Windows Scams Part 2

Microsoft has finally had enough of the Windows scammers. Apparently it generates about 1.5 billion dollars a year. 

 Microsoft has a special digital crimes unit and they have received over 11,000 calls a month about fake security issues and many Windows users have lost quite large sums of money.

So Delhi police raided various call centres that have been linked to these scams. 16 were carried out this week and earlier this month, another 10 locations were raided.

The raids were due to Microsoft filing complaints with police in New Delhi about these so  called Windows Call Centres.

Its nice to know that Microsoft actually does do something about it. And this should encourage more people to report these scams.

According to the New York Times some people caught out by these scams ended up paying $1000 for the fake support. 

Mind you according to the BBC, last year one person in the UK lost £1200 pounds to these con-artists.

Well hopefully we will get less of these nuisance calls.

Windows Update Part 6, no it really is Part 6

Is it true surely not. Has Microsoft finally fixed the fix for the fix..... . It looks like the Windows 10 October update is finally coming to a computer near you soon, its only six weeks late.

Microsoft seems to have fixed the problems now. But rather than rolling it out in one go, they are going with a somewhat staggered approach with its deployment.  

John Cable (Director of Program Management, Windows Servicing and Delivery) stated in his blog on 13th November 2018;

 "In addition to extensive internal validation, we have taken time to closely monitor feedback and diagnostic data from our Windows Insiders and from the millions of devices on the Windows 10 October Update, and we have no further evidence of data loss.  Based on this data, today we are beginning the re-release of the October Update by making it available via media and to advanced users who seek to manually check for updates.

As with all Windows releases, we will continue to carefully study the results, feedback and diagnostic data before we begin offering the update in phases to more devices in the coming weeks and months."

He goes on to say;

"While the April Update had the fastest Windows 10 update rollout velocity, we are taking a more measured approach with the October Update, slowing our rollout to more carefully study device health data. We will offer the October Update to users via Windows Update when data shows your device is ready and you will have a great experience. If we detect that your device may have an issue, such as an application incompatibility, we will not install the update until that issue is resolved, even if you “Check for updates,” so you avoid encountering any known problems. For those advanced users seeking to install the update early by manually using “Check for updates” in settings, know that we are slowly throttling up this availability, while we carefully monitor data and feedback."

So hopefully if your machine has compatibility issues with a Windows update it won't just apply the update it will wait until your machine is ready. Don't hold your breath as I am sure this will provide Microsoft with new problems, or as a guy I used to work with once said as a joke;

"Didn't you know Windows never has an errors or problems they just call them interesting features" 

So fingers crossed and a quick prayer to the god of computers and we my finally have a pleasant Windows 10 update experience. 

Windows Update part 5

There are so many parts to this story now, its getting a bit tedious.

So Microsoft have issued a fix  to fix the fix that should have fixed the update, I think you get the idea.

 But The Windows 10 1809 update is still causing a few headaches with file operations. A new version is out there for testing by the Insiders.

It now appears there are problems with compressed files, these often have the .zip label.
Its only a problem if you let windows handle them. If you use a program like Winzip or similar then you are OK. 

Personally I have always used a third party program such as  Winzip,  WinRar or the 7-zip (this is the one I use at the moment as it is free) to compress and uncompress files. 

The initial problem with the update that deleted files seems now to be a result of many people using more than one drive in their computer. 

 Its now common practice to install Windows on an SSD (Solid State Drive, think really big USB drive but more like a normal hard drive) and have all the other stuff such as your programs, documents on a standard hard drive. The SSD can be accessed much faster than a conventional drive so it means a slightly faster computer. So why Microsoft haven't caught up with this way of building computers I don't know. You would have thought Microsoft would be on top of things like this. 

I am sure there is more to come on this saga. 

Windows Tech Support Phone Scam

I have now had 4 calls from so called Windows support.  This is a scam. 
 All the numbers are similar, but may not be an indication of where they are based.

The call normally starts off with them saying "Hi I am calling you from Windows" they will go on to say that there is a virus on your machine and this is the reason for the call.

They explain how you can detect if there is a problem by taking you to what is called the Windows Event Viewer.  The viewer logs harmless errors. What the scammers do is then ask you to read out some of the numbers you see. Their reply will always be you have a virus and need to download some software.  They will often direct you to a website to download it I do know of incidents where they email you the software.  You are then asked to install this software.The software then takes over your computer remotely. They will then detect this mythical virus and demand payment for its removal. If you don't comply they will either encrypt all your files or remotely change the computer password or both. 


Remember Microsoft will never make unsolicited call, emails  to provide tech support, or ask for financial details.

What do you do if you have been affected already. You can go to Microsoft's website page about these types of scams. Or report them directly to their Report a Technical Support Scam page. 

I am waiting for the next call as I am going to string them along, by wanting double glazing. After all they did they say they are from Windows. 

In case you are wondering the phone numbers they use are 

1. 00 1 585 410 2495
2. 00 1 585 410 6036
3. 00 1 585 410 7217
4. 00 1 585 414 0647

I also did a telephone number look up and they are based in Rochester New York and are on the Verizon mobile network.  But most scammers will spoof the caller ID so that it appears that this is the number they are calling from when in fact are actually calling from another country. 

Windows Update part 4

Microsoft issued a whole load of updates this week, these have nothing to do the previous failed attempts, so these should be fine for your computer. They are to do with various older versions of Windows 10. Apparently there are more flavours of Windows 10 than Baskin Robbins has ice creams (not quite but you get the idea)

 As for the failed updates newer presumable fixed versions  are with the Microsoft Insider testers. But no news at the moment  as to a release date. 

As always I will keep you posted.

Windows 10 updates part 3

You really couldn't make this stuff up if you tried could you.

 While the last two attempts at updates have caused Windows users to find that some files have been deleted and some get the BSOD. It has now come to light that now some users have no audio.

 Being unable to organise a party in a brewery comes to mind. microsoft has yet to comment on this yet. But various users on a Microsoft forum, Twitter and on Reddit have commented though. They get the message "No Audio Device Installed"


How to fix a broken audio driver after the recent Windows 10 update:

A Microsoft Support Employee has come up with this fix:

An Intel audio driver was incorrectly pushed to devices via Windows Update for a short period of time earlier this week.  After receiving reports from users that their audio no longer works, we immediately removed it and started investigating.  If your audio broke recently, and you're running Windows 10 version 1803 or above, please check to see if the incorrect driver was installed. To regain audio, we recommend you uninstall the driver.

1. Type Device Manager in the search box
2. Find and expand Sound, video, and game controllers
3. Look for a Realtek device, or a device that has a yellow triangle with an exclamation point
4. Click on the device to select it
5. From the View menu, choose Devices by connection
6. Look at the parent device - this will be called something like "Intel SST Audio Controller" (Intel Smart Sound Technology driver version 09.21.00.3755)
7. Right-click the controller device
8. Choose Properties
9. You should get a dialog like below. Click on the Driver tab as shown.
10. If the driver version is 9.21.0.3755, you have the driver that was sent to you incorrectly.
11. Click Uninstall Device. You will get a popup asking if you want to remove the driver too, as shown.
12. Check the checkbox as shown, so the driver will be removed.
13. Click Uninstall.
14. When the driver is uninstalled, reboot your system.
15. Your audio (speakers and headphones) should now work.

Good luck

Will keep you posted. At least Microsoft keeps giving me material for my blog. 

Windows October Update part 2

Oh dear. After pausing the recent October Windows 10 Update 1809. It appears Microsoft has rolled out a newer version that fixes the previous problems. 😁 Yeah I hear you cry. Not so fast.

Guess what this update has even more problems. Users are reporting that they are getting Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) errors. At the moment the majority of users affected are ones that have HP computers. 

  

A post on a Microsoft forum claimed that an HP desktop machine refused to boot up after the update. And another post on the same forum has said that the update has affected several of their computers at work. 

Reddit and Twitter users have reported the issues. Most of these users seem to be reporting an error called "WDF_Violation" This is to do with the Windows Driver Framework. One HP user managed to track the error down to a file called HpqKbFiltr.sys. Deleting this file cured the problem. Now this file is the keyboard driver. But not all affected users have this file and some who have deleted it still get the BSOD. 

A person working for  the Microsoft support team has said that reports are coming in of this update affecting other computer systems such as Dell.

Come on Microsoft sort this out. You have a duty to your 400 million users.