Windows 10 and Dell laptop issues

Bit the bullet and upgraded my Dell Vostro 3550 to Windows 10 (even though it shows as not compatible on the Dell website)..
All seemed to be going fine - Windows 10 logo on bootup, but then the screen went black - the backlight was on, so it seemed like Windows was running but no displaying on the laptop screen.

A quick search showed it was a common problem, and that the basically the graphics card is treating the laptop screen as another monitor, and displaying the main display on the external display (that isn't plugged in!)

Connected up a monitor via a VGA cable, and the Windows 10 logon screen was displayed. Logged in and uninstalled the Intel HD 3000 Graphics card, and then let Windows download the latest driver from Windows Update.

Have also fixed a Dell Inspiron which had the same problem, but upgrading the graphics drivers didn't resolve the issue. Upgraded the BIOS as well as it was on a old version, and laptop screen worked as it should after a reboot.

Easy Transfer Wizard not working

Trying to swap out a PC today, so was using the Easy Transfer Wizard built into Windows 7.
Both old and new PC's were on the network, and could talk to each other, but working through the screens, and entering the code it looked like it was starting to work, then both PC's would display the following:

Windows Easy Transfer is unable to continue. Please reboot computer and try again.

Really helpful!

Quick search brought this up
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-system/windows-easy-transfer-is-unable-to-continue-please/7111ba9c-bfb3-42da-966f-33c6c1cb5f34

There was an unknown account showing in the user profiles, so deleted it (i'm assuming it was the $client_setup$ account that the Connector software creates to join to the domain), so deleted, rebooted and successfully managed to copy the user's profile across to the new PC.

Hide administrator account from Welcome screen

Setting up a new laptop (Win 7 Professional), and i enable the administrator account so i can access the PC's from the server, but it started showing on the Welcome screen as a user, which i didn't want.

Found this http://www.mydigitallife.info/how-to-create-hidden-user-account-hide-user-account-from-welcome-screen-in-windows/

1. Run Registry Editor (RegEdit.exe).
2. Navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList
   
   Note: If SpecialAccounts and UserList is not found, create new sub-key and name them accordingly.
3. Select UserList, and in the right pane, right click on any blank space, and point to New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value.
4. Name the new DWORD registry value name as the exact same name that match the name of the user account to be hidden. For example, if the user ID of the user account is John, the name the registry value as John.
5. Double click on DWORD registry value, and set the value data to 0 in order to hide the account from Welcome Screen. Tip: To display the user account on Welcome Screen again so that it’s visible again, delete the registry entry, or set the value data to 1.
6. Exit Registry Editor.
7. Log off or restart computer to make the change effective.

Adobe Reader X extract msi

Trying to extract the msi for Adobe Reader X so i can deploy it over a network - old methods i used to use for 8 didn't work.

Searched and found this http://forums.adobe.com/message/3464880

Basically, need to download the offline installer from Adobe, open a command line and enter:

AdbeRdr1010_en_US.exe -nos_o"" -nos_n
(don't put a trailing \ at the end of the file path)

Don't hit cancel yet! Make a copy of the files in that location, then you can select cancel on the install - it will then automatically delete the folder it just created, with all the files in.

Been a bit crap...

At updating my blog, but have now moved it to my domain, and now aiming to start updating it again with my IT findings.

Have also read about clickochet on Cringely's website: http://www.cringely.com/2011/05/what-the-heck-is-a-clickochet/ and was interested in how it worked, so have added their ads on my blogger page.

go.google.com and anti virus pages blocked

Had a look at a PC that was not updating AVG free, or letting you get to any anti-virus or anti-spyware websites.

Manually downloaded and updated AVG and Spybot - Spybot found fraud.pchealth and a couple of other gremlins, but AVG would still not update.
When I googled something and clicked on the link, a new tab opened in Firefox and it went to another search page - the links appeared to be going via go.google.com
Checked hosts files, tcp/ip settings, proxy settings, dns settings. Ran Hijackthis and Spybot again, but still nothing, but still problems with browser forwards, and AVG failing to complete a scan as the services would stop then restart when a scan was initiated.
Finally googled go.google.com and found a link on the techguy.org website:
http://forums.techguy.org/malware-removal-hijackthis-logs/746850-go-google-redirect-virus.html

Followed these instructions
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/how-to-use-combofix
which then ran, found some rootkits, rebooted, and continued scanning and then removed the rest of the virus - tdssserver from memory (i'll get a copy of the fix log)

Rebooted and then downloaded malwarebytes.org and ran that - left the user with orders to run superantispyware and AVG after malwarebytes had finished running; AVG found a trojan within a couple of minutes and deleted it.

Had a call to look at someone's PC - the BBC iPlayer wouldn't work, neither would internet banking, and McAfee Security Centre was blank when it loaded up.

I ran IE7 as administrator (Vista Home Basic) and it worked fine - tried this with McAfee as well and that also worked, so i thought it may have been a permissions issue.
Turned down IE7 security settings, but still nothing, so started Googling it...

Found this link on the McAfee site:

http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?id=107121&lc=1033

And tried this part of it:

1. Click Start and select Search.
2. In the Search box, type CMD and click OK.
3. In the Search results window, right-click CMD and select Run as Administrator.
4. In the command prompt, type REGSVR32 JSCRIPT.DLL and press ENTER.
5. After the confirmation message is displayed, type REGSVR32 VBSCRIPT.DLL and press ENTER.

It then says to uninstall and reinstall McAfee, but i tried it straight away and it worked for everything without any reinstalling needed.
Rebooted just to make sure it still worked and all ok.

Not sure what caused it - whether a Java install got corrupted or something, but all sorted now.