What to do when my C:\windows\SoftwareDistribution folder is bloating?

One of the things that my wife does not understand about me is why I spend more time with my computers more than with other things like cats or dogs. She thinks it is not healthy. You know what, in vice versa, I don't understan why I should keep cats or dogs.

I spend more time with my computers is simply I like them and I like them to be in good shape. I check every detail of them, renew, change, break one and get new one. I can't just break a cat and buy a new one, can I?

When I was playing with this VirtualBox on my Mac, I was a little shocked that my Windows on it was almost filling out my 15 Gigs of the virtual HD. What on earth that is? Practically I only installed Office 2007, Visual Studio 5 and some video/audio players. Then I find out my windows folder took 6.8 Gigs! WOOOW..

I heard about this windows being bloatware and all but did not think of it as serious. It was not this crazy usually. Taking a looke deeper I found:

1. c:\windows\softwaredistribution\download folder was 1.63 Gigs. Thats' definetaly not normal.
2. c:\windows\system32 took about 1.25 Gigs, well I guessed I could take it.
3. c:\windows\installer was 2.44 Gigs
4. c:\windows\assembly was 440 Megs
5. c:\windows\Microsoft.Net took 200 Megs

Others looke normal, they took from 0 kb up to tens of Megs, I thought they were ok. What needed to take care is issue no. 1 and 3. Let's dig it.

I've got this article in hand:
http://phorums.com.au/archive/index.php/t-182069.html
http://www.optimizingpc.com/optimize/deletefiles.html

We can conclude that c:\windows\softwaredistribution\download is safe to empty. That's right, just empty the folder not delete the folder. What I did was to copy the files within the folder and copy them into my external HD, just in case. I ran the windows update to check that everything was ok, that every update was recognised.

I did not find any c:\windows\downloaded installation\ , instead the folder in number 2.

To remove c:\windows\installers\ is not that easy. You may end up failing uninstalling software you already installed if you just remove it.

Here are some articles:
http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths/archive/2007/01/31/how-to-safely-delete-orphaned-patches.aspx
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301

I've got a feeling this is gonna be a little rocky. so I am gonna investigate a little more before doing it. After finding out that there's no orphan files by running msizap.exe with no results, I decided to cut the files in c:\windows\installer and then paste them somewhere in my external HD. I will return them later when I want to uninstall something. However, I don't have the guts to move all files in the directory. There's one directory I did not touch, that is C:\WINDOWS\Installer\$PatchCache$\ under this directory I had Managed folder which also I did not touch. The names of the folders are too spooky to be touched. There's a blog that wrote scary things about this folder: http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths/archive/2007/01/17/the-patch-cache-and-freeing-space.aspx

Therefore, I could only move 1.3 Gigs out of my windows, or totally 3 Gigs or thereabouts.
So far, so good. I will tell you later if this really causes issues. See you.

Removing Zenoss User Account Gloriously

One of those long list of the pleasure of using MacOS X is the fact that it is a UNIX derivative. Being reliable, fast, network-native, secure and stable are some of its destiny and as in apple product tradition, it is packed in a sexy body, and very friendly. Yes, I slept with my mac often.

Being great and all, it is an ideal station to monitor network. That's when Zenoss came in. A very good software indeed. As all what I love, it also comes and goes. There was time to uninstall Zenoss. Well, some ex-girl friends are just too stubborn to get rid of (they usually love me too much) so is Zenoss. Removing the user account from Mac is hard.

This is what usually people do to get rid of an app:

1. uninstall it. Say in Mac you usually just "send to trash" it from the Finder.

2. Since you notice that Zenoss is still hanging out in the login window, so you need to delete it from the Group.

3. Delete the user from the /Users

After you logoff, you will still notice that the user is still there in the login window. That's when some people usually decide to cry.

Here's the steps for you to dry up your eyes:

1. Enable ROOT and the login as ROOT

Open Terminal, type: sudo passwd

then follow the instruction like making a new password and all.

Once root password created/changed, logoff and login as root.

To login as root, you need to click "other" in the login window and type in "root" (without quotes) and the password you've just made.

2. Make hidden files show

At the terminal type:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

killAll Finder

3. Delete zenoss.plist file

Navigate to /var/db/dslocal/nodes/default/users

then delete file zenoss.plist

4. Hide the hidden files back

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE

killAll Finder

logoff and watch the zenoss acount is gone now.

And be happy ever after.

Internet Printing Service, VOIP and Squid

Wait..
What do the three of them relate to each other? None! only I want to setup them all in my system. I am gonna upgrade my bandwidth to 1 mbps, and you know what! I already start wanting this and that to stuff into the bandwidth.

First, I want a VOIP off course. I cannot connect VOIP to any PSTN here. In my country it is illegal. Yes, that correct the government is crazy. There were already people put in jail for that.
I might be gonna use Asterisk, they say it's the best. Being learnt now.

Second, I want an Internet Printing Service. this is gonna be cool. I am installing it and now in the phase of heading a wall. I am having: "Printer Installation Failed Error Code = 2 EFF". Since this is a Friday night, I am gonna solve it by the monday. By the way, my back-end is W2K3, if you can help me out!

You know these VOIP and IPP thingy is gonna consume bandwidth. That's where Squid comes in hand. I have about 40 users that only access Facebook, MSN, Yahoo, Youtube and local portal like Detik.com, weddingku.com and some business web-sites.

It's gonna be nice.

Eventually My Bootcamp Is Giving Up on Me

Note:
This article was written before I found http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928218/ which explains uninstalling Office 2007 manually when "add and remove programs" is failing.

Been almost 15 moths now that my macbook was installed in dual boot mode. It was nice. I love it. Bootcamp was such a tough and nice, saviour of my daily life. Until just now, I have to retire it.

My office work is done in WinXP like ASP and VB coding. But yeah, I love web design as well. Therefore I had Adobe Suite like dreamweaver, flash, photoshop, and stuffs. Also I have this Visual Studio installed. Sure I have Ms Office 2007 trial to see how it works. Until then I could not uninstall it. I then checked the details of my installed softwares and I found some could not be uninstalled. Using third party software to uninstall them can be messy, so I won't do it. Leaving scraps of uninstallable software is always bad. That slows your system down. Some people call it Winrot phenomenon. Check Winrot term this website and also this article.

Damn. After I tried to uninstall it a couple of times and no luck, I decided to uninstall the whole WinXP and reinstall it from scratch. Hopefully a clean install.

A friend of mine once said, a bad luck never comes as a single event, it always comes in as a row of bad unlucky events. It happened to me. After those backing-ups and successfull installation, I could not activate my copy of windows. This is a legal copy of windows, so I could not figured out why. So I activated my copy via phone. I was very happy that I could login after that, until later on it asked for another activation after I rebooted the system. The very weird thing was it asked for an activation but as soon as I activated it, it said it was already activated and then kicked me out of the system. Geez, I could not login in any way. Of course I contacted microsoft to rectify this problem and it was solved until I rebooted.

And that's it I've had enough.

Then a light shone on me and a voice said: put it in a virtual machine, use VirtualBox! :-)

I've got it, I tried it and I was happy. Here I am, writing blog thru my WinXP on VirtualBox.

Iphone or Winmo 6.1, and what's your back-end, dude? Xserve or W2K3?

I've got a HTC touch HD in my hand. It's nice and sleek. I love it. Off-course I love Iphone too, which I don't have. I've got a macbook that makes it kinda cool to have an iPhone in company. For me it is kinda hard to decide to buy or not to buy my self an iPhone. Why? I'll tell you my story.

Back in Y2K, i've heard about this dream that Apple was gonna throw out an apple phone. That would be a killer. Cell phone business was huge, but it looked like it needed the "touch of Midas". Looking back to the history of computer and music, sure Steve Jobs was gonna do it again. This time the cell phone. And he did it.

iPhone was and is fancy.

But we all know that phone is not just a talking box. That's not what iPhone is meant to be, that's not any cell phone is meant to be. Like right now, cell phone is an extension of computer evolution. From mainframe to PC to cell phone. Apple put together the mobile evolution chains right.

Now, year 2009 is gonna be an interesting year. All phones will be iPhone-like phones. Check out Blackberry storm or check out all mobile phone operating systems. Be it Microsoft Mobile, Android, or Symbian, they are now quite alike. Apple has bent the mobile phone into an integration with computer world. All come along.

But the questions are, to me, still about function. Supposed you have an Microsoft Exchange server in your back-end, do you really still need a Blackberry to live? should it be a common windows-mobile-with-outlook phone be alright? I am sure so. Actually if you have a mail server with IMAP4 or IMAP-IDLE capability any phone with IMAP should be ok. They still push mails, don't they?

Good articles explaining the back-ends thingy of those gadgets at http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/685B09D3-950B-4B23-8B1F-A56D448F7208.html

What I see in Indonesia, especially in Jakarta and Bandung, is quite funny that most people fall for Blackberry eventhough they only use voice and sms just like what they do with entry-level phones. It is about coolness, not function. Why not iPhone instead? because iPhone is just too America centric, too far away. iPhone is not as cool as Blackberry for "non-computer" people. This mostly girls and young middle-class people using Blackberry don't really know Apple and its pioneering habits in techs and gadgets. They know Blackberry better with the campaign they've been doing.

That logic above is quite explaining that many people like myself as well have this wish for an iPhone. I don't even have an Xserve server. I have an Exchange2003 in my back instead. I think Steve Jobs knows that too, that's why he put compatibility between iPhone and Exchange and any IMAP4 (iPhone supports IMAP-IDLE too). Hypotetically, supporting IMAP-IDLE means supporting good email synchronization. Hypothetical because I haven't seen such as good sync with IMAP-whatever-version-that-is. I am sure if you have a winmo version 5 or up, you have tried to sync mail using IMAP, and I bet you failed to sync the "sent items" folder. There might be options like "copy sent items folders" and "choose folder to sync", but they just don't work.

I dont have an apple's Xserve server. Still I'm gonna buy myself an iPhone. Maybe.

Now, what do you wanna do with the device of yours?