Today I learned of two FREE programs that could help cover my laptop.   In the virus and malware marketplace I’ve long believe more than one tool (and vendor) is needed to stay safe.   There are just too many angles of attack with new one coming up all the time.   Staying current on patches is a great idea.    It’s a good foundation, but you also need active scanning tools.

Here are two programs to consider.   I run ClamWin and have been very happy with it.    Then just add Windows Defender for malware and Windows Update for patches to keep your machine safe.   Learn more about safe computing practices at http://www.onguardonline.gov/

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I recently tried to add the Windows Media Player 11 FireFox plugin (wmpfirefoxplugin.exe) to my Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition machine and was disappointed to see the below dialog warning me of the fact it wouldn’t install on a server operating system.

Not one to cede easily I opened Sysinternal’s PROCEXP.EXE, found the MSI handle, made a copy, and used Microsoft Orca to edit he MSI and remove the requirement.   The package installed and works great.

If you use Windows Server 2008 as your workstation you might want to consider these same steps for any installation that fails around O/S verification.    The warning, of course, is that the software might truly not work as expected.    However, most of the times it seems to run just fine for me.