How to remove messengerskinner.exe?

MessengerSkinner.exe is a part of MessengerSkinner software. MessengerSkinner is a potentially unwanted application that may drop a copy of Trojan.Skintrim on to the computer. It may also display pop-up advertisements on the computer. Here is a full process on how to remove it.

1. Temporarily Disable System Restore (Windows Me/XP).
2. Update the virus definitions.
3. Uninstall Messenger Skinner
a) Click Start > Settings > Control Panel or Start > Control Panel (this varies with the operating system).
b) In the Control Panel window, double-click Add/Remove Programs.
c) Click Messenger Skinner to remove.
d) Click Add/Remove, Change/Remove, or Remove (this varies with the operating system). Follow the prompts.

4. Reboot computer in SafeMode
5. Run a full system scan and clean/delete all infected file(s)
6. Delete/Modify any values added to the registry.
Navigate to and delete the following registry entries:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\”[RANDOM CHARACTERS]” = “c:\documents and settings\administrator\local settings\application data\[RANDOM CHARACTERS].exe [RANDOM CHARACTERS]”
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\”messengerskinner” = “C:\Program Files\MessengerSkinner\MessengerSkinner.exe”

Navigate to and delete the following registry subkeys:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\LanConfig
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MessengerSkinner
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MessengerSkinner
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\MessengerSkinner
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\[RANDOM CHARACTERS]

7. Exit registry editor and restart the computer.

8. In order to make sure that threat is completely eliminated from your computer, carry out a full scan of your computer using AntiVirus and Antispyware Software. You can also try Online Virus Scanner which doesn’t need any installation.

Using the MouseKeys

Using the MouseKeys

It was just a few days ago that I had written a post on “using keyboard to perform mouse function”. Still, I heard from some of my readers that they are having difficulties with using the MouseKeys for performing various functions like clicking and dragging. Moving the cursor is pretty much simple though:

To move the mouse pointer by using MouseKeys:

Use the buttons on the numeric keypad to move the mouse pointer.

o To move the pointer horizontally or vertically, press the arrow keys on your numeric keypad.

o To move the pointer diagonally, press HOME, END, PAGE UP, or PAGE DOWN on your numeric keypad.

To click by using MouseKeys:

Use the buttons on the numeric keypad to click, double-click, or right-click. If MouseKeys doesn't function, press NUM LOCK, and then try MouseKeys again.

o To click, press 5 on your numeric keypad.

o To double-click, press the plus sign (+) on your numeric keypad.

o To right-click, press the minus sign (-) on your numeric keypad, and then press 5 to click, or press the plus sign (+) to double-click.

o To click as if you were using both mouse buttons at once, press the asterisk (*) on your numeric keypad, and then press 5 to click or the plus sign (+) to double-click.

o To switch back to standard clicking, press slash (/) on your numeric keypad.

To drag by using MouseKeys:

Use the buttons on the numeric keypad to drag and drop objects.

o To move the pointer over the object you want to move or over the area you want to move to, press the arrow keys on your numeric keypad.

o To hold down the mouse button, press the INSERT key on your numeric keypad.

o To release the mouse button, press the DELETE key on your numeric keypad.

Using keyboard to perform mouse functions

Have you been in a situation when your mouse isn’t working and you don’t know how to use just your keyboard to do stuffs in your computer? Well, no need to worry even if you don’t have a mouse. There is a way you can use keyboard to perform your mouse function. MouseKeys is a keyboard feature that enables you to use the numeric keypad to move the mouse pointer, to click, double-click, and drag. MouseKeys is designed for crisis such as mouse stopped working suddenly or sent for a repair or something like that. MouseKeys allows you to use the numeric keypad to control the mouse pointer.

If you want to use the numeric keypad for data entry as well as for navigation, you can set the MouseKeys to be activated by pressing NUM LOCK.

Here’s what you need to do to turn on MouseKeys:

1. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Accessibility Options.
2. On the Mouse tab, under MouseKeys, select the Use MouseKeys check box. (To turn off MouseKeys, clear the Use MouseKeys check box.)
3. Press ok

Now, when you’ll press the arrow keys of the numeric keypad you’ll see that the mouse cursor will move to the respective positions.

Note: The shortcut for MouseKeys is: Press left ALT + left SHIFT + NUM LOCK

Removing “AM/PM” from your time

This is just an extra tip that I’m giving out to my readers. Actually, my brother got me a laptop from UK but when I changed it’s time to my country’s time, I noticed that it wasn’t showing AM/PM. I tried looking for any options that will get it to display in ‘Date and Time Properties’ by double-clicking it but I couldn’t find any option over there too.

Then, a friend of mine told me that he think he’d seen in somewhere in ‘Regional and Language Options’. Then it was just a few minutes of job for me to find the solution.

1. Open ‘Control panel’
2. Open ‘Regional and Language Options’
3. In the ‘Regional Options’ tab click ‘customize’…customer region options will open
4. There in the ‘time’ tab -> Time format -> select “h:mm:ss tt” or “hh:mm:ss tt” and click ok and again ok to exit

Now, you’ll see that the AM/PM appears. Wasn’t that easy?

Oops! I accidentally deleted “Show Desktop” icon from the “Quick Launch toolbar”

Well, this is the tweak that I’ve been trying to write about for quite a time. Actually, I have a very bad habit of pressing the “Shift” key while deleting, so the deleted items don’t go to recycle bin at all. Once I deleted “Show Desktop” icon from the “Quick Launch toolbar”, which I am a big fan of. I tried looking for that icon all over my computer’s drive but in vain. Then I turned to internet where I read an article this Microsoft support article in which the procedure to recreate this icon was given.

It’s so simple. Just check it out.

1. Open notepad
2. Copy and Paste the below lines exactly (in multiple lines)

[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop

3. Save the file on Desktop as Show Desktop.scf (not with a .txt extension)
4. Drag the file to the Quick Launch toolbar

Now, you can test this icon. It works!!!

Check World Time through Google

I guess everyone is familiar with Google. It’s the world’s most popular search engine. You can find virtually anything over Google. But most people still aren’t familiar with the features of Google and its searching capability. There are different ways to optimize the searching in Google using appropriate key words. One of such features is the World time checker. Using this, you can check the time of any country.

Just open Google.com type the keyword “time in [country name]” without quote and bracket in the Google search box and enter. The time of that place will be displayed.

E.g. click these links to see the time of the respective countries time in UK, time in US

You see this is very easy. There are many other things that you can do with Google which will be telling you in future.

Grabbing screenshot of videos from Media Player

This was one of the reasons why I was really upset with Media Player. It doesn’t have any options to take/capture a snapshot like PowerDVD or WinDVD has. In the past I tried to outsmart by using the PrintScreen button but it didn’t seem to work out. Now I come to understand that it does work but with a slight change in the options of the Media Player. I am using Media Player 11 and I’ve tried this tweak in version 9 too and it worked. What I am going to do it take a snapshot of the video that it being played from Media Player using the traditional PrintScreen button method.

• Open Windows Media Player (worked for versions above 9)
• Go to Tools -> Options -> Performance -> Advanced.
• Deselect the ‘Use Overlays' option.
• Now play the video that you like and take the screenshots now using the PrintScreen button and paste it in the Paint brush. It will work this time.

Make Yahoo a Multi Messenger

I have 2 Yahoo accounts and there was a bit problem for me because I couldn’t login with both the accounts at the same time. That’s why I had installed Trillian which is a multi-messenger but it was a difficult to use it and it was just not like Yahoo. I was not satisfied with it.

A couple of days back, I came to know about this hack via a friend’s blog by which we can even make Yahoo like a multi-messenger. It’s a simple registry hack which goes as follows (But before making any changes to registry please be sure to back it up ploperly):

• Go to Start -> Run
• Type “regedit” (without quotes… this will open registry editor)
• Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_ USER\Software\yahoo\pager\Test
• On the right side, right click and choose “new Dword” value
• Rename it as “Plural”
• Double click it and assign a “decimal value” of “1”
• Exit registry

Now, the number of times you open Yahoo, a separate Yahoo messenger will open from which you can login with separate accounts. Try it!!! I'm sure you'll like it.

How to not show emoticons in MSN messenger

Here is a simple trick that you can use on your friends’ MSN messenger and scare the hell out of them. You are familiar with the emoticons, aren’t you? Also known as smileys among most chat users, emotions are one the funny and great way to express your feelings while chatting. Chat without motions would be just like a curry without salt. Don’t you think so? What you have to do is simply check the emoticon option: Tools, Options, Messages tab, and make sure the “show emoticons” options are unchecked.

Doing so you’ll disable the emoticons in that particular messenger. That particular messenger will still see the emoticons send by others while in chat but will be unable to send any emoticons. Now you can just say to you friend that, it might be due to some virus that our emoticons stopped working. Hehe

Recover Your Deleted Files with “File-Saver”

Sometimes what happens is that some kind of virus wipes your hard drive or you accidentally press “Shift + Delete” and delete some file that were actually useful and that you may later need. This is a terrible situation to be in when the data is very important. If it was in the recycle bin then it wasn’t a big problem, we could easily restore the file back but what if we have even emptied the recycle bin. In such cases we have a small problem and what we need is recovery software that can recover deleted files and our data.
File-Saver is one of such many softwares that are found in the market. Its work is predictable. As the name says it saves your files. It can instantly restore hundreds of deleted files from your PC – doesn’t matter whether a computer virus deleted the files or you've emptied the Recycle Bin, or pressed “Shift” button while deleting the files.

Features:
1. QUICKLY Recover Hundreds of Deleted Files
2. INTUITIVE Windows Explorer mode
3. INSTANT Image Preview
4. ENHANCED Recovery Algorithms
5. PREDICTIVE Recovery
6. RESTORE with folder structure
7. FULL SUPPORT for any drive

It is the World's smartest undelete tool and this great software ca be yours at just $19.95 if you order before midnight Wednesday. So, hurry up and grab the offer.

Unlock Word, Excel, Access files

Well, this is a situation that I too face normally. I have a very bad memory and I tend to forget things. I usually keep my document in Word and Excel format and to protect its content from people I usually put a password to open it. But when I’ve not opened the documents for a long time, I tend to forget the password to open the file.

This was really troubling me because I can’t just leave the files exposed to everyone too because they contain very sensitive information and even though I put a password due to my forgetting nature later even I was not being able to open those documents. But today, I came across a site called Password-Studio.com and I come to know about software called Password-Studio Pro which is one of the world’s most powerful Office password recovery tool. For Access, it’s easy. This software cracks the Access password instantly. For Word and Excel files it uses "Smart Dictionary" and "Bruteforce" hacking methods which takes a little while but guarantees the success.

So, if you are looking for any Word, Access or Excel password recovery then Password-Studio Pro is just what you need.

Download an entire Web site with “Web Site Downloader”

What do you do when you have like some content in a web page? Obviously, you copy that content or you’ll save that page in your computer. But what if you find that whole web site useful and need to save all its pages. What will you do then? Will you open all its pages and save each page one by one in your PC? Well this is also one of the things that you can do but is it efficient and what it there are hundreds of pages in a web site? It can be very time consuming.

In this case what you need is software like “Web Site Downloader” which can download an entire web site in just a click. And the cool thing is that you don’t even need to open up the pages. This software also automatically downloads all the images, sounds & video from the web site. Just for $16.95 you can buy this software online. With “Web Site Downloader” software website download is a piece of cake.

Features of “Web Site Downloader” :

• Extract Entire Sites
• Grab images, video & audio
• Customize your results
• Lightning-fast downloads
• Supports broken downloads

Hide IP address software

Internet is a very insecure place actually as there are many kinds of risk out there to which you are exposed to. When you are browsing a page of sending an e-mail you are constantly broadcasting your IP. Your IP address can be instantly traced back to your Internet service provider (proof), who is required to provide your personal details following certain requests and this can lead to a disaster.
So, how are you supposed to be secure while surfing in the internet? Well, there is a software “Hide My IP Address” which as its name says - Hide IP address. It’s actually a specially-modified browser, based on Firefox. With this you can surf in the internet without being visible to others. No one can trace anything or get your details. What this software does that it automatically routes all of your Internet traffic through at least 2 ultra-secure, ultra-fast anonymous servers using the powerful and well-known Tor network for total privacy.

Some featured of “Hide My IP Address” are:

• INSTANTLY HIDE YOUR IP ADDRESS - With Just One Click!
• RUN ANYWHERE - Even On a Portable USB Pen!
• SUPER FAST SERVERS - Over 15 Million Anonymous Servers!
• AUTOMATIC TRACE REMOVAL - No Logs or History Files!
• BUILT-IN PRIVACY TOOLS - Customize to Your Hearts Desire!
• CRUSH IDENTITY THEFT - Stop Yourself Getting Stolen
• TOTAL LIFETIME UPDATES - No Hidden Costs or Fees!
• TOTAL LIFETIME SUPPORT - Contact Us 24/7 for Help!

So, get this software and feel free to surf.

One More Way To Clear Window’s Login Password

Today I was just surfing the net and I came across Calvyn’s blog. You know how crazy I am about computer tweaks. So, I went to its ‘Tips and Tricks’ category and there I found a new way to clear Window’s login password. I know many other ways but not this one. This is just a simple command prompt commands and it’s not that big trick either. The problem with this is that you have to be logged in to the Windows already. While resetting it won’t asks for the old password though. Here’s how you do it:

• Click Start -> Run -> type cmd (this opens a Command Prompt window)
• Type ‘net user’ (without the quotes)
• You will see the available user in your PC
• To clear that particular user password
• Type ‘net user ’ (e.g. net user admin hello)

(In the e.g. above ‘admin’ is the username and ‘hello’ is the password)

But a slight different that I wanted to give my readers is with the ability to give a blank password using the same command. If you want to have a blank password there has to be brought a little twist with the command. For this:

• Type ‘ net user * ’ (e.g. net user admin *)
• This will ask you to type the password and re-type again to confirm. You can also put a blank password in here.

Enjoy and practice this trick. It is practice that makes a man perfect.

Protect Your Adsense Account

I’ve been hearing too many controversies regarding Google’s Adsense. Many of my closest friends were engaged in Adsense and after their sites were earning a little revenue, Google banned them giving some reason like “multiple clicks for same IP”. My friends said that they didn’t clicked Google’s add multiple times, still Google is making excuses just to save few bucks.

There is a probability that though you don’t click the adds multiple times, some other people may often called as click bombers. They try to get your monetized sites banned by click bombing you. So, what can you do against such rascals? Well, there are multiple precautions that you can take against them.

One is a tool Clickaider that gives you the reporting you need for people who try to get you banned by click bombing you. Not only it is a precaution but it’s a threat for the click bombers too because instead of banning you, Google bans them. If for some reason you get too many invalid clicks from same IP be sure to quickly email Google using this form to let them know that you are being click bombed ad Google will take actions against them.

There is another way too to protect your sites from too many clicks. How cool would that be if one just can’t click your Google adds from a same IP? If you are a programmer you can write the script yourself. If not then there is a piece of code as by Jim Westergren which you can just copy paste.

Enjoy!!!

Save your Desktop Icon Layout in Windows

I have arranged my icons the way I want it to be in my desktop. That’s why I have turned off the ‘Auto Arrange’ and kept related icons together for my ease. My desktop looks kind of messy but I like it and I am used to it. But whenever I connect my computer to a TV or projector or once the screen resolution changes, the icons get messed up and I have to re-arrange it again. But usually I tend to forget where my icons were previously and I feel that something’s wrong with my desktop and that bothers me a lot.
Well, there is a free tool called Icon Restore that you can use to quickly save the icon layout on your desktop. It can be used for Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, and XP.
“Icon Restore installs LAYOUT.DLL (along with the required registry entries) from Microsoft. Two new options are added to the pop up menu that opens when any Windows system icon (ex. My Computer) is right clicked. These options are "Save Desktop Icon Layout" and "Restore Desktop Icon Layout".”

So, it’s a small software but a useful one for a lazy freak like me. I love it and the concept behind it.

Rapidshare Timelimits

Rapidshare is probably the biggest file hoster in the world offering millions of files on their website. Guest users, as opposed to premium users, can only download a certain amount of Megabytes per hour.
If that limit is reached they have to wait before they can download additional files from the website. This is terrible if you really need that file and don't want to wait any longer.
A Rapidshare Hack article explains how to bypass the timelimit at Rapdishare and download files all the time.
The same website has an article about another working Rapidshare hack.

Microsoft Office docx format

I recently upgraded my old version of Office to the latest one. Everything worked out fine and I began to write some articles as usual. I do write articles for a friend of mine.
After finishing and saving some of the articles I send them to him by email. He replied an hour later telling me that he was unable to open the files that I send him. They were apparently docx files and not the usual doc files that I used to send.
So, Microsoft changed the default format for the Word documents from doc to docx which puts everyone with an old version to the test. The old versions can't open those new files.
A quick research on the Internet revealed the article ways to open docx documents which had a link to the Microsoft Office compatibility pack.
I send my friend that link and he was finally able to view the new docx files after installing the upgrade from Microsoft.

Change your mouse pointer

You must have seen a simple mouse pointer or cursor which is like and arrow.

Have you ever wondered how to change or customize your mouse pointer? Well, it’s very easy.

1. Go to control panel (Start -> Settings -> Mouse)
2. Click the ‘Pointers’ tab
3. There are two options ‘Scheme’ and ‘customize ’ from which you can choose and then make appropriate selection.

There are different types of cursors and schemes available. A cursor of a Dinosaur is my best.

Regular Maintenance of your Windows XP

To keep your XP in the best working condition, regular maintenance is required. There are certain steps that one requires to do at least a week or after any major installation/ uninstallation of s/w, drivers for getting optimum performance from your XP. I got these steps from a pfd file called “XP Tweaks” that I downloaded from somewhere. The steps involved are as follows:

1. Scan for Malicious Software
2. Update Windows (from Windows Update site)
3. Check for New Startup Programs and Services
4. Run a Disk Check (properties->Tools->Check of hard-drives)
5. Clean Windows (run Disk Celanup utility)
6. Clean & optimize the registry (can use RegCleaner, RegSupreme, etc)
7. Defragment (can use Windows Disk Defragmenter or Diskeeper)
8. Optimize Bootup

Doing all these takes about an hour or so but it’s a small price to pay for the benefit we get from it.