SpywareGuard 2.2 BUG

I just spent 24 hours tracking down a strange bug, and by total chance (well, actually, by finally stopping guessing and starting shutting down one program at a time) I traced it back to SpywareGuard 2.2.

My O/S: Win2KSP4/IE5.5SP2

With SpywareGuard 2.2 running WITH Browser Hijack Protection ON, I get NO InfoTip/ToolTip bubbles on ANY mouse hover over ANY file (e.g., hovering over ZIP files gives the number of files therein displayed in a ToolTip bubble, hovering over an Internet Shortcut displays the URL in a bubble). Now, if I use Task Manager to shut down SpywareGuard 2.2 (SGBHP.EXE), OR if I go into Spyware Guard / Options and DESELECT "Enable Browser Hijack Protection", I get the return of my InfoTip/ToolTip bubbles.

Unfortunately, I have come to like these bubbles and missed them dearly. Any ideas on what's going wrong? My "fix" gets me back my bubbles but, obviously, puts my system more at risk.

 

Hi GoBruins.

Welcome to Wilders.

This is a known issue, info here,

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=13191



snowbound

 

Uh....I could have saved 30 hours if someone had thunk to have posted this in a "known issues" section on the SpywareGuard website. No good reason for me to have to waste so much time arriving at an answer. There really is NO good excuse for NOT posting the problem for all downloaders to be able to know about beforehand.

Might I suggest to the programmer that perhaps the solution lies in breaking out the Browser Hijack component into a separate application, using different classes and objects than those used in SG to handle it?

Does the disappearing tooltips problem also occur with WinXP/2K3? If it's a Win2K-only problem, then it's an M$ problem, and I would then doubt very much that any good, reasonable solution is to be had.

Thank you for your response.

 

GoBruins,

I don't mean to make light of your situation, however, I would not call that a bug, it sounds more like a feature to me. I hate those annoying bubbles. If you ever debug it, i hope you keep the bubble suppression feature available as a separate download! If I had to choose, I'd say the most irritating bubbles are the ones that pop up in Adobe Photoshop obscuring and distracting you from what you are working on. Could you kill those bubbles too? I am aware of no way to do it, though someone may know...

- HandsOff

 

Hi,

If you read through that thread that snowbound referred you to, you'll see that there doesn't seem to be any clear-cut pattern as to what systems are or aren't affected with this problem. In fact you'll see at one point there, I asked if anyone had noticed any kind of common pattern to which users had problems.

My tool tips are just fine under XP-Home, but there are others with XP who lose their tooltips. And the same seems to be true of just about every other system that's been reported, from 98 on up. Obviously that makes it a lot harder for Javacool to track down what the problem is so it can be corrected.

Best,
Mike

 

I'm big on the MP3-Info shell extension by Michael Mutschler. It puts up all the ID3 tag info in the bubbles. Invaluable when you're trying to compare file sizes and bitrates. There are other similar tools (InfoTag Magic is another) that put up equally useful InfoTips.

Anyway, I'm NOT DEBUGGING ANYTHING. Mr. HandsOff is mistaken in that I am not (a programmer / the programmer). Can't help you with Photoshop, either.

I still say this little problem should be listed as a "known issue" on the main website for the program.

 

i don't disagree with you, i just don't like bubbles. My music folders are replete with size and bitrate columns which allows you to sort them by those attributes, and i do all the naming with a tag editor. I'm not saying its easy, its just what i am used to, and if you are used to bubbles, then, by god you should have them!

- HandsOff

 

Going a little off-topic here, but what program did you use so that you get bitrate (and other MP3-related) columns? I have them too, but I can't remember if these are Win2K-inherent as-installed capabilities or if I was able to access such columns only after installing something else first.

Also, regarding size column, are you able to display in Bytes or in KBytes? I would like to display Bytes. The only proggy I know that does this is TotalSize, but that one gave me other problems on my system which only disappeared after uninstalling it. (I may be blaming an innocent program, but that was my conclusion.)

 

GoBruins,

I appologize for my long hiatus, i need an internet break from time to time! To answer your question (but this applies to my O/S, XP, i don't know about Win 2000) it is a built in feature. You simply right click somewhere on the columns names and it allows you to add or remove column types. I may be stating the obvious when I say that in order to sort by, say, bitrate or file type, you need to have those columns displayed. If it's the same in W2000 then you have another tool in music file organization.

- HandsOff

 

Also in XP Windows Explorer, if you don't want the bubbles, tools, folder options, view tab, uncheck the box show popup description for folder and desktop items.
Don't know about photoshop (I don't use it), but it might have a tooltips on/off option?

 

Not sure if this issue might have already been resolved, since the last post appears to have been posted in Aug '04, but I Just installed SpywareGuard v 2.2.0 on my XP Home-Edition (SP1 + many Security Updates) and seem to have NO problems with tooltips...

If others are still having the problem, Has anyone investigated the version of comctl32.dll active on the problem machines? - I have two active copies, as shown by Sysinternals Process-Viewer - the 1st is in the system32 dir - ver. 5.82.2800.1106 & seems to be from a Post-SP2 Hotfix. The second "comctl32.dll" loaded is from the .NET Framework v1.1 - ver 6.0.2800.1612 - I'm guessing that this one wouldn't be involved in the prob...

Two MSDN articles which might be helpful to the developer ( forgive me if this idea is way off-base or if you are way ahead on the problem ) appear to be:

Using ToolTip Controls
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...c/platform/commctls/tooltip/usingtooltips.asp

About ToolTip Controls
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...shellcc/platform/commctls/tooltip/tooltip.asp

-- which go into detail on the windows messages involved in Tooltips...

Again, if this is old news or way off-base, forgive me - just wanted to help...

 

Always good to get some input,

Perhaps you can help! Tooltips and bubbles. I believe these are to different things aren't they? I think Microsoft refers to the little yellow text bubbles as balloons sometimes. I think these are the same as "pop-up item descriptions".

Okay, here is my problem. I have found many places that promise to turn off these annoying little popup text bubble balloon things, but the bottom line is, just hover the pointer over something on the taskbar and I don't care who you are, or what you know, you are going to get a balloon thing.

I'm kidding, there is someone who knows how to turn them off, but he is hard to find. Just how it can be construed as usefull to have a pop-up bubble say "Snag-it" when I hover the mouse pointer over a butten that says Snag-it is beyond me.

It is pretty inconvenient. If you have a large number of items in your quick launch area, and you move your pointer towards an icon, that damn bubble can obscure ten icons at a time. (I have a double row of small icons).

I know there's a way to turn it off. But I have never seen it actually done.

The same thing occurs in many applications. say i'm in photoshop, and have 6 or 8 windows open. the little yellow labels that come up, often come up obscuring something I need to see. This is so annoying. Anyway, I'd love to make them go away!


- HandsOff

 

Hi.

Win98SE

I also lost the pop-up tooltips and by chance found this thread (Googling...). Pity - I like them. I agree with the comments about the balloons/tooltips (whatever) hiding other items, but I find them useful in, e.g., a rather full quick-launch toolbar, or IE Favourites...

More annoying, I also lost the "X is typing" notification in Yahoo IM.

Everything returned OK once I turned off Spyware Guard. And that's a great pity, because I think it's a great program.

Regards

kbr

 

Tooltips...

ok..

i have 2 systems.. both win2k pro.. all updated..the same..

one ..mine, tooltips work fine after installing the latest SG

The other ,my sons.. I noticed his tooltips were gone a week ago..and traced it to SG.

We both have almost the same programs ..except he has msn messenger installed and over uses it..
I will play around with some of the trash he has installed and try to see if it is one of those silly progs conflicting with SG...I BET IT IS..!

will get back if I find the conflict..

cheers..jumbo

 

That's interesting!

On an intuitive level I could see how MSN could possibly simulate activities that would concern a program dealing with privacy.

On the issue of "tool tips" I will say that they are useful to have when you need them, but how is it possible that Microsoft doesn't allow you to switch this feature on and off. It is as though they are so narrow minded that they can't image anyone having a preference, much less a reason to want to configure their system in anything but the OOBE.

-HandsOff