Microsoft Security Essentials (SOLVED: 0x8004ff01)

Initially published 2010/03/18; updated 2013/05/01 to edit title in a poor-man's SEO effort

So ... ignoring the whole I'm actually installing Windows thing for a moment, in order to look at some software I'm installing Windows XP (XP because apparently I bought something that came with a license for it) in a virtual machine.

So I installed XP and then upgraded to service pack 3 via Windows Update.  It seemed like the right thing to do.  Meanwhile, Windows is complaining about my not having antivirus software installed.

I find something called Microsoft Security Essentials that can be installed for free, but it keeps failing with error code 0x8004ff01.  There's a link that can be clicked for help, but no help is to be found by following it.  The site even provides a search box but it knows nothing about the error code.

I figure maybe if I installed IE8 it would pull in whatever was hip and cool, but no such luck - the same error continues to manifest itself. While searching around on the web for how to solve this I find all sort of abstruse instructions involving editing the registry and rebooting a dozen times.  Ahh, Windows, how I never missed you.


However, using the gray stuff in my head (aka: taking a SWAG) I found the the answer is relatively straightforward: Download MSI 4.5 (the Windows Installer), which can be retrieved from here:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5A58B56F-60B6-4412-95B9-54D056D6F9F4&displaylang=en

Clicky-clicky and away you go.  Your Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3) gets a fancy new icon in the system tray, the antivirus warning icon goes away, and your computer is apparently suitably inoculated for travel to the internets.

Flash (savior of the universe?)

This morning I looked at my Watt's Up? meter and it read 160 watts.  I was expecting it to read around 110 based on my baseline measurement the other day.  I noticed that "Shockwave Flash" was consuming some 80% of my CPU so I killed it.  Now the meter reads about 97 watts.

Because I may be taking a trip soon I went to the Travelocity website.  They have a banner advertising their own service (thanks - I never would have heard of you otherwise) that for some reason just HAD to be done in flash.  Because, you know, you can't make a 4 frame GIF or something.

My Watt's Up? meter now reads 110 watts again.

Fight global warming: disable Flash.

Illuminating

I recently bought a Watt's Up? power meter and plugged my computer station into it.  Looking at the readout, it consumes about 110 Watts.

Wow, I thought, that seems like a lot.  Because, you know, it's over 100.  In some scales that could boil water.

Then one evening I turned on my little desk lamp and glanced at the power meter.  It read 150 Watts.  Wow again.  That seems like almost 50% more (though it's closer to 1/3)!

So I look, and the little lamp only has a 40 Watt bulb in it (at least that part of the math works out).

That seems ... disproportionate.

With 110 Watts, I can power a computer with its associated CPU, Hard Disks, Graphics Card, etc, a pair of speakers with a powered subwoofer, a 22" LCD, a cable modem, a wireless router, a keyboard and optical mouse, and recharge the battery in my UPS.  Using these I can talk to almost anyone in the world virtually instantaneously, watch movies, play music, learn about the world, and almost anything else intangible.

With 40 Watts, I can illuminate a small corner of my bedroom.


My bathroom lighting fixture has three bulbs: a 100 Watt and two 75s.  250 Watts to illuminate the smallest room in the house.  I could put a computer with 6 22" LCDs there instead, saving power and upgrading the lighting to a giant virtual seizure-inducing disco ball or psychedelic Lava^® lamp wall.

Or I could save all that energy and just comb my hair in the dark.