Any way to manage ActiveX controls?

[Guest]

Anti-Spyware beta 1 was the best way I could find to manage and remove
unwanted ActiveX controls. The replacement System Explorers in Defender beta
2 don't seem to provide access to or control of ActiveX. Have I missed
somethng, is this by design and will it be provided?

Also, PLEASE reinstate the system tray icon so that I can tell at a glance
if it is running, as Defender cutting in a scan during a DVD write would
total to DVD write. (I see from a message below that this is planned - asap
please.)

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

This is by design--but take a look at how this functionality works in IE7:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/default.mspx

This beta version is both safer to use than IE6, and easily installed and
uninstalled. Well worth trying.

Several functions that are browser related are ceded to IE7--tracks eraser
is another.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply.

I don't want to install IE 7 just yet as I have a whole load of scripting on
my computer that I may have to re-write at that point. From your response, I
think what I need to do is uninstall Windows Defender beta 2 and go back to
Anti-Spyware beta 1, which seems more attuned to IE 6.

Then I will do the necessary work and upgrade to IE 7 and Windows Defender
as a package.

I'll live with A-S being confused and missing startup programs with command
line switches for now!

BTW, don't know if this is the place to put it, or whether I should open
another thread, but I noticed a 'funny' with the Defender installation that
is supposed to uninstall Anti-Spyware. It took out most of it, but left the
quarantined items. I guess this is by design as I would probably be able to
reinstate them after re-installing A-S. More of an issue, I noticed on
checking the services (I tend to do that after installations), that
GIANTService was still running. My records show that was installed by
Anti-Spyware (originally a Giant product), so why is that left (and running
automatically) after uninstalling and rebooting? I stopped it and nothing
broke, including Defender which has its own Windows Defender Service. Should
the un-installation have stopped and removed the GEARService? If so, could it
be removed by hand (I won't as I will be re-installing)? If not, what still
needs it?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

Thanks for the details--you may want to read my note in .announcements and
..networking about a forthcoming cumulative update to IE6.

I believe that leaving the quarantine items and enough extra baggage to
allow for their retrieval is by design, but I haven't confirmed this with
anyone.

However--leaving a service running is not, I'm reasonably sure. There've
been a handful of posts with somewhat similar import--including one with the
reverse situation--uninstalling Defender and finding the Defender service
still running. I believe that all of these involve either an option, or an
add-in to another antispyware or antimalware app--which prevents the changes
needed to properly uninstall. What else was running--in terms of
antispyware or antivirus, or "protective" software at the time that you ran
the update?

The names you are using don't ring bells perfectly with me--Some of the
executables of Microsoft Antispyware are definitely still Giant-branded, in
terms of names--but GEAR doesn't ring a bell.

I've flopped a VPC back and forth between Microsoft Antispyware and Windows
Defender a number of times, without any issues--this should be entirely
possible.
--

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the further reply. Given what you said, I did a bit of digging on
the Internet and it now seems unlikely that GEARService came with
Anti-Spyware. Most likely source seems to be the CD writing bits of Drive
Image. It is coincidence is that the service started running when I installed
Anti-Spyware last year and hance why I had recorded it as belonging to
Anti-Spyware. My records show that I did some sorting out at the time,
including GEARSec which is known sometimes to cause problems. There was some
confusion because that was also the time Microsoft accidentally rolled out a
dysfunctional update on Windows Update that should only have gone to machines
to support 64-bit migrations (it was withdrawn the day afer) and I had to use
System Restore to fix the problems caused. I then fixed all three issues at
once instead of one-by-one with full logging.

I'll check again for an Anti-Spyware service when I reinstall it (and see if
the quarantine is picked up!). Meanwhile I will leave GEARService stopped as
I don't use imaging to CD, using another hard drive instead.

Although probably not relevant now, I use McAfee VirusScan v10 and Zone Labs
ZoneAlarm v3.7 (and also have a separate hardware firewall). Everyone points
out that is not compatible with XP SP2 but, in fact, it co-exists quite
happily. It was versions 4.x and 5.0 that were incompatible. I also have
personally written scripts that I run perodically to check the registry and
key folders, but they are run on command not left running so would not affect
installlation and uninstallation.

Thanks for all your help. It is much appreciated and helped me considerably.

 

[Guest]

PS I read your article. I installed the optional ActiveX change when it was
made available after reading its summary. I much prefer having to click
something to make it run than have it decide when it's going to set off...!!!
No problems with anything that I do, but I found that I need to click in the
control area of online Java chat pages before I can chat now.

The security fix will be welcome.

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

You're welcome! (and I'll point out that there's yet another announcement
about the changes in browser behavior that will happen on April 11 in a blog
entry today:

http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2006/03/29/423560.aspx
)

(gotta close those parentheses!)

--

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

Great. The real issue is in large enterprise situations where they are
running third-party commercial apps that use a web interface--some of these
are made totally unusable, apparently by this change, and the vendors
haven't done the necessary re-writes yet, although code to test the behavior
has been available since August, I believe.

So--there's going to be a reprieve allowed for that kind of scenario, but
for the average person this won't be a big deal, I think. I've been running
the IE7 beta from March 20th that has this in already, and haven't seen too
many additional prompts--but I don't get out much!

--

 

[Guest]

Crunch! It updated a couple of times in the last two days, prompted me to
scan as I had not done so in 3 days... then failed with the same error that
others have reported on this discussion. Tonight is the night it gets
consigned to history itself! Will be more interested when it's as stable as
the Giant software in beta 1, perhaps more functionality and ability to
control and maybe with IE 7. Clunk! (That's it hitting the bottom the bin!)
;-)