"A new program has been installed"... ok what new program?

[Don Taylor From:]

One of the people clicks Start and it pops up a little

"A New program has been installed"

flag over the start menu. I've trained them to not trust
anything so she waves at me. Well, she hasn't installed
anything intentionally. I immediately scan for crap and
nothing is found. I look through All Programs, nothing
seems out of line. I grope the registry, don't find any
easy results. I search for all files modified in the last
24 hours and get the usual flood of unrelated items.

Ok, where do I find what program has been installed?

And, wouldn't it be nice if that little flag told the
user the name of what had been installed, so they could
recognize it or know this was likely some net vandal?

After half an hour of my looking for vermin she went back
to work and I'll just try to keep an eye on it.

 

[felicia]

One of the people clicks Start and it pops up a little

"A New program has been installed"

flag over the start menu. I've trained them to not trust
anything so she waves at me. Well, she hasn't installed
anything intentionally. I immediately scan for crap and
nothing is found. I look through All Programs, nothing
seems out of line. I grope the registry, don't find any
easy results. I search for all files modified in the last
24 hours and get the usual flood of unrelated items.

Ok, where do I find what program has been installed?

And, wouldn't it be nice if that little flag told the
user the name of what had been installed, so they could
recognize it or know this was likely some net vandal?

After half an hour of my looking for vermin she went back
to work and I'll just try to keep an eye on it.

If the user is on a network, could it be another user who installed the
program?

 

[Don Taylor From:]

If the user is on a network, could it be another user who installed the
program?

Not on her machine. And nobody installed anything that any
of us know about, on any of the machines.

 

[T. Waters]

I would not worry too much. The message might have been invoked in error.
Wondering if the user did a System Restore recently?

 

[Don Taylor From:]

I would not worry too much. The message might have been invoked in error.

This is starting to sound like Homeland Security, be very very afraid,
but there is nothing we can tell you about why or what to do. Idiots.

Wondering if the user did a System Restore recently?

I don't think there has EVER been a restore done in the whole shop.

Firewall is up but shows nothing other than the usual crap banging
on the door.

 

[T. Waters]

If it is any comfort, malware that installs itself does not invoke the "new
program" message.

 

[V Green]

Bring up the full Start>>All Programs list and
start going through it.

New programs will be "highlighted" in a different
color.

But, I tend to agree with others, this "feature" is just
malfunctioning, like so much other unnecessary crap on XP, and
is in error.

 

[Richard Urban]

"Ok, where do I find what program has been installed?"


You would look in the start menu | all programs for a high lighted item!

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Don Taylor From:]

Bring up the full Start>>All Programs list and start going through it.

New programs will be "highlighted" in a different color.

Really?! Wow, another "feature" of the "discoverable interface."

And I suppose that the highlighting is long gone now.

But, I tend to agree with others, this "feature" is just
malfunctioning, like so much other unnecessary crap on XP, and
is in error.

Well, I'm usually up for informative little notes, at least as
long as they tell me what happened and don't get in the way.
Mathematica has a cute idea, when something goes wrong it beeps
at you. Then in the About menu there is a "Why the beep" that
you can go look at for extra information and it will be available
until you quit or until the next beep overwrites it. That means
you don't have to click some silly OK button, it doesn't clutter
up your screen, but if you wonder what went wrong you can find out.

Now if every Windows Explorer crash would just explain how they
screwed up again.

 

[V Green]

Really?! Wow, another "feature" of the "discoverable interface."

And I suppose that the highlighting is long gone now

Actually, at least here, it lasted for about 5 days.

Worth a look, anyway...

 

[Al Smith]

One of the people clicks Start and it pops up a little

"A New program has been installed"

flag over the start menu. I've trained them to not trust
anything so she waves at me. Well, she hasn't installed
anything intentionally. I immediately scan for crap and
nothing is found. I look through All Programs, nothing
seems out of line. I grope the registry, don't find any
easy results. I search for all files modified in the last
24 hours and get the usual flood of unrelated items.

Ok, where do I find what program has been installed?

And, wouldn't it be nice if that little flag told the
user the name of what had been installed, so they could
recognize it or know this was likely some net vandal?

After half an hour of my looking for vermin she went back
to work and I'll just try to keep an eye on it.

Too bad you don't have RegCleaner installed. When anything new is
installed on your computer, and you start RegCleaner afterwards,
it shows the new registry entries as "new" at the top of the list.
It doesn't need to be running in the background, either -- it
scans for new entries each time it is started. I find it a great
way to keep track of what is being put on my computer. It's also
useful for cleaning up unwanted registry entries that linger after
the program that spawned them is deleted. And RegCleaner is free,
of course. I use version 4.3.780.