Jonathan R. Pritchard’s Homepage

Users of AVG Free 7.5 will have no doubt been harried by AVG with pop-up notifications telling you to upgrade to AVG8. Unhelpfully the link points to the paid version; one now has to dig through pages on the AVG website to find the free version which does still exist!

However, it’s a small mercy. AVG, the new company name for Grisoft, the manufacturers of AVG anti-virus software have decided to put a lot of bloat in their once streamlined software. A pop-up notification now greets the user attached to the bottom of the Control Centre and a new component, the LinkScanner, which may be thought of as well intentioned but it duplicates functionality that is already built into Firefox. Furthermore, when the LinkScanner is disabled it puts AVG8 into a constant sense of panic: the tray icon starts to constantly report that something is wrong, signalling this with an exclamation mark over the tray icon.

After a quick search I found this article which not only shows you how to install AVG8 without the LinkScanner but how to remove the annoying notifications. I reproduce these in my own words below.

Installing AVG8 Without LinkScanner

1. Uninstall AVG7.5 first through the ‘Add/Remove Software’ menu in ‘My Computer’.
2. Download AVG Free 8 from here, choose the link that says ‘Download AVG Free 8.0 (AVG server)‘.
3. Rename the file to ‘avgfree8.exe‘.
4. Move or copy the file to ‘C:\’ hard drive or the primary windows hard drive.
5. Open a command prompt by going to ‘Start -> Run’ and typing ‘cmd’.
6. Type ‘cd\‘ (That’s a backslash)
7. And then copy the following text and paste it into the command prompt you opened by right-clicking:
   avgfree8.exe /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSurf /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSearch
8. Follow through the installation but decline to install the toolbar and deny permission to share information with AVG.

Removing the Control Centre Pop-Up Notification

1. Navigate to ‘C:\Program Files\AVG\AVG8′, or wherever you installed AVG8.
2. Rename the files: ‘avgmwdef_us.mht‘ and ‘avgresf.dll‘ by adding ‘.disabled‘ to the end of each.
   So they will become: ‘avgmwdef_us.mht.disabled‘ and ‘avgresf.dll.disabled‘ respectively.

Windows XP SP2.
Azureus 3.0.4.2
JRE 1.5.0_11

The checkbox when ticked should remove any inactive items, so there should be no queue showing in the status bar. However, if Azureus is left open for awhile and check for updates is set, even when this is checked there will be a build up of “Check for Updates” listed in this “Operations in Progress” window.

The expected behaviour is that once the “Automatically remove ianctive items” checkbox is ticked that they will neither show up on the status bar nor inside the “Operations in Progress” window.

Since apparently Sourceforge does not want me to report this bug in Azureus (Win XP SP2) version 3.0.4.2 as I have a weird email address or something like that I’m going to post my grievance here.

“Windows XP SP2.
Azureus 3.0.4.2
JRE 1.5.0_11

When adding a torrent file, or using the file picker in any instance. It does not remember a folder’s view options.

For instance “File->Open->Add Files” to get the file chooser/picker.

Now go to “View Options”, and select “details”.

Personally I then click on the “Date Modified” column header to get the most recently modified item at the top of the column. In Windows these options are saved by individual folder preference.

As an example, I have a folder where I save my .torrent files for access with Azureus. Every time I want to select the last modified .torrent file (This equates to most recent) I have to go through these annoying three-clicks every time. Whereas it should realise that it’s in my /Torrent folder and my preference in this folder is to have it in “Details” view, sorted by Date Modified descending.”

When my sister bought her Acer 5022Wlmi notebook and her Western Digital 250GB MyBook, they both came formatted as FAT32.

I don’t know why this practice persists. Although, now that I’m considering switching to Linux again, I’m sure I’ll appreciate it more because FAT32 can be easily read by GNU/Linux.

In a modern age, where people rip entire-DVDs to their hard drives; the 4GB limit of FAT32 can be encumbering.

In which case you can easily convert FAT32 to NTFS without having to reformat the drive, so you don’t lose any of your data!

Whoopee! I could copy and paste but the direct source is better. Find the information here.

There are a few good things about the Windows Key, although I still don’t think it should be on Thinkpad laptop keyboards since you can just assign it to Alt+Gr.

• Windows Key + R = Run Prompt (Useful for launching command line or msconfig)
• Windows Key + M = Minimise All Open Windows
• Windows Key + L = Lock Computer
• Windows Key + E = Open Explorer Window

I didn’t know about Win+E until reading this article on theinquirer.net which is about spring cleaning your PC. Noting it down because it’s actually a real time saver. Hope someone finds that one useful.