Disable

How to: Enable disabled USB in Windows

Posted by Rick on in Technology How To's, Windows 0 Comment

How to: Enable disabled USB in Windows

Note: This assumes you have administrator rights on the Windows PC in question. Valid for all version of Windows I was able to test it on. (XP, 2000, Windows 7)

Note #2: This command edits the Registry. Doing so incorrectly can severely mess up your machine. If you do not feel comfortable editing the Registry, contact your IT department or local Computer Shop.

Some Virus and Malware will disable the USB ports in Windows to keep themselves from getting “cleaned” off the machine. Note that this does not affect the USB Keyboard or Mouse in any way.

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type “regedit,” and then click OK.
3. Locate, and then click the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesUsbStor
4. In the right pane, double-click “Start”.
5. In the Value data box, type “3” without quotes
6. Click Hexadecimal if it is not already selected, and then click OK.
6. Quit Registry Editor
7.) Restart Computer

To re-disable, in step 5 use “4” instead.

If you do not have administrative rights to the computer, contact your IT department, or your local Computer Repair Shop.

How To: Fix Final Cut and Bonjour issues

Posted by Rick on in Apple, Technology How To's 0 Comment

How To: Fix Final Cut and Bonjour issues

A lot of companies disable Bonjour on Mac OSX for a variety of reasons, usually because it’s very “chatty” and tends to take up a lot of network bandwidth by itself. It can also cause issues with Printer Sharing, causing print jobs to disappear.

But, some Apple products such as Final Cut, and certain Adobe Suite products demand to have Bonjour enabled.

Luckily Apple Support has a perfect fix for this.

1.) First step is to copy the plist file to make a backup, I like to just add .bak to make things easier in the future:
cp /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist.bak (all on one line)

2.) Open mDNSResponder.plist in your text editor of choice. Doing it from terminal is best.

sudo vi “/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist”

3.) Add “-NoMulticastAdvertisements” to the array in the “ProgramArguments” section.

It starts like this:

ProgramArguments

/usr/sbin/mDNSResponder
-launchd

And needs to look like this:
ProgramArguments

/usr/sbin/mDNSResponder
-launchd
-NoMulticastAdvertisements

4.) After saving the file and closing it, you’ll need to reboot the computer. Keep in mind that if you used EMACS to edit the file, you need to remove the temp file it created, “/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist~” first or your computer will not reboot.

How To: Disable OS X Quick Look

Posted by Rick on in Hacking, Technology How To's 0 Comment

How To: Disable OS X Quick Look

Quick Look in OS X is an awesome feature. I’m constantly using it to check out PDF files without needing to open them.

But in some environments, it doesn’t make sense or causes a huge amount of issues.

So to disable this, in the terminal type; (as root or admin user)

defaults write “$3/System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.quicklook” Disabled -bool true

Restart the Finder, and you’re good to go!

This works in 10.6.x but apparently crashes 10.5.x (I’m not able to confirm the later as I don’t have 10.5)

How To: Disable MacDefender and MacProtector

Posted by Rick on in Apple, Technology How To's, virus 0 Comment

How To: Disable MacDefender and MacProtector

MacDefender and MacProtector are the latest in “anti-virus” protections that are actually malicious themselves. These are targeted towards Macs specifically, but are NOT virus. These are trojans, and can be picked up by visiting malicious sites.

To disable:
As an admin user (most are by default)
Open up Terminal and type: sudo killall MacDefender
Substitute MacProtector if that’s the version affecting your computer.

The password will be your login password.

Then type: sudo -u $username> defaults write com.apple.Safari AutoOpenSafeDownloads -bool false

Replace the word username with your login name; or if you don’t know it, look to the left in terminal.

Hit enter, it should not ask for a password for the second time. This will keep the application from downloading again.

Once that has happened, be sure to visit http://adobe.com/flash and update your Flash software to help block these.

The last step is to use Spotlight to search your computer for the bad app. Once you find it, be sure to throw it into the Trash, then Empty the Trash.