How to Switch to DTVwithout Buying a New TV

The purpose of this post is to help people in the United States who have an analog television and want to switch to broadcast, over-the-air, digital television without buying a new TV. This post applies equally to people who want to switch to DTV from cable, satellite, or broadcast analog TV.

I switched to DTV in September 2008 and I am very happy with the results. I live in Anderson, South Carolina. The nearest major network's transmission tower is 40 miles away and the farthest is 62 miles away. I use an indoor set-top antenna. I receive all the major networks – NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX – as well as CW, MNT, PBS, and ETV. I get 23 channels.

I decided to use the end of analog broadcast TV as an opportunity to switch to free broadcast digital TV. I was paying Charter $62 a month for analog TV and I didn't even subscribe to any premium channels. I knew I would have to spend some money to upgrade, but those costs would be recovered quickly since I would no longer be paying Charter every month.

I like to have a good understanding of a project before I begin. My Internet research was less than satisfying. I found lots of information, but it was spread across many sites and often did not answer my questions. Here are some of the questions for which I sought answers.

What DTV channels can I expect to receive?
What kind of antenna do I need?
How do I get a government coupon for the digital-to-analog converter?
What kind of digital-to-analog converter should I buy?
Will I still be able to tape movies using my VCR?
What kind of DVD player should I buy? (I would lose the cable channels from which I tape movies regularly, so I would need to buy a DVD player to watch rented movies.)
How can I wire everything to maximize my viewing capabilities?

In the rest of this post I will try to provide helpful information. I will also describe the specific actions I performed, which might help you determine your best course of action. I am not an expert. Most of what I know about digital television I have learned in the last three months by reading Internet sites. I will try to minimize the DTV complexities by offering just enough simplified information to assist you in making decisions. If I make errors, hopefully people will correct me in the comments and I will update this post accordingly.

Channels in Your Area

You can get a list of channels you might be able to receive by checking antennaweb.org. Click the button labeled, "Choose an antenna". Enter at least your street address and zip code on the next screen. Other fields are optional. (If you only enter your zip code your channel list will be less accurate than if you include your street address.) At the bottom of the screen answer the question about structures within four blocks of your home and select whether your home is single or multiple stories. Click "Submit". The resulting station list contains lots of good information. The antennaweb FAQ is quite informative too. The site focuses on outdoor antennas because too many variables interfere with indoor reception. So if you're using an indoor antenna, like I am, you will probably only receive some of the channels listed. Another good site to check is tvfool.com.

Stations often transmit digital sub-channels (sometimes called "multicasting"). So you might have several digital channels coming from the same station. Channels are referred to by the main channel number followed by a dot or dash and then the sub-channel number. Here are some examples that I receive.

4.1 WYFF-DT (NBC)
4.2 WYFF-WP (weather)

13.1 WLOS-DT (ABC high definition)
13.2 WMYA-DT (MyNetworkTV)
13.3 WLOS-SD (ABC standard definition)

33.1 UNC-TV (educational)
33.2 UNC-KD (educational for kids)
33.3 UNC-NC (educational)

Since stations transmit multiple digital channels, you will end up receiving more digital channels than the number of stations in your area. I receive 21 digital channels from 8 stations all the time, and two other digital channels intermittently.


Antenna (Philips MANT510)

I researched antennas for days before I chose one. My requirements were few. I wanted an indoor antenna that would receive the most channels and cost me the least amount of money. Your safest choice for an indoor antenna is an antenna that receives both VHF and UHF frequencies.

Many antennas are advertised as "HDTV" antennas. This is just a marketing ploy. An HD (high definition) signal will be in a VHF or UHF band and an appropriate VHF or UHF antenna will pick it up properly. There is no HD band.

The antenna I chose is the Philips MANT510. It amplifies the signals it receives, which I've found is essential to me. When I turn the antenna amplification off I lose most of my channels. I've been very happy with the antenna. I've only had two problems. The six-foot power cord is too short for my setup, so I had to use an extension cord. And sometimes after being turned on for a long time the antenna switches to minimum amplification. The shutoff might be a self-preservation feature to protect it from overheating. The last time the amplification automatically decreased I was gone for a week and had left the amplification on high so my VCR could record two shows while I was gone. Both shows were aired in the first three days of my trip, and both shows were recorded properly. However, when I got home the amplification was off, so I know it turned off sometime after the third day. I have the antenna plugged into an uninterrupted power supply so I know the amplification did not turn off because of a power outage.

If you want to buy a UHF-only antenna you should read the next few paragraphs.

VHF stands for "very high frequency". UHF stands for "ultra high frequency". An antenna can pick up VHF, UHF, or both VHF and UHF, depending on how the antenna is designed. Indoor VHF antennas often have two long rods (often called "rabbit ears"), whose lengths can be adjusted. UHF antennas can be small and often look like a ring, a box, a disk, or a bowtie.

TV stations can transmit in VHF or UHF. Most digital television (DTV) is transmitted in UHF. The VHF frequency ranges that TV stations can use include: 55 to 72 MHz, 77 to 88 MHz, and 175 to 216 MHz. If any station you want to receive, transmits in one of those three frequency ranges then you should have an antenna that picks up both VHF and UHF signals. You cannot go by channel number to know a station's frequency anymore, because some stations keep their low channel numbers (i.e. 2-13) even if they transmit on UHF frequencies not originally assigned to those channels.

Before February 17, 2009, stations are transmitting two signals – an analog signal and a digital signal – to accommodate both the viewers who have already switched to DTV and the viewers who have not yet switched. On February 17 the analog signals will stop being transmitted. Some stations will then switch their digital transmission from their UHF frequency to their VHF frequency. What that means is that just because all the digital channels you want to receive might be on UHF before February 17, after that date some channels may be on VHF. An example is my nearest CBS affiliate, WSPA in Spartanburg. Until February 17 it is transmitting its DTV on UHF but will switch to VHF on February 17.

A friend of mine has a Philips MANT940 UHF-only antenna that he likes very much. He uses it indoors and he receives as many stations as I receive. After February 17 he may stop receiving stations that switch from UHF to VHF.

Digital Converter Box (Zenith DTT901)

I found it very easy to obtain a government coupon for buying a digital-to-analog converter box. Just go to TV Converter Box Coupon Program and follow the instructions. I received my coupon one week before the scheduled mailing date I had been given. The coupon is in the form of a plastic card, like a credit card. It's good for $40 toward the purchase of an approved converter box.

The converter I chose is the Zenith DTT901. The price was $60. I used the coupon card and, counting tax, had to pay around $24. The converter works great. The remote has a TV power button, mute, previous channel recall, volume, and channel buttons which means I can use it instead of my TV's remote. Here's a complete list of the buttons on the remote: TV power, power (converter), sleep, signal, SAP, zoom, display, menu, guide, left, up, right, down, select, exit, CCD, volume, channel, favorites, mute, 1 through 0, "-", and recall (channel). The signal button is very helpful. It displays the signal strength so you can turn your antenna if necessary until you get the strongest signal for a channel.

There are several menu options for setting up and fine tuning channels. Initially, you should let the converter scan for channels. It will remember every digital channel it finds. Then you can change the antenna orientation and use the EZ Add feature which scans again and adds any new channels discovered. Another feature I should mention is the ability to set the channel for the converter's analog output, to channel 3 or 4. This channel should match the video input channel for your television and for your VCR. The converter box's remote measures about 6.5 x 1.6 x 0.8 inches. It only uses one AAA battery. Here's a picture of the remote.



There are a couple of things I don't like about the converter. The volume control is so fine that you have to move the indicator a long way before hearing a significant change in the sound level. The control goes from 0 to 100. More control is usually great, but in this case it's a minor irritant. The other thing is that setting up and editing the channels is confusing. The menu items you must select and the sequence of buttons you have to push are not very intuitive. However, the converter has lots of options, so with a little exploring (or reading the manual), you can figure out how to do what you need to do.

One reason I chose the Zenith DTT901 is because when it is turned off it passes analog signals from the antenna to the TV. I use the analog pass-through feature frequently to watch the nearest CBS affiliate, WSPA. Before February 17 WSPA is transmitting it's DTV in the UHF band. After February 17 their DTV will be in the VHF band. I cannot receive their UHF signal, but I can receive their VHF signal. (VHF covers a larger viewing area than UHF at the same amount of power.) After February 17 I should be able to receive WSPA's DTV signal.

The analog pass-through feature is also useful for low-power local stations that will not be switching to digital transmissions. If you have such stations near you, you can turn off the converter box and watch local programming, like local government meetings or town events, for example. Currently, with the converter turned off I receive nine analog VHF channels. Only five of the channels have pictures that are good enough to enjoy watching. I'll have to wait and see if I still get any analog channels after February 17, 2009.

DVD Player (Philips DVP3140)

I had never owned or wanted a DVD player because I have two working VCRs and over a hundred tapes. However, when I cancelled my cable TV I lost most of the channels off which I tape movies. I wanted to keep watching movies so it was time to buy a DVD player.

Since I had never used a DVD player and could only imagine how one would work, I had several concerns. When I stop a movie and want to continue it later, how would I find my place? When I'm watching a movie with quick subtitles and need to back up to read missed dialogue, how would I do it? Would I be able to stop on a frame? Most DVD players I read about said they used Progressive Scan, yet my TV's manual specifically says my TV cannot process Progressive Scan input. Would I have to select a DVD player that doesn't have Progressive Scan?

Like with my antenna requirements, I wanted a DVD player that would meet my needs for the least amount of money. I researched many cheap DVD players and chose the Philips DVP3140. I am very pleased with it. It does everything I need and has many features I'll never use. It can reverse at multiple speeds, fast forward at multiple speeds, pause, zoom, and it remembers where the last five disks stopped. When one of the last five disks is inserted, the player automatically begins playing the disk at the place where it was stopped. It also has a search feature that I've never used, that goes to an inputted time on the disk, like 1 hour, 3 minutes, and 10 seconds, for example. The progressive scan feature is turned off by default, so that feature was not a problem for me. When I read reviews of this DVD player some people complained that there's no eject button on the remote to open the tray. If you hold the stop button down for a few seconds the tray opens.

Of course every device has some things I don't like. Here's what I don't like about the Philips DVP3140. The tray seems fragile. The open-close button for the tray doesn't work when I press it gently. I have to press it hard. And I dislike the remote's design. It's uncomfortable in my hand, the buttons are small, and some of the buttons must be pressed fairly hard before they function. However, for the price I paid ($40) and the features I got, I'm very happy with the purchase. Here's a list of the buttons on the Philips DVP3140's remote: power, disc menu, display, left, up, right, down, OK, return/title, setup, previous, next, stop, mute, play/pause, 1-0, subtitle, audio, zoom, repeat, repeat A-B. The player's remote measures about 5.5 x 2 x 0.8 inches. Here's a picture of it.



I did have one problem with the Philips DVP3140. When I tried to play my first disk the picture was in black and white, although the disk was in color. I finally found the problem's solution in my television's manual. One of the TV's setup screens had a place where I had to turn on component video to make the component video work. I made the change and it fixed the problem.

Wiring

Here's a picture of my equipment setup.



There are many ways to wire your equipment. Each method offers different capabilities and different drawbacks. I can't explain multiple wiring configurations, but I can share my setup and explain how it works. I wanted to wire my antenna, TV, digital converter, DVD player, and two VCRs to maximize my capabilities without too much complexity or expense. I wanted to be able to tape shows off the air, and I wanted to be able to watch a taped movie or a DVD movie while I was taping something else. Here's a diagram showing how I wired my equipment.



(Here's a printable copy of the diagram resized to print on 8.5 x 11-inch paper, with the colors reversed to use less ink. Right click the link and save or print the target file from the pop-up menu. Your options depend on which browser you are using.)

Except for the wires between the DVD player and the TV, all the connections on the diagram are made using standard coaxial TV cables with needle-type RF connectors. The DVD player is connected to the TV using five cables with RCA plugs at both ends. The three video cables are connected to the "component video" ports on both the TV and DVD player. Component video ports are often labeled "Y", "Pb", and "Pr". The two audio cables also have RCA plugs on each end.

The A/B switch lets me choose which input source should go to channel 3 (or 4) on the TV. When the switch is set to "A" the TV receives input from VCR 1. The signal can be from a tape being played or it can be passed through VCR 1 from the converter box. When the switch is set to "B" the TV receives input from a tape being played on VCR 2.

Input from the DVD player does not come into the TV on a numbered channel, but on Video-1, which is what my TV calls the component video input. My TV's remote has a button labeled "Input" that lets me select Video-1 or Video-2. (Video-2 designates the composite input ports.)

In case any of you want to use my wiring setup, I'll list how I set each device in my setup to accomplish each of my viewing options.

Watch a DTV Channel

Antenna on
Antenna positioned for channel to be watched
Tune converter to desired channel
VCR 1 off
A/B switch on A
TV on channel 3

Tape a DTV Channel

Antenna on
Antenna positioned for channel to be recorded
Tune converter to channel to be recorded
VCR 1 on channel 3

Turning the TV on channel 3 helps me while setting up the antenna, converter, and VCR, but the TV can be turned off after the other equipment has been set. The settings for the TV, VCR 2, the A/B switch, and the DVD player have no effect on taping a show using VCR 1.

I cannot watch a DTV channel while I'm taping a different DTV channel. The digital converter only converts one channel at a time. There's no way to process two different DTV channels at the same time. After I've set up the equipment to record something, I leave the converter's remote on the TV stand for safety. If the remote is where I keep it for watching TV, I'm likely to forget I'm taping something and change the channel, which would ruin the recording.

There's also no way to watch an analog channel while taping a digital channel, because the converter only passes through the analog signal from the antenna when the converter is turned off. I considered a wiring configuration that would let me watch analog TV while taping something digital, but since most analog signals will stop on February 17, 2009 I decided setting it up that way wasn't worth the trouble.

Watch an Analog Channel

Antenna on
Antenna positioned for channel to be watched
Converter off
VCR 1 off
A/B switch on A
TV on channel to be watched

Tape an Analog Channel

Antenna on
Antenna positioned for channel to be recorded
Converter off
VCR 1 on channel to be recorded

While taping an analog channel, a different analog channel can be watched if it is receivable without moving the antenna. Just set the A/B switch to A and set the TV to the channel to be watched.

Watch a VCR Tape

VCR 2 on
Load tape to be watched into VCR 2
A/B switch on B
TV on channel 3

Watching a tape using VCR 2 has no effect on the antenna, converter, or VCR 1. VCR 1 can be recording a show while a movie is being watched using VCR 2.

Watch a DVD

DVD player on
TV on video-1

Watching a DVD has no effect on the antenna, converter, VCR 1, or VCR 2. VCR 1 can be recording a show while a DVD is being watched.


Copyright © 2008 by Jon Maloney

Recover Windows Mailfrom a Backup Copy

Last week I had to reinstall Windows Vista Home Premium on my father's computer. I then installed Vista Service Pack 1 and reinstalled various applications. I had an up-to-date backup copy of my father's user folder, but I did not know how to get the old emails and contacts into the newly-installed copy of Windows Mail.

The Problem

How do you make a reinstallation of Windows Mail include old emails and old contacts?

Concerns

Way back in the days of DOS and Windows 3.1 it was relatively easy to move programs and data around on your hard drive. Sometimes a text initialization file with a file name extension of "ini" had to be edited to reflect new file paths, but such changes were relatively straightforward. Now most Windows programs use an installation process that populates the Windows Registry with information regarding the program and its data, which prevents you from relocating program and data files on your hard drive without also editing the Registry. I did not know how Windows Mail uses the Registry. Are there registry entries for email folders and subfolders? Are their indexes to emails and/or attachments? How would I merge old inbox emails with new inbox emails? There had been an old email account that was no longer active, but from which many mails had been sent. Does that old account need to be defined to preserve the old mail? I didn't know the answers to any of those questions. I just knew I wanted the recovery to be clean, simple, and complete. (grin)

When the computer was new over a year ago I imported all the old Outlook Express mail into Windows Mail. I remembered the process seemed buggy then and I didn't like the way the imported folders were indented within an imported folder. Windows Mail offers export and import, but I was reluctant to experiment with importing Windows Mail into Windows Mail.

Vista Service Pack 1 is a big update. If part of the update includes changing the formats of emails or of the contacts file, I would be in trouble. I viewed both Contacts files in Explorer. The columns shown in the detailed view were different between the old and new files, but I hoped it was due to a viewing-layout change rather than an underlying file-format change.

The Solution

What I did was very simple and it seems to have worked perfectly. I haven't noticed any negative consequences.

First, I copied the old email folders into the new location. When you perform a custom reinstallation of Vista Home Premium, old data is copied into a folder named "Windows.old". That's where I copied the old email folders from, although I also had an external backup I could have used. Here is the location where I found the old email folders:

C:\Windows.old\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail\Local Folders

I copied the folders from that location into this location:

C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail\Local Folders

Note: I changed my father's user name to "<user>" in the path names above. You would have to replace "<user>" with your own user name.

When there was already a folder of the same name in the new location, if the new folder contained emails, I did not replace it with the old folder. That situation occurred with the Inbox. I copied the individual files from the old Inbox folder to the new Inbox folder. I noticed a file that appeared to be a contents or index file in both folders, but I ignored it hoping Windows Mail would update it later automatically to reflect the folder's contents.

Then I replaced the new Contacts file with the old Contacts file. The old Contacts file was here:

C:\Windows.old\Users\<user>\Contacts

I copied it to here:

C:\Users\<user>\Contacts

I looked at a detailed view of the copied Contacts file in Explorer. The data appeared to be correct and in the proper fields.

I did not copy any account data. I had used a wizard to configure the newly-installed Windows Mail.

Warning: The steps in this post relate what I did. This process seems to have worked for me. Following the same steps might not work for you. Follow this procedure at your own risk. Make a backup of files and folders you will be changing beforehand, so if the process doesn't work you will be able to recover.

Vista Service Pack 1 FailureInstallation Error 0xc01a001d

Last week I used Windows Update to install Windows Vista Service Pack 1 on my father's computer running Vista Home Premium.

The Problem

The installation failed during one of the automatic restarts. There was a black screen with one line of flickering white text, which said the following:

!! 0xc01a001d !! 37707/91526 (\Registry\Machine\COMPONENTS\Winners\x86...)

Before the error the 37707 number had been incrementing rapidly and the 91526 number was static. I assume the numbers represented registry entries (or files) and the left number was incrementing until it reached the right number.

The Cause

Unknown. Google returned about 500 hits on the error code. Most of the hits referenced forums in which people were asking for help with the same problem. I saw no site documenting a solution. One possible reason for the code is that a log file filled up. ("C01A001D STATUS_LOG_FULL Log space is exhausted" found here.)

The Final Solution

I had to perform a custom reinstallation of Vista using the Vista reinstallation DVD that came with the Dell computer. The first attempt failed. The second attempt succeeded. I had to download and install Vista Service Pack 1 again. This time it worked. I had to reinstall every program and figure out how to get each program's data loaded from backup copies.

Actions Taken

When I first saw the error I knew it was bad. I didn't want to do anything that might make the problem harder to recover from. Since Microsoft offers free Vista SP1 support for problems not defined as advanced, I called Microsoft at (866) 234-6020. There was no wait time for a Vista SP1 support person.

I worked on the phone with a Microsoft technician for 2 hours and 26 minutes. She sounded Indian and had an accent I found difficult to understand. At first I was hopeful because I knew I had at least four good restore points. Following are some of the things we tried. I mention them here because if you can get any of them to work it's better than reinstalling Vista.

I powered off the computer by pressing and holding the Dell desktop's power button for several seconds. Then I pressed the power button to turn it back on. The restart failed at the same point, but with a different error code. This time the error code was 0xc0190036 and the file named was WSDMon.dll. I powered the computer off and on again. The restart failed with the same error (0xc0190036) on the same file (WSDMon.dll).

(While writing this account I discovered a forum post claiming that the 0xc0190036 error means the named file is corrupted. If you can boot into Safe Mode or to a command prompt, which I could not, and if the poster's information is correct, you can get around this error by either deleting or changing the name of the corrupted file. The Vista SP1 installation will simply install a new copy of the file. However, this error list says error C0190036 means "STATUS_FILE_IDENTITY_NOT_PERSISTENT The file cannot be opened transactionally, because its identity depends on the outcome of an unresolved transaction.")

I powered off and powered on again, pressing F8 repeatedly during boot-up to invoke the Advanced Boot Options. I selected Safe Mode. Attempting to boot into Safe Mode failed.

I rebooted and pressed F12 during boot-up to get the boot source options. With the Vista Installation DVD in the CD/DVD drive, I chose "Onboard or USB CD-ROM Drive". The next text-filled screen had something like "Press any key to boot from CD" at the very bottom of the screen, however, time was not provided to read the screen before the computer began booting from the hard disk. This timing problem caused me to accidentally start booting from the hard disk three different times. Each time Windows ran a recovery process that failed.

I rebooted, pressed F12, chose "Onboard or USB CD-ROM Drive", and quickly pressed the space bar to boot from the DVD drive. I selected the "Repair Your Computer" option from the DVD. I don't have the details in my notes, but I got to a screen that offered to restore from a restore point. Only one restore point was shown. The failed Vista SP1 installation had deleted, hidden, or otherwise rendered the other restore points inaccessible. I tried to restore to the restore point shown and received the following error.

System Restore did not complete successfully. Your computer's system files and settings were not changed. System Restore failed due to an unspecified error. The file cannot be opened transactionally, because its identity depends on the outcome of an unresolved transaction. (0x80071AA7)

I rebooted to the DVD and chose to perform a custom installation. A custom installation saves selected files in a folder called "Windows.old". On the last step of the installation the installation failed with an error message saying the Windows.old directory was corrupt. It said to run CHKDSK.

Rebooting produced the following error.

Install Windows
The computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error. Windows installation cannot proceed. To install Windows, click "OK" to restart the computer, and then restart the installation.

The computer would not reboot, even in Safe Mode or Safe Mode with command prompt.

I rebooted to the DVD and chose to perform another custom installation. This time the installation completed and then CHKDSK ran automatically.

I called Microsoft back and got another difficult-to-understand Indian-sounding technician to help me get a clean installation of Vista Service Pack 1. He walked me through checking services, setting selective start-up in msconfig, and downloading SP1. The SP1 installation succeeded.

Vista Connection Error(currently online but not responding)

I recently worked on a difficult connection problem on my father's computer. This post will share some of the problems and the solution in hopes of helping others solve the problem more quickly than I did. Our relevant system specs are listed at the end of the post.

The Problem: Suddenly the computer was not able to connect to the Internet (including email).

The Cause: AT&T stopped honoring the default usercode/password that was stored in the DSL modem, with no warning and no meaningful error messages. The connection simply stopped working.

The Solution: AT&T support reset something giving me temporary access. I went to an AT&T login page where I was able to change the usercode and password. I reset the modem by using a paperclip to press the reset button in the hole in the back of the modem. Then I was able to enter and save the new usercode and password in the DSL modem.

I'll share some symptoms, actions I performed, and pitfalls so you can see if your problem is similar to ours.

Symptoms

No Internet connection and no email connection.

The modem lights indicated everything was fine. There were four solid green lights and the fifth light blinked green occasionally. None of the lights were red or yellow.

Neighbors who were also BellSouth DSL subscribers did not have a problem.

Attempting to connect to the Internet using Internet Explorer resulted in the error message, "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage." Clicking on "Diagnose Connection Problems" on the error screen resulted in the following error window.

Windows Network Diagnostics

Windows confirmed that "www.google.com" is currently online, but is not responding to connection attempts at this time.

This usually means that a firewall is running somewhere between the two computers and is blocking "World Wide Web service (HTTP)". Windows has confirmed that Windows Firewall on this computer is correctly configured to allow this connection. However, a remote firewall might be blocking your connection.

If you have access to this firewall then configure the firewall to allow connections through TCP port 80. If you don't have access, contact your network administrator or Internet service provider.

Windows Network Diagnostics confirmed that each address we tried was online but not responding, indicating that there was a physical connection to the Internet. Microsoft even automatically downloaded and installed a Windows update, further proving the connection existed and was working, but was being blocked when we tried to use it. (Diagnostics can also be run from the pop-up menu you get when you right-click on the network icon on the lower right in the system tray.)

Attempting to download email also caused an error.

Actions

Reset the network adapter using a link in the Windows Network Diagnostics results. No effect.

Checked wires. All were intact.

Rebooting the computer and rebooting the modem by disconnecting and reconnecting the power cable had no effect.

I accessed the modem's user interface using the IP address listed in the manual. I ran the modem's full diagnostics. All tests passed.

Turning off the Windows Domain, Public, and Private firewalls had no effect.

Disabling and later uninstalling Avast! antivirus had no effect.

Stopping LogMeIn and later uninstalling LogMeIn had no effect.

Uninstalling Windows Vista Service Pack 1, which had installed the previous day, had no effect.

Restoring the system to a restore point created while the computer still had Internet access had no effect.

Downloading and installing another driver for the network adapter did not help.

Disabling and enabling the network adapter did not help.

I called AT&T support and ran several commands the technician walked me through. We opened a DOS window by clicking Start on the lower left and then entering "CMD" in the search field. I ran "ipconfig /release" which resulted in an error saying elevation was required. This put off the technician. (I was running Windows under an administrative account.) I ran "ipconfig /renew" which didn't help. I ran "ipconfig /all" and read the technician the results. When I got to the result that said something like, "Tunnel Adapter Local Area Connection *6 Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface Media Disconnected", the technician said she thought I had either a bad network adapter or a bad Ethernet cable. Since she thought the problem was with the hardware, she said she couldn't be of any more assistance, although she did give me a fee-based AT&T technical support number I could call. (Since then I have learned that several of the connections listed on the "ipconfig /all" results say "Media Disconnected" even when the online connection is working fine.)

I knew the adapter and LAN cable were good since Microsoft was able to download updates, but I realized the best way to make AT&T continue working on the problem would be to prove the adapter and cable were not the problem. So we bought a new Netgear GA311 network adapter and a new LAN cable. We installed those and still had no Internet access.

I called AT&T support again, told the technician we had replaced the parts the previous technician had said were defective, and we still had no Internet access. He determined that the usercode/password stored in the modem were old default values that AT&T had deactivated. He reset something giving us temporary access. He gave us a url to visit where I changed the usercode and password. Then I accessed the modem's user interface and entered the new usercode and password. Problem solved.

Relevant Computer Specs.

Internet Service: BellSouth (AT&T) FastAccess DSL
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium
Browser: Internet Explorer 7
DSL Modem: Motorola Netopia 2210-02
Internet Adapter: Intel 82562V 10/100 Network Connection (on motherboard)
Netgear GA311 network adapter (added)

Avast! Antivirus Version 4.8 Problems

[Updates have been added in brackets where appropriate. The latest update is August 7, 2008.]

In this post I will share some of my initial experiences with avast! antivirus v4.8. Although I am evaluating avast! 4.8 on a Windows 98 system, some of the problems I've noticed would also exist under Windows XP and Vista. I have chosen avast! antivirus as a replacement for Grisoft's AVG, which will no longer support Windows 98. The fact that many people running Windows 98 are also AVG users inspired me to write this post. Perhaps people seeking a new antivirus program will find my observations helpful.

Since I use my computer commercially I am not eligible for the free home version of avast!. A comparison between the home and professional versions indicates they are the same except for the following features only available in the professional version: command line scanner, enhanced user interface, script blocking, push updates, creating tasks, scheduling tasks, and storing scan results. If I don't encounter major problems I can't solve during the trial period I will buy the professional version.

I had no difficulties with avast!'s download and installation. Before installing avast! I booted my computer into safe mode so that AVG would not be running. I uninstalled AVG by running setup.exe in the AVG folder. The setup program provided an option for removing AVG. Then I rebooted and installed avast!. I chose the custom installation and chose not to install the scanning modules for applications I don't have -- Outlook, peer-to-peer networking (P2P), and instant messaging (IM). Near the end of the installation process a wizard configured email scanning.

Avast! with POPFile
Installing avast! reconfigured my four email accounts in Eudora so that they no longer worked. I had anticipated that problem. I use POPFile to examine, sort, and tag my email before it gets to Eudora. I would have been very impressed if avast! had inserted itself into the mail-processing stream without creating a problem. I wasn't sure of the easiest way to restore my Eudora accounts to their prior settings, so I simply restored the eudora.ini file from the Eudora folder in the disk backup I had made before uninstalling AVG. That worked. I could send and receive mail from my various accounts again but the mail wasn't being scanned for viruses. I researched the problem online and found the solution for avast! 4.5 in the POPFile Documentation Project. I updated the avast4.ini file using the instructions on that site, and it worked. I did not change anything in Eudora or in POPFile.

Scan of Internal Hard Disks
I wanted to run a scan overnight. I was curious to see if avast! would identify any viruses that AVG had either missed or ignored. I found three ways to run avast!: by clicking avast! antivirus in the Windows start menu, by double-clicking the desktop icon added during installation, or by right clicking the avast! tray icon and selecting "Start avast! Antivirus". Here's a reduced image of the simple user interface using the default skin, which looks like a media player.


You have to point the cursor at each button and wait for a pop-up description to appear to see what each button does. I tried the alternate skin offered, but it was no more intuitive to me. You still must hover the cursor over each button to see what the button does. I went back to the default skin.

I tried to adjust the sensitivity setting by clicking and dragging the indicator in the pop-up sensitivity graphic. My screen went black. The keys and mouse were inoperable so I had to reboot. Then I discovered the menu that's displayed by clicking the button on the upper left of the simple interface. I set the scan area to local disks, set the scan level to thorough, decided not to scan inside archives, started the scan, and went to bed.

About a half hour after going to bed I was startled to hear a siren and a male voice say "Caution, a virus has been detected." I got up and investigated. The scan had stopped and was awaiting a response to a pop-up window. My plan had been to run the scan, check the results in the morning, and decide what to do about anything that had been found. That plan wasn't going to work if the scan couldn't be run unattended. I examined the pop-up window's options. I think they were: delete, move, and move to chest (i.e. avast!'s quarantine area). I didn't want to do any of those things. I wanted the file's name and location to be logged and the scan to continue. There was a check box that said something like, "Don't show me this message again." I checked the box hoping it would allow the scan to run unattended. Then I clicked "continue" at the bottom of the window without selecting an option for what to do with the file. The alarm went off again and the window came back demanding an action. I told it to move the file to the chest. Then I went back to bed and although more viruses were detected, no more alarms went off. The program automatically moved each file containing a virus to the chest without bothering me.

The thorough scan took about eight hours and twenty minutes to scan about 255,000 files (on a 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 - Northwood, with 1 GB RAM, and two 7,200 rpm Western Digital IDE drives). I can't give an exact duration or file count because both the "last scan results" and "view scan report" were grayed out. (Later I discovered the report file creation feature was not turned on. It can be turned on by going to settings in the simple menu, and then selecting "Report file". There's a check box that says, "Create report file".)

[Update 5/21/08: I ran another thorough scan overnight. Afterward when I used the simple menu to go to Tools, View scan reports, the "View scan reports" menu item was grayed out. I went to Settings, Report file and verified that "Create report file" was checked. I used Windows Explorer to find the report file. I viewed it and the latest scan report had been appended to the file. So the report was created although viewing it was not available in the Tools menu. Here's the path and name of the report on my system: "C:\Program Files\Alwil Software\Avast4\DATA\report\Simple user interface.txt". The report named ten files that could not be scanned because there was not enough storage. The files ranged in size from 289 MB to 4 GB. Over 20 GB of space is free on C: so the storage limitation must be RAM or a logical area programmatically defined in the avast! scanner.]

Seven viruses were detected, all in old emails. There were five copies of "Win32:Beagle-gen@mail" and two copies of "VBS:Kak-A [Wrm]". Avast! did not identify which emails contain the viruses. I restored one of the large mail files from the virus chest back to Eudora. Then I right clicked the file's name in Windows Explorer and selected "scan" from the context menu. Avast! alarmed, said a virus had been detected, and popped up the action window. The options were move/rename, delete, and move to chest. I clicked continue. The alarm went off again and the same window popped up, only this time there was a fourth option, repair. I clicked repair and another window popped up with three choices: repair all, repair, and cancel. I clicked repair all. The windows went away as if the repairs had worked and the problem had been solved. I went back to Windows Explorer and scanned the same file again. The alarm went off and named the same virus that had supposedly been repaired. So "repair all" was deceptive and unreliable. (I have never had success with an antivirus program's repair facility.) This time I selected "repair" rather than "repair all" in the second pop-up, and a message was displayed that said, "The file was not repaired."

I don't like the choices I see for handling old mail files. I can have large mail files kept in avast!'s virus chest, in which case thousands of emails would be inaccessible to Eudora, or I can restore them to Eudora and have them cause problems each time I perform a system scan. I don't have to worry about the viruses becoming active and infecting anything, because if an email containing a virus were ever opened, avast!'s resident shield would catch the virus. A Eudora mail file might contain a thousand emails, but avast! has to delete or move the entire file of a thousand emails, not just the email containing the virus. That's a problem. If avast! could show a block of text from each offending email I could easily perform a search myself, find the email, and delete just that email. If anyone can tell me how to identify which emails contain viruses please leave a comment telling me how. The Eudora files are ".mbx" text files that can be edited with any text editor.

The next day I discovered how to turn off skins. Click the simple interface's upper left button, or right click the skin, to get the menu. Choose settings, then common. There's a check box that can be unchecked to disable skins. Close avast!. Start it again and there's a clear, functional, simple interface. Here's a reduced image of the simple user interface displayed when skins are disabled.


And here's a reduced image of the enhanced user interface that's available in the professional version.


I ran another scan of my fixed drives. This time I selected a sensitivity level of standard rather than thorough. The scan took 48 minutes and 11 seconds to scan 255,935 files and 12,990 folders. Zero infections were found. The standard scan did not find the viruses in the old mailbox text files I had restored from the virus chest.

I have temporarily used the Settings, Exclusions screen to exclude two old mail files from scanning. I'll discover the names of the other mail files I restored on my next thorough scan, then I can exclude those files too. Adding a file or path to the exclusions list does not prevent on-access scanning, so I'm still protected from the old viruses in the excluded files. There's a problem with the design of the exclusions screen. The display area for showing the list of exclusions is not wide enough to show the file names. The display is not resizable and there's no horizontal scroll bar. Items can be added or removed, but the file names can't be seen when the path is long.

[Update 5/21/08: I discovered where you can see the file names in your exclusion list when the path is too long for the exclusions list display. Exclusions are listed in the [Common] section of the avast4.ini file in the avast data folder.]

Virus Chest Keeps Copies of Restored Files
This isn't really a problem, but it is unexpected based on user experiences restoring files from the Windows recycle bin. Files can be removed from the virus chest manually.

[Update 5/21/08: I ran another thorough scan which did not find the old mail files I thought I had restored from the virus chest. I wanted to find them so I could add them to the list of files to exclude from scanning. Apparently I was wrong in thinking I had restored files that were automatically deleted from the virus chest. I have edited the above paragraph to remove the misinformation I had previously posted. To verify that restoring files does not remove them from the virus chest I performed tests using two EICAR test viruses, called EICAR.exe and EICAR.com. When I right clicked on one and selected scan, avast! alarmed and let me move the file to the virus chest. I double clicked on the other file to run it. Avast! alarmed and I moved that file to the virus chest too. I restored both files from the virus chest to their original locations. The virus chest retained copies of the restored files.

I was interested that I had no trouble saving, modifying, copying, or deleting the EICAR files. Investigation revealed why. I right clicked the tray icon and selected "On-Access Protection Control". The Standard Shield was set to Normal sensitivity, which scans executable files that are executed, but not when they are read, modified, or copied. The High setting is stricter, and has various options for further defining the scanner's behavior.]

Voice Alerts
There's a voice announcement every time avast! automatically updates itself that I find quite annoying. Here's how to stop that voice announcement. On the simple menu go to settings, then sounds, then settings. Scroll down the list of sounds until you come to the section called "avast! antivirus". Click on the sound called "Automatic VPS update" to highlight it. Click the arrow on the right edge of the "Name" field and select "None". Click "Yes". The sound list also contains two other avast! voice alerts you can change if you like -- one for when a virus is detected and one for when something suspicious is detected.

Simple Menu Loading Failures
Several times the avast! simple menu has failed to run when I've tried to start it using either the desktop icon or the right-click menu of the tray icon. It seems to work the first time I run it after a reboot, but sometimes subsequent attempts to run it fail, as if it doesn't shut down cleanly. After the avast! simple menu has failed to load I have to reboot before it will run again. The first time it failed I got this error, "The process cannot access the file because program cannot set property into main storage."

The most similar error I found in a FAQ on the avast! web site said, "Unknown error. Program cannot set property into main Storage." The solution began, "Solution described in this FAQ should not be used with the program version 4.7. This error message is displayed when your ODBC drivers are too old, or damaged, or if they aren't installed properly. avast! before version 4.7 uses these drivers by default." The FAQ goes on to describe two solutions -- update the ODBC drivers or use a text editor to change one line in the avast4.ini file from "Database=ODBC" to "Database=XML". I opened my avast4.ini file and found the line in question. It says, "Database=SQLT", so I didn't change it. Apparently version 4.8 uses SQLT instead of ODBC or XML. Other errors I've gotten when running the simple menu include: "avast! splash screen cannot load configuration" and "avast! simple user interface cannot load configuration".

This problem is intermittent and aggravating but something I can live with. The resident scanners for mail, scripts, file access, and Internet access load automatically. I only need the menu for infrequent activities like configuring features, running an on-demand system scan, or viewing the virus chest, logs, or reports. Files, folders, and entire disks can be scanned using the right-click menu in Windows Explorer. The enhanced menu offers task creation and task scheduling which further reduce the frequency at which a menu is needed.

I have an untested theory regarding the menu-loading problem. In the avast4.ini file I noticed a line that says, "ThreadTerminationTimeout=30000". It might be that the program does not shut down quickly and cleanly, thus hanging processes are terminated after a specified time period. It could be that attempting to run the program before all of its processes have timed out results in the menu-loading error. When I wait a few minutes between shutting down avast! and running it again I have not had the problem.

[Update 8/7/08: The avast! shutdown problem seems to be solved. I can now run avast! repeatedly in the same Windows session without problems. See details in the update at the end of this post.]

No Script Blocking in Firefox
The customization screen for script blocking has check boxes for three browsers: Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and Mozilla. The browser I use most often is Mozilla. I also use Firefox and Internet Explorer. The avast! script scanner has a splash screen that appears when I start Mozilla or Internet Explorer, but not when I start Firefox. Script blocking is offered only in avast!'s professional version.

Mail Scanner Repeatedly Registers Itself to Run at Startup
I use a small free utility program called Startup Monitor that displays a pop-up window whenever a program tries to register itself to run at computer startup. I like to control which programs run at startup and Startup Monitor gives me that control. It probably pops up less than once a month. Startup Monitor lets me allow or deny a program's request to run at startup.

Avast!'s mail-scanning program is ashmaisv.exe. The first time that program tried to register itself to run at startup I gave my permission and the program was added to the computer's startup process. That should have been the end of it, however, the program keeps trying to set itself to run at startup. I have had avast! installed for less than two days and ashmaisv.exe has tried to add itself to the startup list at least nine times.

This startup-requesting behavior is the most bothersome problem I've found in avast! thus far. When a program tries to add itself to the startup process I want to pay attention, examine it, and make the right decision. I can't afford to let a trustworthy program desensitize me to the startup alerts by unnecessarily popping up several times a day. I need to find a solution to this problem. I may research it on the avast! site, ask a question in the forum, or write to technical support. I hope the program's behavior is due to an answer I gave to the email-configuration wizard. I checked a box saying I want avast! to scan the mail of any new mail account I set up. If I'm very lucky the fact that avast! must periodically check for new mail accounts is causing this repeated startup registration, and I can change a "1" to a "0" on some line in the avast4.ini file to make it stop. I know, that's wishful thinking.

[Update 5/20/08: This problem appears to be solved. It looks like the only change needed was to change one line in the MailScanner section of the avast4.ini file to say "AutoSetProtection=0". I think that stops ashMaiSv from repeatedly adding itself to startup, but it also means the mail in future mail accounts will not be scanned.

Details for technical folks: I described the problem in the avast! forum and asked if there was a setting I could change in the avast4.ini file to fix it. When I checked the forum a few hours later a member of the Alwil team had answered, saying the behavior I described was caused by the option to protect future accounts and that I could run the wizard again from the start menu and leave that option unchecked. Although I was delighted to get that information, I had hoped someone would tell me which line to change in the avst4.ini file, because running the wizard would likely break my email and POPFile setup again as it had the first time.

Since everything seemed to be working correctly, my plan was to run the wizard again with no intention of keeping its results, but rather to see what setting in avast4.ini it changed to prevent ashMaiSv from adding itself to startup.

I backed up eudora.ini, avast4.ini, and the entire avast data folder (in case the wizard changed multiple files). I booted the computer into safe mode so avast! would not be running. I ran avast!'s Mail Protection Wizard from the Windows Start menu. I left the option to protect future accounts unchecked. The wizard gave me several error messages naming each mail and news protocol, saying that my mail and news would not be protected. Here's one of the errors,

avast!: Mail Scanner Warning
avast! will not be able to protect incoming mail (POP3 protocol)
Error: 10047

I suspected the errors were due to the changes I had made in Eudora so that POPFile would work with avast!. I assumed the errors were wrong, although I planned to verify that mail was being scanned later.

I compared the before and after eudora.ini files, using ExamDiff. Eudora.ini had not been changed. I compared the avast! data folder from before and after running the wizard, using WMatch. Two files had changed -- 400.vps and avast4.ini. I tried to view the 400.vps file and discovered it's a binary file so my viewer didn't work. I opened the file using the hex editor HxD. The text in the first few lines indicate that 400.vps is a virus definition file, thus not relevant to my wizard run. Two lines were different in avast4.ini. The line "AutoSetProtection=1" was changed to "AutoSetProtection=0" and a new line was added related to the NNTP news protocol (which I don't use). I deleted the new avast4.ini and edited the previous avast4.ini, changing "AutoSetProtection=1" to "AutoSetProtection=0".

I rebooted and tested email scanning as follows. I right clicked the avast! tray icon and selected "On-Access Protection Control". I selected the provider "Internet Mail". I clicked the customize button. On the POP and SMTP tabs I checked "Insert note into clean message". Then I clicked OK twice. I opened Eudora and sent a test message to each of my mail accounts. I received the messages and checked to make sure they each had avast!'s notes at the bottom, both the note saying saying the message being sent was clean and the note saying the received message was clean. Each mail had the proper notes verifying that avast! had scanned both outgoing and incoming mails. Finally, I went back to On-Access Protection Control and unchecked the boxes for adding the notes.]

The fact that I describe problems in this post does not mean I dislike avast! antivirus. Every antivirus program has problems. I had problems when I used McAfee, Norton, Bit Defender, and AVG. Problems are a certainty. The question is whether the problems outweigh the usefulness of the program. So far the avast! problems I've noticed are irritations rather than reasons for me to reject the product. Avast antivirus may be the best antivirus program that still works with Windows 98.

I'm fairly happy with avast! antivirus professional after using it for two days. I think it's protecting my computer with minimal impact on the system. If I find more problems worth mentioning, or solutions to problems I have described, I will update this post. If anyone knows how I can isolate which mails in my Eudora mbx files contain "Win32:Beagle-gen@mail" or "VBS:Kak-A [Wrm]" please let me know in a comment. Thanks.

[Update August 7, 2008: I have used avast! antivirus for almost three months. I bought the professional version in July before my trial period expired. I had hoped I would see how avast! handles a virus in an incoming email before I bought it, but I never received a virus by email. My fear is that avast! may demand that the entire in-box file be moved, deleted, or repaired, rather than simply handling the email containing the virus. I still don't know what will happen if I receive a batch of emails and one email contains a virus.

One aggravation with avast! is that about once a day my computer becomes unresponsive while avast! updates itself in the background. The mouse stops working and keystrokes no longer appear. At first I thought the computer was frozen and would have to be rebooted. Now I know to wait. After several seconds avast!'s blue notification slides up on the lower right, telling me the virus database has been updated.

A few days ago I discovered I could no longer run avast! manually. When I double-clicked the icon the splash screen would appear, the memory scan would not start, and I would get the error message: "The process cannot access the file because Program cannot set property into main Storage". Rebooting did not solve the problem. I reloaded my C: drive from a backup created a week earlier, but avast! gave the same error. I sought help on the avast! forum. The recommendation I got was to uninstall avast!, download the newest version, and reinstall it. By using a task manager I was able to make the avast! splash screen terminate. After the splash screen disappeared, a partially-functioning simple user interface came up. The settings menu appeared to work. I turned off the optional memory scan on startup. After that avast! would run without crashing on startup. There still seemed to be problems though, so I decided to uninstall it and install the latest version from scratch. I suspect the program update named Jul2008 had not worked properly and was the cause of my problems.

I uninstalled avast! using both Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel and the avast! uninstall utility.
I then downloaded and installed the newest version. As I was testing the program I noticed the avast! icon in the tray had a red crossbar on it. The on-access protection was disabled. I could not enable the on-access protection, through the icon's menu or through the simple user interface's settings menu. Rebooting did not solve the problem.

I started over. I uninstalled avast! again and installed the newest version. This time everything seemed to work perfectly. The on-access scanning works. The email scanning works (with no changes on my part). Avast! runs on demand and shuts down cleanly. I no longer have the problem of only being able to run avast! once per Windows session. It looks like either Alwil fixed the shutdown problem or my initial avast! installation was flawed. Either way it seems to work fine now.]

Jon Maloney

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My software info:
Windows 98 SE (build 4.10.2222)
POPFile v0.22.2
Eudora 4.3.2
Mozilla 1.7.12
Firefox 2.0.0.14
Internet Explorer 6.0.2800.1106
Startup Monitor