[vox-tech] windows support, unfortunately

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Mon 06 Feb 06,  1:11 PM, Micah J. Cowan <micah at cowan.name> said:
> On Mon, Feb 06, 2006 at 02:19:39PM -0500, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > At work I have to use WinXP, but all of my development is with open source
> > tools like cygwin, miktex, etc., so I'm almost happy.
> > 
> > This morning a bad thing happened.  Adobe Acrobat wanted to install an
> > update 7.0.5 on my work computer, and stupidly, I allowed it.  It wanted to
> > reboot to finish the upgrade, and again, I allowed it.
> > 
> > Unfortunately, after the reboot, my system has become flakey.  Here are some
> > manifestations:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It's an obvious one, but I'm obliged to ask it: have you tried
> /uninstalling/ Acrobat, and if so, did it make a difference? Also, is
> your desktop backed-up?
 
Thanks, Micah.

After the Acrobat update, I seem to have completely lost the ability to
install and uninstall programs.

Most of the time it says that I need admin privs.  Some of the time it says
it can't access a particular .dll or it can't find a particular file.
Before this whole thing started, I was able to install/uninstall programs
just fine.

> > The reason why I'm posting to vox-tech is that one of the help desk guys
> > noted that i have a lot of "illegal software".  this is the term he actually
> > used; i'm not making that up.  he was referring to firefox, putty, miktex,
> > gvim, cygwin, etc.  he said i have to uninstall the "illegal and unsupported
> > software" to "fix the machine".
> 
> IMO, this is worth making an issue of. All of these are extremely legal
> to have on your machine, and it is worth making the support guy
> understand this. Now, some of it /may/ be against company rules: but
> since you mentioned that you use cygwin to do development, I sincerely
> doubt it.
> 
> Beat this into the support guy's head. Actually, a good tactic is to ask
> /him/ questions, and make him answer them reasonably. Most answers from
> these sorts of people will reveal more questions to ask.
> 
>     How, exactly, is Firefox (e.g.) illegal to install?
>     How did you learn this (from the answer to previous)?
>     What do you think about (appropriate link to strong materials denying
>         the truthfulness of his previous answer)?

I think his intent was "it's against company policy", but I'll try this
tactic.

> > I don't have the admin password for this computer, but I noticed a utility
> > on the web that obtains the admin password on XP machines.  Actually
> > *changing* the admin password is out of the question, for obvious reasons.
> 
> Actually snooping it may be a bad idea as well. You can certainly get
> fired for such activity, and probably jail time, depending on the judge.

Woof!  Yeah, I definitely don't want to lose my job.  ;)

> If you must use this, make it a last resort. Probably the one right
> after attempting to reinstall your system, reinstalling cygwin, etc on
> top of a fresh install.
 
Unfortunately, my hands are completely tied now; I can't install or
uninstall anything.  It's almost as if my user account went from 'admin' or
'power user' to 'restricted user'.

Maybe tomorrow I should try calling support again and telling them that I
can no longer install/uninstall software?  I really don't know what else to
do, and you have me too spooked to try to change my user permissions now...

Pete