This problem happens whether the Firewall Processing is set to “Automatically decide what to do” or “Ask me what to do”. Neither setting works in a Standard user account:

• “Automatically decide” doesn’t have write access to the Program Control list, so Norton can’t unblock a program even if it wants to;
• “Ask me” doesn’t ask.

The upshot is that a “Standard user” account eventually becomes unusable (for Internet access) because Norton’s firewall won’t change its settings to “re-allow” an updated Firefox or IE to access the Internet.

To fix a blocked program in a Standard user account, one must access Norton’s Program Control settings (Start -> All Programs -> Norton Internet Security -> Norton Internet Security -> Settings -> Personal Firewall -> Configure -> Program Control). Note that this requires an administrator account password after clicking Configure. Click the program you wish to allow access to (Firefox, IE, etc). Yes, it is probably listed with an Access level of Auto or Allow, but Norton is lying to you — it’s actually blocked, and will remain blocked even if you fiddle with the Access setting. Note the path to the program’s .exe file (i.e. C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe). Click Remove, then click Yes to confirm. Now, click Add, navigate to the program’s .exe file (you just noted that path earlier), and double-click the executable file (note that Vista might hide the “.exe” part of the filename). Choose “Allow”, then click OK. Finally, click OK (or Apply) to dismiss the main Options window.

The other potential fix is to run an Administrator account rather than a Standard user account. In an Administrator account, both “Automatically decide” and “Ask me” will work correctly. Note the irony: a security program forcing the user to use an Administrator account, which is less secure than a Standard user account! This might be even worse than McAfee using ActiveX controls in its interface. But at least you won’t have to “fix” the Program Control every every time your browser updates itself.

I recently discovered that middle-clicking was broken in Firefox 2 on the our Windows Vista box. We use a Logitech bluetooth mouse with this machine. It turns out that the problem is with Logitech’s SetPoint mouse software. Fortunately, it is a simple misconfiguration that is easy to fix.

First, you need to get to Logitech’s SetPoint control panel. This should be accessible through your Mouse control panel. (In the Control Panel, make sure you’re in Classic View.)

Click the SetPoint Settings tab. This will close the Mouse control panel, and open the SetPoint software. Under Select Button, click on the entry labeled 3. It will probably be set to “AutoScroll”. That’s the problem.

Now, under Select Task, click Other. In the Select Task dialog that appears, choose Middle Button. Then, OK to dismiss the dialog. Back in the SetPoint program, click Apply to apply the settings change, then OK to close SetPoint.

Clicking with the scroll wheel should now behave properly.

Hopefully these won’t be common.

First impression: Too Much.

Too much eye candy. Sure, Aero is pretty — very pretty — but there’s so much going on that it’s distracting. Visual Overload. Fortunately, there’s a so-called “Classic” theme, which makes Vista looks like Windows 2000. Ahh, much better. (I do the same thing in Windows XP.)

There seems to be too much code as well, since Vista makes an Intel Core 2 Duo 7200 machine feel no faster than my three-year-old Athlon 64 3200+ running Windows XP. Hmmm.

On the other hand, my lovely wife said, “wow!” when she first saw Flip 3D, so maybe there’s something to that marketing campaign after all…