Remove Nissan.exe trojan / NewsPaedia

If your browser keeps opening on its own with websites like thenewpaedia.com, it is quite likely that you have a trojan/backdoor program nissan.exe.

This exe resides in your recycle-bin. It makes entries in the system registry so it gets loaded everytime someone logs in. The exe remains in memory all the time and detects any registry modification on a key and writes back its own values.

First let's see where the exe resides. It probably resides in a path like "C:\RECYCLER\S-1-5-21-3028898713-0813311981-684376638-1852\nissan.exe".
Open a command-prompt,
C:\>
C:\>cd \
C:\>cd "Recycler"
C:\>dir /a hsr *.*
You should now see an entry for nissan.exe. This exe has to be removed. Right now, it will not be possible as this exe is already loaded in memory.

Now lets see where in the registry the entry exists for loading the exe:
Open regedit.exe
Navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon"
Here you should see an entry named 'Taskman' having a value like "C:\RECYCLER\S-1-5-21-3028898713-0813311981-684376638-1852\nissan.exe".
We need to somehow get this entry deleted.
We cannot delete it right now as the nissan.exe will detect the 'delete' and will immediately write back the value.

How to get rid of this:
1. Create a user on the system who is not an Administrator
2. Log off from any account which may have Admin rights.
3. Log in as a regular (non-admin user).
4. Navigate to Windows\System32 folder and do a RunAs->Administrator on
- Regedt32.exe
- Cmd.exe
- TaskMgr.exe
5. Switch to TaskMgr instance which you started in Step 4. Kill all instances of
Explorer.exe
6. Now switch to Regedit instance and search for Nissan.exe and remove all values where it shows up. Do a find for 'nissan.exe' a few times just to make sure.
7. Switch to command prompt instance and del all entries of nissan.exe by running
C:\>
C:\>cd \
C:\>cd "Recycler"
C:\>dir /a hsr *.*
This will display exactly where nissan.exe is for e.g.
"C:\RECYCLER\S-1-5-21-3028898713-0813311981-684376638-1852\nissan.exe".
Now to delete the entries:
C:\>attrib -hsr "C:\RECYCLER\S-1-5-21-3028898713-0813311981-684376638-1852\nissan.exe"
C:\>del "C:\RECYCLER\S-1-5-21-3028898713-0813311981-684376638-1852\nissan.exe"

Do a dir nissan.exe and check if you missed out any entry.
By now all entries which launch the exe should have been removed.

I have a suspicion that USB drives get affected and when such 'affected' drives auto-run, the system gets infected. I would therefore recommend that you disable AUTORUN on all drives. Follow the instructions in the link:
Disable autorun

Download FULL SQL Express 2008

Here are the links where the full installer for SQL Express may be found:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=58CE885D-508B-45C8-9FD3-118EDD8E6FFF&displaylang=en

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=08E52AC2-1D62-45F6-9A4A-4B76A8564A2B&displaylang=en

Installing Microsoft products really sucks

Installing Microsoft applications is a fu**ed-up experience.
Why can't they ever get them right?
Ever since the highly touted .NET framework made its appearance, installing anything coming out of Microsoft has become a royal pain.

Thought I'd install SQL Server 2008 developer edition and see the new features. What I am greeted with? A long long long download process from the Internet to get .NET 3.5 SP1. Man! why couldn't they package the offline version on the DVD?

Anyway, after the download is complete, the installation of .NET 3.5 SP1 itself took almost an hour. Why? It takes that much time to install Windows OS in the first place?

Ok, now at least I can select all the cool 'features' of SQL I want to install, I select almost everything and click the dreaded 'Next' button. Whay do I see? I am now told to install SP1 of Visual Studio first before installing SQL 2008 Man, that's the final straw. Is this the way to make software?

That's not all, go to the download page for .NET SP1 on Microsoft's site:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ab99342f-5d1a-413d-8319-81da479ab0d7&displaylang=en

This is taken right from the page:
"IMPORTANT: After installing the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 package (either the bootstrapper or the full package) you should immediately install the update KB959209 to address a set of known application compatibility issues.
In addition, on Windows Vista x64 and Windows Server 2008 x64, install the update KB967190 to address a file association issue for XPS documents."

HAHAHA! Installing SP1 itself requires installing another fix on it immediately! hehehe.. Don't ask if installing the fix requires you to install another something, I am too scared to go check.

Where have all the 'real' developers gone from Microsoft?

Thought provoking site

http://www.spaceship-earth.de/PoS/Index_PoS.htm

Big shops, big names or the small local ones

What is the difference between a big shop (e.g. Excite/Croma/Vijay Sales etc) and the local across the street computer dealer?

- Big shops have more products on display
- Big shops have better ambiance
- Big shops are more customer friendly
- Big shops offer better product support
- Big shops are hassle free one stop shop for your needs

Really?

I think its the exact opposite. I don't just 'think' that, but I have experienced that many times in many different 'big' shops.

Big shops have more products:
Few days back, the customer likes an LG LCD TV on display, wants to buy it so ordered it from Excite. 'Big' shop says we don't have it in stock but we 'can' get it for you.
Now, how is it that a 'big' shop have such a paltry stock of items? If they are having products in display then why not in stock?

Moving on, 'big' shop says they will get it ... 'if customer pays 75% of the price in advance'! wow!
The customer has to pay the price of bad stock keeping!.. OK..

Customer pays the advance, big shops says 'the piece will come in 1-2 days'. Customer waits for 2 weeks! Customer eventually wants his money back. 'Big' shop says, if will take 1 month to reverse the Credit Card payment! Amazing! ... Customer cannot even get back the money for something he did not purchase!

So, products on display, big shops win,
but
they do not win at delivering the final product.

Better ambiance & customer friendliness:
You enter you local dealer, he says 'Hi Sid, how's your kid .. etc'.
You enter 'big shop', 2 ladies come rushing at you with 'welcome to ... Sir!'. You cover your face and say 'thanks, I'm just taking a look at stuff, please don't kill me!'. After that you have one person rushing at you with a leaflet saying 'you must fill up this form to become a member to avail 'great' discounts, 'free' gift' and whatnot.
As you browse through the neatly arranged products, a security person keeps moving behind and to make sure you're not a thief.
As all this is happening, you being to sweat. You wonder why... the 'big' shop attendants have probably been ordered NOT to turn on the A/C when number of customers are low by the owner.
Finally when your trying to make the payment, you ask how much points will you get for the 'big purchase' you are about to make. He says 'No points for this Sir!, you are buying it at a sale'!
Why do they even take the trouble to make us members?

So as you see, everything that is happening is against the customer. Customer satisfaction is LEAST important.

So, a small shop with just a 'hi sir, how are you?' is MUCH more friendly than big shops who have so many things which are useless for the customer.

Big shops offer better product support:
Most people will have different experience around this. For me, I somehow feel so intimidated by 'big' shops, I usually don't phone them. I personally take the item (if it is small) and try to get it replaced. On the other hand, the local shops are more than happy to send 'Ramu' with a replacement piece.
So, I'd say, smaller shops still have better customer support which is a result of better customer relation.

Big shops are hassle free one stop shop for your needs:
They are hassle free for finding out which product you want to buy.
But to actually buy the product it looks like the smaller shop is better for all the above reasons.

What could be the reason for the failure of these big retailers?
- I think the problem is that they (owners) have too much money already so they could not care less about their customers.
- The owners are no longer personally involved with the shops and customers.
- Human beings are basically greedy and ungrateful.
- The employees of the big shops in turn don't care about customers since they anyway are getting their salaries customers or not. Even if they get chucked out, working in a shop is anyway not such a big deal, they can get equivalent jobs elsewhere.

Does all this seem familiar?

Which SQL Jobs are currently executing

Following script lists currently executing SQL jobs.

select
j.job_id, j.name
from
msdb..sysjobactivity a (NOLOCK)
inner join
msdb..sysjobs j (NOLOCK)
on
j.job_id=a.job_id
where
a.start_execution_date is not null
and
a.job_history_id is null

Horror of installing XP on ASUS M3N78-EM

After trying to get comfortable with Vista x64 on my new machine (ASUS M3N78-EM, Phenom Triple Core, 4 GB RAM), I decided that it's just not gonna happen. I couldn't connect my Sony HandyCam as drivers were not present, my plain old HP Deskjet 64bit drivers weren't working..basically the whole experience was pretty miserable.

Anyway, decided that XP 32bit is still the way to go. Installed slipstreamed version of XP SP3. Everthing worked except ... THE SOUND! Searched google and found lots of forums where people had similar problems with the RealTek Hi definition audio drivers. I tried ALL solutions I came across including installing XP UAA drivers (available with HP), installing latest drivers from ASUS for my MOBO, drivers from RealTek, nothing worked. Finally there was a post which suggested installing only SP2 of XP and then installing the Realtek Drivers and guess what? THIS WORKED!

Hope this helps anyone else having similar problems.