slog to start with but it’s certainly worth it. They have jigged around with the classes and have added lots of different features for each weapon. These are unlocked by getting kills with that weapon. To acquire new weapons, they are unlocked by scoring points with that class and hitting milestones. Personally I think the SOFLAM and javelin combo with a squad mate rocks. SOFLAM locks onto a target and then the Javelin is a seeking missile ... *BOOM*. Unfortunately you cannot play both these items together as they are on different classes. This means you are better off using teamwork. If you do use a squad and work together it is a lot easy to get points, kills and better kill death ratio. Unfortunately most people online seem to be lone rangers running around and you often find yourself being shot in the back or side. It frustrates the hell out of me and I often find myself saying, “Why don’t you grow some and shoot me in the face”. The gameplay is excellent with a whole host of maps and scenarios to play. You can jump in many items of transport such as tanks, planes, helicopters boats and variations on each of those vehicles, so there is plenty of fun to be had.

Graphics

Now the graphics are excellent and smooth and the soldiers move around with incredible realistic actions. Still, that being said they haven’t sorted out the fact that if you lay down in the corner of a room sometimes your legs appear to stick out the other side of the wall! Also I tried running the game on an Nvidia 8800GTS 512mb graphics card (minimum spec) but it kept crashing. With all the graphics turned down and in every single resolution mode I would receive a direct x problem with the memory. Now it ran BF2 with no problems at all so I can only assume that it didn’t have enough memory to cope. I tried over clocking the card using latest drivers and even beta drivers but I still go the crashed. In the end I bought a Radeon HD 6570 with 2gig of on board ram. This stopped the problem with direct x crashing however there is still a game problem where windows pops up saying Battlefield 3 has stopped working and needs to close. This is a known issue at the moment and both EA and the Video card manufacturers are trying to rectify the problem.
Overall I have had many hours of fun playing this game and will continue to do so probably until Battlefield 4! Assuming of course there will be a fourth!
Here are some useful links for you:

Check out your Battlefield 3 stats or even your friends stats here

UK Broadband

nospam@example.com (MyPcHealth) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:31:15 +0000

So yesterday Virgin Broadband announced it was increasing its speeds for over 4 million customers. That’s great, but to be honest has really annoyed me.

So before I get started I just want to compare a couple of prices to you up to 30meg on Virgin approximately £29 and Orange up to 20mb approximately £18. That’s a difference of 33% I know you may get slightly better speed with virgin, but you could also reduce oranges cost to £13 if you have a mobile with them… There are other companies like orange, such as sky, Bethere offering similar packages to Orange’s with similar costs.

So here we go with the annoying bit:

• I live only 2.2km away from the exchange.
• I live on the outskirts of a CITY!
• I’m certainly not rural.
• However out of the 20meg on copper line deals I will only ever receive 4mb.

It galls me when I read of other people on forums living double the distance from their exchange and receive 7-8mb. So when I hear stories about “extra speed” It frustrates the hell out of me. So I stuck with rural broadband speeds unless I want to pay a ridiculous premium.

I then think there is a glimmer of hope when BT Openreach introduce FTTC program. This is where they deliver fibre to the cabinets outside your house, essentially allowing others to compete with Virgin. Will it come at an extra cost? probably! So here comes the next bit. So back in August 2011 I looked up my exchange to check for a date when the FTTC would have been completed. I was informed it would be in Dec 11. This date has now passed and I bet you can guess what hasn’t been completed! But that was ok, because I checked at the beginning of Dec 11 and they said it had been pushed back to Feb 12. Ok, so I will have to wait a little longer. I now go on there and check and there is no completion date for my exchange only saying “sometime in the future”. Yet the 2 exchanges in the centre of the CITY have been done and the exchanges either side of mine are “coming soon”. I am absolutely gutted with OpenReach and the whole broadband FTTC saga. All I want is broadband of 10-20meg for less than £20. Is that really to too much to ask?

Anyway if you wish to check where your nearest exchange is, you can check here.
If you wish to check your status on FTTC delivery in your area you, you can check here.