When I tried to uninstall Symantec Antivirus, it asked for a password.  When I put in the correct password, it refused it.  So how to uninstall it with a messed up password?  Easy..

Open up regedit (as an administrator) and change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\INTEL\LANDesk\VirusProtect6\CurrentVersion\AdministratorOnly\Security\UseVPUninstallPassword to “0″ (zero).

I was able to uninstall and reinstall Symantec Antivirus.

Install ActiveState Perl from http://www.activestate.com (free) and install DBI if it isn’t already installed.  It should be but you never know…

1. Start -> ActiveState Perl -> Perl Package Manager
2. install DBI
3. exit

Now, the easy part.  Install the DBD::Sybase 1.09.01 PPM:

1. download DBD::Sybase 1.09.01 PPM
2. extract zip file to temporary directory (e.g. c:\test)
3. Start -> Run -> cmd.exe (as Administrator if Vista or Windows 7)
4. cd \test
5. ppm install DBD-Sybase.ppd
6. exit

That’s it

It should automatically install the DBD::Sybase for Perl 5.8 or 5.10 depending on which version of Active State Perl you have installed.

Assuming that you installed Sybase OpenClient 15.5 from the 15.5 PC Client:

Install ActiveState Perl from http://www.activestate.com (free) and install DBI if it isn’t already installed.  It should be but you never know…

1. Start -> ActiveState Perl -> Perl Package Manager
2. install DBI
3. exit

Now, the easy part.  Install the DBD::Sybase 1.09 PPM:

1. download DBD::Sybase 1.09 PPM
2. extract zip file to temporary directory (e.g. c:\test)
3. Start -> Run -> cmd.exe (as Administrator if Vista or Windows 7)
4. cd \test
5. ppm install DBD-Sybase.ppd
6. exit

That’s it

Sybase

• Pull the hard drive from the laptop.  On my Dell Latitude, it was simply unscrewing the two screws on the bottom of the laptop marked with the hard drive simble
• Attach the drive to a SATA to USB connector and plug it in to your Linux box
• If you don’t have VirtualBox installed, do so now using apt-get, rpm, or whatever you use to install software
• Follow How to migrate existing Windows installations to VirtualBox but make sure you specify the entire drive (i.e. /dev/sdh) and not individual partitions else you will miss the hidden partitions that Vista and Windows 7 create

You should have a working Windows 7 Virtual Machine.  You’ll notice that you probably have a huge vdi file.  Let’s shrink that down:

• Within Windows
  • download and install sdelete from Microsoft
  • download and install PowerDefragmenter
  • Run PowerDefragmenter on your c: drive (as administrator)
  • Run “sdelete -c c:” from a cmd window (as administrator)
  • shutdown windows
• On the host
  • run “VBoxManage modifyvdi my_disk.vdi compact” replacing “my_disk.vdi” with the name of your vdi file you created earlier
  • Note that if you get a “Shrink hard disk operation is not implemented” error, then you’ve hit bug #2833 and you will want to download the latest VirtualBox to fix it.

Sybase

is an Eclipse distribution that uses highly customized Data Tools Platform (DTP) plugins.  Updating the Sybase version of DTP with the standard DTP release from Eclipse will break Sybase’s Workspace.

Last night I updated Workspace’s DTP with the standard DTP release from Eclipse’s website.  Several oddities started showing up when accessing the DTP releases:

Configuring the db connection

Testing the connection worked fine but when you open the database connection to a Sybase ASE database errors are reported:

Multiple errors have occurred

and

Connection errors

If you run into this issue, you will need to uninstall Sybase’s Workspace (delete the %SYBASE%/Workspace directory after the uninstall is complete) to resolve it.

I’ve created feature request CR 565285 with Sybase:

Workspace’s DTP (data tools platform) should be updated with the DTP current release from Eclipse. This will allow developers that work in a mixed environment to use Workspace with non-Sybase DBMS’s (view stored procedures, triggers, etc).

If you believe that this feature request is desired, please let Sybase know.

It is the most installed embedded database on the planet hands down.  Don’t believe me?  You know that Firefox web browser, Thunderbird newsreader, most Adobe products, Miro, etc all have it embedded?  – reference http://www.sqlite.org/mostdeployed.html

We use it extensively at work as:

1. staging for mass data imports/exports/conversions
2. local application ‘cache’ for large data sets
3. projects that don’t require all the features of Sybase ASE (or Oracle for that matter)

One of the best features is that the database itself in platform independent… copy the db on to AIX from your Windows box … then on to your old Amiga … then on to your windows mobile device.  Getting the point? 

I really wish Sybase would make it so that the Sybase ASE databases were truly platform and character set/sort order independent… but that is in another dream

Not a blurb in the PowerDesigner/PowerBuilder manuals or anything

Very likely, clicking on the icon will prompt you to install Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista.  I’m only installing it on one machine right now to see if I run into any issues before putting in on the rest of my Vista boxes.

Wish me luck!

How to:

1. download and run the Vista 32 bit (yes, you need the Vista software) PC Upgrade software from Dell’s web page which will completely uninstall the XP driver
2. download and run the Windows XP driver from Dell’s web page.

You may need to reboot the machine between steps 1 & 2.