Chris J Mears

Remotely Uninstall Symantec Antivirus

I’m not going into the reasons here, but I recently needed to uninstall Symantec Antivirus from all client computers on our network (~25 computers) in order to install a new antivirus client. Since it was so few computers, I really could have just sat down at each one and uninstalled the program through Control Panel.  But what fun is that when you can do it remotely?

After reading an article on the subject, I did some more investigating and this is the process I came up with:

1. Download PSTools and unzip into C:\Windows\System32
2. Get the Symantec Antivirus uninstall registry ID from regedit by way of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Uninstall.  Go through the subkeys and search for the one that has Symantec in the Value Name.  For example, I had Symantec Corporate Antivirus v10.x and the ID was {78D891EF-9E2D-4FC8-A71F-E6F897BA1B21}
3. Remotely connect to Symantec System Center server using domain administrator account
4. (Optional: if you require a password to uninstall) Using regedit, remotely connect to each computer to edit registry.  What we’re looking for is under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ INTEL \ LANDesk \ VirusProtect6 \ CurrentVersion \ AdministratorOnly \ Security. Make sure the two values, “LockUnloadServices” and “UseVPUninstallPassword,” are zero.
5. Logged in as a domain admininistrator, using PsExec, run MsiExec to uninstall.  Example,
   C:\>psexec \\COMPUTER_NAME MsiExec.exe /norestart /q /x {78D891EF-9E2D-4FC8-A71F-E6F897BA1B21} REMOVE=ALL

Assuming all went well, you should get an error code of zero, which means everything went successfully.  Should you get any other error code, look it up.

Manually Configure Time Machine’s Backup Interval

Time Machine has always annoyed me with how frequent it wants to backup.  It takes no consideration what you are currently doing and if you have Time Capsule, your workflow grinds to a complete halt while Time Machine and Time Capsule get buddy-buddy over your network.

My issue is not with Time Machine itself.  It’s a great idea and great program!  I just wish there was a better control panel for it.  Oh well, time to get down and dirty.

From this hint I was able to set the Time Machine backup schedule from one hour to six hours.

Basically, in Terminal, you:

cd /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
sudo vi com.apple.backupd-auto.plist


Note: I’m using the vi editor to do this hack. You can choose any editor you wish, just make sure you have proper permissions.

Once open, you change the property:

<key>StartInterval</key>
<integer>3600</integer>


Where 3600 is the number of seconds you want Time Machine to run. I changed mine to 21600 and voila!

Now maybe I can play a DVD without Time Machine interupting my full screen.

Radiohead pen new Palahniuk score

Radiohead pen new Palahniuk score
from BBC World News
Radiohead write the score for the film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s latest book, Choke, the author tells BBC 6 Music.

This is amazing and exciting! As said in the article, Palahniuk listened to Radiohead’s Pablo Honey consistently while writing Choke.

No Twitter for Hitler

“Like the other night I was out partying with some friends and tried to text message a tweet about how wonderful life is…”

I feel very conflicted by actually agreeing with Hitler on this one topic. I’m a bad person.

How the British View Americans

Olympic opening draws 5m viewers
from BBC World News
The spectacular opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics is watched live by five million people in the UK, but a delayed broadcast angers US viewers.

Read: The spectacular opening ceremoney of the Beijing Olympics is watched live by five million people in the UK, but Americans are silly people who are upset that they are not always the center of attention.

Hello World

I just realized that I set up this fancy semi-new blog and domain and have yet to actually write anything in it.  That is, except what I imported from my old blog.

Though I’m definitely not going to promise more posting, I do hope to do more with this space than I have before.  I am just starting to set up a sandbox where I can play with different web technologies and learn.

I will also be posting a concerts page soon to keep track of my various shows both past and upcoming.

Best of Canadian Independent Music vol. 1

Here is my very first attempt at an end-of-year mix. I decided to focus primarily on Canadian independent artists mainly because I thought they were largely being left out of people’s top lists.

I hope you enjoy this list. I love feedback!

Best of Canada 2007

iTunes Optimized (58MB, Chapters included, M4A format)

Blog on my Blog

So, I decided to start a Tumblr blog. For those who don’t know, Tumblr is a way to blog about, well, blogs. Sure, you can write up entries and post photos, but where it seems to shine is the ability to add a Flickr, del.icio.us, or any other kind of feed to the blog. So, say that I upload photos onto Flickr, they just pop up on my Tumblr blog. I review some books on Goodreads? Boom! Automagically on my blog.

This way that I can blog without actually blogging. I love it when it pays to be lazy!

Anyway, here is my Tumblr blog: http://chrisjm.tumblr.com/

Happiness followed by sadness followed by acceptance…

I got my new MacBook Pro today! It was supposed to be delivered yesterday, but I typed in the wrong zip code and FedEx got confused like dogs when you make the ball throwing motion without actually throwing the ball. After contacting Apple, they fixed the issue rather quickly and I got my package this morning.

I must say that I almost shed a tear of joy when I opened the box. Despite it looking almost exactly like my PowerBook G4, it was still a beautiful site. Since I am a geek, I can’t help but post the specs:

• 15.4-inch LED display
• 2.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 2 Gigabytes SDRAM
• NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
• 8x SuperDrive
• Built-in 802.11n wireless

The LED display is something to see. It is so crisp and clear and responds to a wake up so quickly! No waiting for the screen to warm up to display. It’s just on!

So here is where the sad tears come in. After playing around with it for 15 minutes, I open up Safari. I clear the address field and start typing in “ww…” The screen dims and a message comes up saying that I need to restart. WHAT?! I’ve had it for 15 minutes and it’s already crashed?

I restart. Try to do the same thing to see if maybe it’s something repeatable. No such luck. So I install more software and play with it more. I open up Safari again and BOOM! Dead again. So, I guess it’s something to do with Safari, but it still seems to be totally random.

I will likely take it to the Apple Store’s Genius Bar and probably have to send it in. I was expecting this. This is why I got the Apple Care plan. This is why I didn’t get rid of my current PowerBook G4. I am going to keep a positive attitude and hope for the best. And do several back ups.

Damaged Wrist

After over a decade playing video games and using a computer, I think I have finally developed carpal tunnel syndrome. Though, of course, I have yet to go to a doctor to see if this hypothesis is correct.

My symptoms started out as just a weak wrist. Lifting heavy things hurt a bit and twisting my wrist caused a little bit more uncomfort. It wasn’t until I was hammering in tiki torches that I finally got to the point of severe pain. I am now wearing a wrist brace to see if it will fix itself. Only time will tell, but if it doesn’t start to feel better in a week, it’s off to the doctor for me.