Washing Windows 8, yet again

Killing off crapware, specifically hpservice.exe.  This baby shows up in Task Manager as a "process", ie a program loaded into ram and running, but does not show a window to control it or observe results.  I tried to DISABLE it in task managers startup tab.  Did not work, when I powered up next day hpservice.exe was still running.  Net searching had told me that hpservice.exe was not a regular Windows service but just got loaded by a key in the registry.  So I started up regedit (more difficult to do in Win 8 than in XP) and searched for a key that said "run" or "runonce" and the hpservice.exe name.  No dice.  Could not find the desired key let alone zap it.
   Went back to Task Manager, and yup, the SOB was still there, big as life.  Some fumbling around and I tried "Control Panel"," Administrative Tools",  "Services"  And there it was, a service, set to "AUTOMATIC" start, which means load and run every time the computer boots up.  I changed that to "DISABLED".  
   I checked for hpservices in Task Manager this morning, and he is dead and gone.
   Moral of story: Don't believe everything you see on the net. 
   And, Win 8 works just fine without hpservice.exe.

Washing Windows 8 (yet again)

Today's first crapware kill is hpmsgsvc.exe,  This is an HP program, not Micro$oft.  Web searching returned a lot of hits, but few of the hits actually knew anything about hpmsgsvc.  It's been around for a good while.  Fair number of hits talked about troubles back in Windows 7, where hpmsgsvc would go crazy and hog all the available CPU time.  The few knowledgeable hits say the hpmsgsvc is a kludge that lets you "hook" a program to a function key so that you can start that program for just touching one key.  Why anyone would want to do that, it's an ancient DOS idea, is unclear.  If I want to set a program for easy start, I just put its icon (a shortcut) on my desktop, and then the program will start with the click of the mouse. 
   Hpmsgsrv is NOT a regular Windows service, which means you cannot kill it off with the Administrative Tools Service manager.  I killed it with Task Manager.  The old three finger salute (control-alt-delete) still works to bring up task manager.  Hpmsgsrv in in the process list only it tries to hide itself under the name hpservices.  No matter.  STOP shuts down the copy in RAM.  Select the "Startup" tab in task manager and set hpservice to Disabled.   Underneath hpservices is a second bit of crapware calling itself "Hp Smart Adapter".  He is now gone too.  Web searching tells me that HP Smart Adaptor was nagware that specialized in selling you genuine HP accessories.  I don't need that either. 
  I will have to check tomorrow that the "disable" in task manager really works.  If  it fails and lets hpmsgsvc come back to life, I plan to go after it with regedit.  According to web sources, a Run key in the registry starts hpmsgsrv.  If necessary I will use the search function in regedit to locate and then zap a registry key that contains "run" and the program name (hpservices.com).  This probably won't be necessary, task manager is supposed to have done all this, but just in case a new Micro$oft feature doesn't work,  I have a backup plan.

Washing Windows 8 (again)

Today's Windows 8 crapware kill is a service called "Bonjour".   Bonjour is an Apple invention for "hands off networking".  Bonjour works by going on the local network and finding all the other computers, shared printers, and other useful stuff, and with such info it can then support programs that want to talk with other stuff on the network.  All of these activity runs in parallel with the regular Microsoft networking support which has been there since Win98 and has gotten better over the years.
  Itunes is the program that wants Bonjour support.  I don't have an Ipad, so I don't run Itunes.  There are a bunch of other Apple programs, none of which I had ever heard of, which Wikipedia lists as wanting Bonjour as well.  I don't care about them and so adieu to Bonjour. 
  Bonjour being a service, is best killed using the Windows services tool.   Get to "Control Panel".  I have "Control Panel" as an icon on the desktop.  Some long ago tweaking of "Personalizations" gave me that very useful desktop icon.  If you don't have the icon, do the bang-the-mouse-on-the-righthand-screen-edge thing to bring up the Charms bar.  Select the "Settings" charm.  Inside "settings"  select "control panel". 
   Once in Control panel select "Administrative Tools".  Then select "Services".  This  shows every service in the machine and allows you to stop them, start them, and program Windows useage of the service.  Services are programs that Windows loads into RAM at boot time, or upon demand.  STOP means just shut down the copy in RAM.  I usually STOP a service, just to make sure I have control.  Then reprogram the "Startup type" to "manual" or "disabled".  Manual means don't load and run the service until some program asks for that service.  I set Bonjour to "manual" and it never started up, indicating that no program every requested the Bonjour service.  "Disabled" means never load and run the service no matter how hard programs beg and plead for the service. 
  With Bonjour service turned off, I could still access my desktop from the laptop and transfer fines back and forth.  Home networking runs just fine without Bonjour, the regular Microsoft networking carrying the freight. 

Is my laptop listening to me?

Have I been bugged by my laptop?  Who knows.  Yesterday the Chrome Browser by Google was accused of flipping on the internal mike and sending all the audio to Google.  I don't use Chrome, but if Chrome can do it others will do it too.  I dug into the wordy but vague instructions for my HP Pavilion no-model-number laptop.  You can go to Control Panel, find an applet "Sound" and disable the internal microphone.  At least in software.  Who knows what Windows bug will allow hostile code to turn the mike on again?  The internal mike is hidden under a groovy looking perforated panel above the keyboard.  I don't quite fear audio snoopers enough to take the laptop apart and risk breaking something.  I did bother to put a piece of tape over the internal camera lens. 

Keyboard Flakie Wakies. Windows and HP Bios

This is a software problem.  Touch typing  causes odd effects like cursor jumping back at random, weird programs starting up, and other badnesses.  Impossible for typing.  There are two bugs causing this behavior that are correctable.  First bug is that the touch pad is active, so that stray finger touches turn into mouse clicks, which make a lot of bad things happen.   

   Touch pad fix.  Do the Touchie-Swipie thing on the right hand screen edge and touch the gearwheel charm for "Settings"   Touch or click on "Personalizations".  Click on "Ease of Access" (text string  in lower left hand corner.  Click on "Make the Mouse Easier to use."  Click on  Mouse Settings (text string toward the bottom.  When the Mouse Properties box opens,  select the "Touchpad" tab.   Uncheck all the boxes.  Then check "Disable internal pointing device when external mouse is present".   Write all this down somewhere, you will probably need to repeat this because Windows sometimes messes this setting up.  This one fix will cut down, but not eliminate the flakie-wakies.

   Sticky Key turn off.   I think this is an HP Bios bug.  HP makes some keys "sticky".  Not sure what sticky is supposed to do, but it is bad for typing.  Press the left hand shift key FIVE times.  This will bring up a little window that allows you to turn off sticky keys.

  Once BOTH patches were applied the keyboard works well enough for touch typing.

  Wasn't that easy?