Some editions of Trend Micro cannot be easily uninstalled without knowing the Trend Micro administrative password. If you are trying to uninstall Trend Micro and have lost your password, try this procedure.

From an account with local administrator privileges, run REGEDIT by clicking on the Windows key and the letter “R” simultaneously, and then typing REGEDIT followed by the ENTER key. Navigate to:

  HKLM\SOFTWARE\TrendMicro\PC-cillinNTCorp\CurrentVersion\Misc

Double-click on the name

  “Allow Uninstall”

and set the value to 1. You should now be able to uninstall Trend Micro without being prompted for a password.

We’ve received a lot of feedback from folks having trouble upgrading their AVG Antivirus Free Edition from version 8.5 to version 9.0. The following recipe seems to solve the issue:

• Use your browser to navigate to free.avg.com
• Download and save the AVG installation file to your desktop
• Navigate to www.avg.com/download-tools and save the avg-remover tool to your desktop
• Close your browser, go to the control panel, launch Add/Remove Programs (XP) or Programs and Features (Vista, Win 7), and uninstall AVG
• Reboot and run the AVG remover you saved to your desktop
• Reboot and run the AVG installation file you saved to your desktop

Many people choose the default settings when entering their birthdate information into Facebook, and as a result the day, month, and year of their birth is displayed in their profile. You can preserve some privacy and change this default so that only the month and day appear.

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Some people are annoyed when this pop-up appears on their screen, and wonder if it is legitimate or necessary:

This is indeed a legitimate software update from Sun Microsystems, the vendor that provides Java. Java is a programming language and runtime environment used by a number of websites to display interactive web content. In order to secure your computer from online threats, you should keep all of your online software up-to-date. This includes Java. So, the next time this pop-up happens, you should click on the pop-up window and allow the update to proceed. It should only take a few minutes.

Some nasty viruses or other malware like to disable task manager. Most of the time, you can repair task manager by editing the registry. Please do not edit the registry unless you know what you are doing! With that warning - to try this fix just follow these steps:

Click on the Windows key and the R key at the same time. A little “Run” dialog box pops up.
Type REGEDIT, hit ENTER. If you’re running Vista, press CONTINUE.
Browse to the key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
In the right pane, look for the value: DisableTaskMgr
Right click DisableTaskMgr and select Delete.
Then browse to the key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
In the right pane, look for the value: DisableTaskMgr
Right click DisableTaskMgr and select Delete.
Close the Registry by clicking on its big red X.

The change should take effect immediately. If not, reboot and see if Task Manager is now repaired.

Sometimes you need to uninstall your current AntiVirus product. Maybe you are switching to a different AntiVirus product or maybe you are trying to solve a problem by reinstalling you existing AntiVirus product.

Whatever your reason for uninstalling, this can normally be accomplished by going to the Control Panel and running Add/Remove Programs (Windows 2000, XP) or Programs and Features (Vista, Windows7). In case that does not work, the vendors provide some helpful tools to assist you:

GRISOFT provides this for AVG.

Symantec has this for removing Norton.

The McAfee removal tool is here.

If you are on a budget, the free antivirus / antispyware product AVG is available for download from GRISOFT at free.avg.com

AVG is reasonably light on system resources, and includes a linkscanner to assist you in determing if the links pointed to by search engine results are indeed safe to click on.