Solution to “USB device not recognized” problem

Recently my colleague approached me with a problem that his 2GB Pen Drive (Transcend JetFlash V30) is not getting recognized by his Windows XP PC. Whenever the pen drive is plugged into the PC, an error occurs: "USB Device not Recognized". Upon checking I found that all of his USB ports were okay, and the same pen drive was working fine with other PCs in our office.

This problem occurs due to any of the following reasons.

• Virus infection
• Device driver problem
• Windows registry problem

It is always recommended to fully scan your PC with an updated antivirus software.

It may be the case that you need to re-install drivers for

• Chipset
• USB device
• USB add-on card (if you are using one)

If virus-scanning of your PC and driver re-installation does not solve your problem, then chances are that problem lies with Windows registry. So follow step-by-step procedures.

Step 1: Disconnect USB device that is not being recognized.

Step 2: Remove Hidden Devices

1. Open a command prompt window.
2. Type set DEVMGR_SHOW_DETAILS=1 and press <enter> key.
3. Type set DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1 and press <enter> key.
4. Type start devmgmt.msc and press <enter> key.
5. Click View > Show hidden devices.
6. Click "+" to expand devices, Unknown devices and USB devices. If there are any devices and unknown devices (including grayed out devices)? If so, please right click it and click Uninstall them.

Step 3: Remove all oem*.inf files

1. Open a command prompt window
2. In the command line, execute following commands in that order.

• cd \windows\inf
• ren infcache.1 *.old
• ren oem*.inf *.old
• del C:\windows\setupapi.log
• exit

Step 4: Remove all entries under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/.../Enum/USB that start with VID using Registry editor (Regedit.exe).

Warning: Do not remove VID entries pertaining to USB keyboard, mouse, scanners, and other USB devices which may be installed on your machine and working fine.

1. Launch Registry Editor (Regedit.exe)
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB
3. Delete all VID_.... entries for USB devices that you cannot identify.
4. If you are faced with permission denied problem, then right-click the key to be deleted, and then click Permissions. The VID_... Permissions window will open. With Everyone highlighted in the Group or User name section, select Full Control in the Permissions section. Click on Apply button, and then click on OK button.
5. Restart your PC.

Step 5: Reconnect the USB device that was not previously working. Windows should automatically reinstall the drivers.

If following the above-mentioned procedures does not solve your problem, then

1. Shutdown your PC.
2. Disconnect all cables including PS2, Serial, USB, Parallel, Power cables from your CPU unit. It will stop supply of even minor current supply to motherboard. This will help purge the motherboard cache.
3. Start your PC after 30 minutes.

Technorati Tags: USB device not recognized

Blat, the mass mailer

Often you need to send large number of solicited emails to recipients on individual basis. Instead of sending emails one-by-one to every recipient, there are mass mailers which can save your valuable time. Blat v2.6.2 is one such Win32 console utility which is useful for sending large number of emails. It can also be used in scripts so that emails are send automatically. In order to use Blat you must have access to a SMTP server via TCP-IP protocol. Some of the features Blat offers are as follows.

• Various profiles can be created.
• Default settings can be stored in the registry.
• Input can be provided from the disk file as well as from the console (STDIN).
• Carbon Copy and Blind Carbon Copy are supported.
• Binary and Text attachments are supported

blat262.full.zip file available for download contains program documentation and binaries. The program is very easy to use.

Technorati Tags: Blat,Mass mailer,Email

System Information for Windows

System Information for Windows 2010 freeware version, aka, SIW by Gabriel Topala is very good tool to gather information about your Windows based machine. The SIW freeware version cannot be used for commercial purpose.

SIW classifies system information into Software, Hardware, and Network. In each of these categories, the information is further classified into number of sub-categories.

1. Software
   • Operating System
   • System Directories
   • System Files
   • Installed Programs
   • Applications
   • Security
   • Licenses
   • Accessibility
   • Environment
   • Regional Settings
   • File Associations
   • Running Processes
   • Loaded DLLs
   • Drivers
   • NT Services
   • NT Pipes
   • Autorun
   • Browser Helper Objects
   • Scheduled Tasks
   • Databases
   • Audio and Video Codecs
   • Shared DLLs
   • ActiveX
   • Shell Extensions
   • Open Files
   • Group and Users
   • Protected Files
   • Event Viewer
   • Passwords
2. Hardware
   • System Summary
   • Motherboard
   • BIOS
   • CPU Info
   • Memory
   • Sensors
   • Devices
   • PCI
   • System Slots
   • Network Adapters
   • Video
   • Sound Device
   • Storage Devices
   • Logical Disks
   • Ports
   • Power Policy
   • Battery
   • Printers
   • Resources
3. Network
   • Network Information
   • Neighborhood Scan
   • Open Ports
   • Shares
   • RAS Connections
   • Network
   • Search Network Neighborhood

Macrium Reflect – Free disk imaging solution

Macrium Reflect Free Edition from Paramount Software UK Ltd. is a tool which can be used to create an exact image of partitions on your hard disk for easy hard disk upgrade or complete/partial system recovery.  The image can be used to restore the entire disk, partition or select files/folders in the event of system loss. Images can be stored on local or network drives, CD/DVD, and removable drives connected using USB/Firewire.

For example, if you want to create image of C: partition, then select it in the list of partitions.

Right click and select Create Image of ‘1 - <NO NAME> (C:)’

Select the backup destination, then click on Next button.

Click on Advanced button.

Select High as compression level to save disk space.

Click on File Size in the left pane and select Automatic. Click on OK button.

Check on Run this backup now and click on OK button.

This creates a disk partition image of C: partition.It is better to move this disk partition image on another disk/media and keep it at safe place.

In the event of catastrophe, the system can be recovered using the Reflect recovery CD, which is either a compact version of the Linux operating system or a BartPE CD prepared using PE-Builder*. It is highly recommended that you create  the Reflect recovery CD immediately after installing the Macrium Reflect software.

* PE-Builder from Bart Lagerweij is a free software that is used to create BartPE CD which is a Windows live CD.

Technorati Tags: Macrium Reflect,Disk imaging,Disk cloning

EjectUSB

EjectUSB by William Hedrick can be used to close all programs running from a specified removable drive or folder and then attempt ejection if a drive is specified. Extended functionality includes flushing the file cache, closing Explorer windows and removing registry entries and Recent Document shortcuts referencing the specified drive or folder. EjectUSB reads its settings from EjectUSB.ini which resides in the same folder as EjectUSB.exe. If EjectUSB.ini does not exist, EjectUSB will run with default settings.

Once launched EjectUSB sits in System Tray and can be used to eject USB media. It supports following 6 command line arguments:

• drive letter or folder path
• /eject
• /force
• /ini
• /nobat
• /settings

Technorati Tags: EjectUSB

HJSplit – Free file splitting program for Windows

HJSplit 2.4 is a file splitting program for Windows XP, Vista, 2000, NT, 95, 98, ME. HJSplit is able to split files of any type and any size. It can be used freely for commercial and non commercial purpose.

Click on Split button and select Input File and Output location. Select split file size and click on Start button. HJSplit splits input file into multiple files and stores these in selected output folder. Click on Close button once finished.

Click on Join button on main screen. Select first part of split file (file extension .001) and select output folder. Click on Start button and HJSplit joins all parts to create original file. Click on Close button once finished.

HJSplit can also be used to compare 2 files. Select File 1 and File 2 and click on Start button to start comparison. Click on Close button once finished.

HJSplit can also be used to calculate checksum of a file. Select file and click on Start button. The calculated checksum value is shown under file path.

Technorati Tags: HJSplit,File split,File join,File compare,File checksum

USB Safeguard – Portable application for data protection

USB Safeguard is a portable tool to encrypt and protect data with a password on your removable pen drive using the AES 256 bits encryption algorithm (Rijndael). This is helpful in securing your data in case drive is lost or stolen. Download a copy of this tool and store it on your removable drive.

Set your password and confirm by pressing OK button. You can also use Windows On-Screen Keyboard to type password by clicking small keyboard icon left to OK button.

Clicking on button shows follows menu.

Click on first entry to set your contact details in case your drive is lost or stolen.

USB Safeguard offers you to store your password in a file.

Now drag & drop files/folders of your removable drive that you want to protect.

Click on Encrypt button to protect files/folders dropped inside the file box or click on Encrypt All button to protect everything on your removable drive.

After successful encryption of the data, you can erase the original files/folders using standard data erasure algorithms.

Click OK button to continue.

Click OK button to continue.

To access your protected file, launch USB Safeguard from removable drive. Type your password and select which files/folders you want to decrypt. You can also erase encrypted files/folders along with decryption.

Technorati Tags: USB Safeguard,USB protection,Portable app

7 tools for USB protection

1. Arpantech iKill

2. Net Studio USB FireWall

3. Netwrix USB Blocker

4. Thumbscrew USB Write Blocker

When launched it placed an icon in System Tray and allows you to make USB read only or writeable.

5. USB Disk Security

6. Panda Research USB Vaccine

7. USB WriteProtector

Technorati Tags: Arpantech iKill,Net Studio USB FireWall,Netwrix USB Blocker,Thumbscrew USB Write Blocker,USB Disk Security,Panda Research USB Vaccine,USB WriteProtector

Proxy+ – A freeware proxy server for Windows

Proxy+ from FORTECH Ltd. is an application level proxy server, that connects your LAN to Internet. The main Proxy+ features are:

• support of HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, Gopher, RealAudio (and other) protocols
• disc cache which saves bandwidth on the Internet connection
• mail server with many options
• POP3 downloader which allows to download multiple POP3 boxes from the Internet.

It supports restriction rule sets you can apply to  POP3 boxes or messages in the boxes. 3 users is for free (freeware application). If you want a version for more users you have to order a registration key.

Proxy+ can be configured through web interface - http://x.x.x.x:4400 where x.x.x.x is the name or IP address of the computer running Proxy+. Proxy+ allows you to configure security settings to restrict access to limited number of clients.

Although single page help file installed along with Proxy+ is enough, you can also access Knowledge base articles at following URL:

http://www.proxyplus.net/kb/searchkb.php

 

Technorati Tags: Proxy+,Freeware,Proxy Server,HTTP,HTTPS,POP3,FTP,Gopher,RealAudio

Freeware USB Firewall

Net Studio USB FireWall 1.1.3 detects automatically all files which try to launch itself when an USB device is inserted.

When launched, USB FireWall resides in System Tray and monitors USB devices for autorun applications.

Technorati Tags: Net Studio,USB Firewall

Technitium MAC Address Changer

Technitium MAC Address Changer (TMAC) by Shreyas Zare is a freeware network setting manipulation tool for Windows. You can use is to

• change MAC address of an Network Interface Card
• enable/disable a network connection
• add/remove an IP address
• add/remove a gateway
• add/remove a DNS server IP address
• enable/disable DHCP on a network connection
• release IP and renew lease for selected connection
• set interface metric
• create/modify/delete a configuration preset
• configure Internet Explore HTTP proxy settings

TMAC also provides command line interface for above-listed operations. The command line syntax is as follows.

tmac -n network_connection_name   [-m mac_address / -nm mac_address / -r / -nr ]   [-h]   [-i ip_address_1[,ip_address_2...] :subnet_mask_1[,subnet_mask_2...]]   [-g gateway_1[,gateway_2...] :metric_1[,metric_2...]]   [-d dns_server_1[,dns_server_2...]]   [-pxy http_proxy_server_address:port]   [-p preset_name]   [-s]   [-re]   [-di]   [-rn]   [-rl]   [-sv]   [-ro]   [-nta]   [-nst]   [-f preset_file]

OPTION DETAILS-

-n     Specifies name of the network connection/adapter (NIC). Name may be complete or partial or just a part of it.

-m     Specifies a MAC address. Blank MAC address implies original MAC address of the NIC.

-nm    Specifies a non-persistent MAC address. Blank MAC address implies original MAC address of the NIC.

-r     Specifies to use a random MAC address from manufacturers list.

-nr    Specifies to use a non-persistent random MAC address from manufacturers list.

-h     Enables DHCP and removes previous IP addresses and Gateways.

-rl    Releases DHCP server assigned IP address.

-Rn    Renews IP address lease from DHCP server.

-i     Changes IP address. IP address list is comma separated, subnet masks list is comma separated. Both IP addresses and subnet masks lists are separated using a colon ':'

-g     Changes Gateway address. Gateway addresses list is comma separated, metrics list is comma separated. Both Gateway addresses and metric lists separated using a colon ':'

-d     Changes DNS server address. DNS server address list is comma separated.

-pxy   Sets Internet Explorer HTTP proxy server. If server address is blank, proxy settings are disabled.

-s     Silent mode. Do not show any message window.

-re    Restarts network connection/adapter.

-di    Disable network connection/adapter.

-p     Specifies name of a preset saved earlier to be used. Preset name may be complete or partial or just a part of it. This parameter over powers all other network settings.

-sv    Loads short vendor list which makes TMAC load faster. This parameter over powers all other parameters.

-ro    Resets the original MAC address info saved in registry by TMAC. Use this only if original MAC address saved is wrong. This parameter over powers all other parameters.

-nta   Disable system tray animated icon.

-nst   Disable system tray icon.

-f     Specify preset file to load.

-help  Displays help message.

Technorati Tags: Technitium,MAC Address Changer

Disk space analysis with Disk Space Fan

Disk Space Fan is a freeware disk space analysis tool for Windows, which displays disk space allocation in Ringschart. The Ringschart is composed of a set of nested rings around a central circle.

The central circle symbolizes the root folder. Each ring represents a level in the directory. Each subfolder or file is represented by a sector of the ring. Its angle being proportional to the size of the folder's contents, and painted with a different color to ease visualization. Files are painted in light gray color. Folder or file which is smaller than 1/180 of the size of root folder will be ignored.

The chart displays five levels. In case a folder in that last fifth level contains even more subfolders, this situation is pointed by presenting a curve close to the edge of that folder's ring sector. When the mouse pointer hovers on one of the folders in the graphic, it is highlighted and a tooltip appears with information about its name and size.

Technorati Tags: Disk Space Fan,disk space analysis

Xenu Link Sleuth – Freeware spider

Xenu's Link Sleuth is a freeware that is used to check Web sites for broken links. Link verification is done on "normal" links, images, frames, plug-ins, backgrounds, local image maps, style sheets, scripts and java applets. It displays a continuously updated list of URLs which you can sort by different criteria. A report can be produced on following parameters.

• Broken links, ordered by links
• Broken links, ordered by page
• Broken local links
• Redirected URLs
• FTP and gopher URLs
• Valid text URLs
• Site Map
• Statistics
• Orphan files

Technorati Tags: Xenu Link Sleuth,Web spider,link checker

Great freeware from 2BrightSparks

2BrightSparks presents a number of useful freeware tools.

• SyncBack Freeware V3.2.20.0
  You can use SyncBack to easily backup and synchronize your files to: the same drive; a different drive or medium (CDRW, CompactFlash, etc); an FTP server; a Network; or a Zip archive.
• InfoHesive Freeware Viewer V 2.3.0.0
  You can use this freeware to read InfoHesive Help Files and eBooks with annotations.
• EncryptOnClick Freeware
  EncryptOnClick is very simple to use and features military grade 256-bit AES encryption.
• DeleteOnClick Freeware
  Even if you delete a file or folder using Windows without moving it to Recycle Bin (Trash), the data you have deleted is not actually removed from your computer. Instead, Windows makes the space occupied by the file available for writing. DeleteOnClick completely deletes files in one click rather than sending the file to the recycle bin.
• HashOnClick Freeware
  HashOnClick ensures that your files haven't been tampered with. It quickly provides information to compare hash values side by side to establish the data in one file exactly matches (or not) the data in another.
• PatchOnClick Freeware
  PatchOnClick allows you to send and receive updates to large files without having to send or receive the whole file each time.

2BrightSparks also offers enhanced commercial versions of these software.

Technorati Tags: 2BrightSparks,SyncBack,backup,synchronize,InfoHesive,ebook reader,EncryptOnClick,DeleteOnClick,HashOnClick,PatchOnClick

TightVNC – Free remote control software

TightVNC is a free, cross-platform, open source remote desktop software application that uses and extends features offered by VNC’s (Virtual Networking Computing) RFB protocol. All VNC packages works on client-server model, where in a VNC client machine connects to a machine running VNC server and displays full or part of VNC server desktop on client machine.

TightVNC setup is straight forward. Below screen shots shows step-by-step installation.

To launch TightVNC server, click on Start > Programs > TightVNC > Launch TightVNC Server. Click on Unblock button in the Windows Security Alert dialog box to allow TightVNC to accept network connections.

TightVNC Server user properties window has 5 tabs: Server, Hooks, Display, Query, and Administration. The Server tab has options for setting up passwords, input handling, display or port numbers, response to client-disconnection, etc.

TightVNC server provides administration and viewing facility to VNC client(s) connected with it. It is recommended that you setup different passwords for administration and viewing purpose. Default string of asterisk shown in password box is actually of blank passwords. If you don’t setup passwords for TightVNC Server, in its default settings, TightVNC Server will refuse client connections, because running a VNC server without setting a password is a security risk, and TightVNC displays following warning in this regard.

The default port numbers for access through VNC client and HTTP client are 5900 and 5800 respectively. It is recommended that you set your own port numbers to make TightVNC configuration more secure.

The Hooks tab has options for polling modes and mirror driver.

A mirror driver boosts screen update performance. It is recommended that you install DemoForge Mirage Driver for TightVNC. DFMirage is a video driver mirroring technology for the Windows NT OS family. Display mirroring technology is widely employed by remote desktop applications such as: NetMeeting, PC Anywhere, VNC, Webex, etc. Mirroring is a technically superior method than screen grabbing, because it allows the capture of only the minimally updated regions and retrieves the data directly, bypassing the intermediate copy.

The Display tab allows you to setup sharing area. In general Full Desktop is selected for remote administration purpose.

At a definite time interval TightVNC Server can query the console on incoming client connection and take default action to either refuse or accept even without authentication (recommended only if you are sure that machine will be accessed by the most trusted clients only).

TightVNC’s tight encoding is a combination of JPEG compression and other types of encoding.It improves application performance and suitable for low bandwidth connections. TightVNC can be used with other client and server implementations of VNC; however, tight encoding is not supported by most other implementations, so to gain full advantage of TightVNC, it is necessary to use TightVNC at both ends.

Among notable enhancements are file transfers, support for Windows DFMirage mirror driver to detect screen updates, zoom ability and automatic SSH tunneling on Unix.

TightVNC Group also offers TightVNC Portable Edition where TightVNC Server and Viewer are run from a USB flash drive and all settings, connection history and passwords are kept in USB drive.

Technorati Tags: TightVNC,VNC,Virtual Network Computing,Remote control,Remote desktop,Open source,Tight encoding,JPEG compression,Free,TightVNC Portable Edition,DemoForge,Mirror display driver,DFMirage