Jeff Rivett has worked with and written about computers since the early 1980s. His first computer was an Apple II+, built by his father and heavily customized. Jeff's writing appeared in Computist Magazine in the 1980s, and he created and sold a game utility (Ultimaker 2, reviewed in the December 1983 Washington Apple Pi Journal) to international markets during the same period. Proceeds from writing, software sales, and contract programming gigs paid his way through university, earning him a Bachelor of Science (Computer Science) degree at UWO. Jeff went on to work as a programmer, sysadmin, and manager in various industries. There's more on the About page, and on the Jeff Rivett Consulting site.

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Downgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 7

Lifehacker has an interesting post that points to information from Microsoft on downgrading Windows 8 to Windows 7.

The downgrade option is not available for all new PCs and license types. The Microsoft page linked above goes over the details.

There are a lot of legitimate reasons one might want to downgrade.

It’s no longer possible to purchase a PC with Windows 7, so anyone buying a new PC will get Windows 8 by default. Being forced to switch operating systems by a big corporation is annoying for many people. You know, people who prefer to have a choice.

If you’re not interested in learning the new O/S, or setting the computer up for someone who is comfortable in Windows 7 (say your grandmother) and doesn’t want to change, this is a useful option.

I’ve personally downgraded a set of Windows computers like this, when software required for a business just didn’t run with the delivered O/S. Sure, it’s the developers’ fault, but waiting for a fix wasn’t an option.

You may use hardware and/or drivers that don’t work on the new O/S, in which case, again, you don’t have much choice until you buy new hardware or (if you’re very lucky), the hardware maker produces new drivers.

Corporate IT providers use the downgrade option more than anyone. There’s a constant need to replace aging PC hardware, but upgrading operating systems involves an enormous amount of re-training that most companies would prefer to do on their own schedule, instead of Microsoft’s.

And so on.

Suprisingly, a lot of the comments on the Lifehacker story are negative. “just learn the new O/S” is a common refrain. Unpaid (or possibly paid) marketing drones, all of them.

Adobe announces patches for Reader and Flash

As expected, Adobe has released new versions of its Acrobat/Reader software to coincide with Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday for January 2013. Adobe also announced new versions of Flash today.

An Adobe Reader bulletin identifies new versions for the 9, 10 and 11 series of Reader software as 9.5.3, 10.1.5, and 11.0.1 respectively. Anyone who uses Adobe Acrobat/Reader software is strongly encouraged to install the appropriate new version. As usual, the new versions address security and crashing issues.

A Flash bulletin identifies the new version of Flash as 11.5.502.146. This version is for all web browsers except Chrome and Internet Explorer 10, which now use embedded Flash code. The most recent version of Flash in Google Chrome at this time is 11.5.31.137. The most recent version in Internet Explorer 10 is 11.3.378.5. As usual, the new versions address security and crashing issues.

Patch Tuesday for January 2013

Patch Tuesday comes early this month, since January started on a Tuesday. There are seven bulletins, addressing twelve issues in Windows, admin software and developer tools.

January 2013 bulletins

Flash Player fix for Internet Explorer 10

The Flash vulnerability reported on December 11 has finally been fixed in Internet Explorer 10.

Microsoft chose not to use the regular Flash plugin in Internet Explorer 10, deciding instead to integrate the player into the IE10 code. As a result, any time the Flash player is updated, Microsoft must make corresponding changes to IE10. Hence the delay in producing the patch for IE10. Google now does the same thing with their Chrome browser, but they tend to make the required changes much more quickly.

A guide for removing pre-installed crapware from Windows 8

Ars Technica has a useful post showing how to remove the useless software (crapware) that comes pre-installed on Windows 8 computers. The specific software of course varies between PC manufacturers, but the general idea is the same in all cases: most, if not all, of the software added by PC builders can be safely removed.

The approach used in this article is to reinstall Windows 8 from scratch, which is certainly an effective way to get rid of crapware. However, simply disabling and uninstalling said crapware is usually sufficient.

Fix for Internet Explorer 6/7/8 now available

Microsoft has issued a special “Fix It” patch for the recently-discovered vulnerabilities in older versions of Internet Explorer.

The original security advisory has been updated to include a link to the fix.

Anyone still using Internet Explorer 6, 7 or 8 should install the fix or stop using IE immediately.

Update 2013-Jan-05: According to the Internet Storm Center, the temporary workaround provided by this Fix-It from Microsoft has already been rendered ineffective by means of a bypass.

Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 vulnerable to new exploit

A new exploit, targeted at users of older versions of Internet Explorer, recently surfaced. IE 9 and 10 are not vulnerable to this exploit.

Microsoft is working on a patch, but until it’s available, anyone using Internet Explorer 6, 7 or 8 should exercise extreme caution when browsing the web, or – better yet – switch to a different browser such as Firefox, Opera or Chrome.

Unfortunately for anyone still using Windows XP, including a large number of corporate users, recent versions of IE (9 and 10) don’t run on that version of Windows. XP users are strongly encouraged to stop using Internet Explorer.

Details: