Windows Update not working, error 0x8DDD0018

This can happen with Windows XP (Service Pack 3), but may not be ruled out for Vista and 7.

Windows Update error 0x8DDD0018, by which the Microsoft Update website now very helpfully explains that one or more of these services are not running:
* Automatic Updates
* Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS);
* Event Log

Even if all these services are running, and Windows Update refuses to run, then the culprit is the Windows Installer service not being active.

Run services.msc and then start Windows Installer. Refresh the Windows Update website. #worksforme

ID-kaardi tarkvara seadistamine modernses SeaMonkey lehitsejas

Modernse SeaMonkey lehitseja (näiteks versioon 2.6 ja uuemad) ning ID-kaardi tarkvara töölesaamine on omaette teema, mille kohta ma leidsin, et see vajaks eraldi käsitlust, sest kõik kohe tööle ei hakka. (Nimelt ID-kaardi tarkvara installer end SeaMonkey jaoks õieti ei seadistagi, seega osa asju tuleb käsitsi teha.)

Üldised tingimused, millega kogu krempel tööle õnnestus saada:
* Windows XP (SP2 või uuem; näiteks). Opsüsteemide suhtes tuleks olla siiski suhteliselt agnostiline;
* SeaMonkey 2.6 (ingliskeelne) — on tõepoolest vanem versioon, aga mitte nii vana kui 1.1.xx), seega SeaMonkey 2.xx;
* Oletame, et NoScript ei ole Firefoxis või SeaMonkey-s peal. (ID-kaardi ja NoScriptiga on veel täiendavalt igast jama.)

Nüüd.. eeltingimused peaksid olema sellised:

* ID-kaardi lugeja draiver peab olema installitud; soovitatavalt kõige uuem, mis vastavale opsüsteemile valmis tehtud;
* ID-kaardi tarkvara peab olema kõige uuem, juba peale installitud ning peaks näiteks Firefoxil töötama. Firefoxist veidi allpool, isegi kui tegemist ei ole kasutaja vaikimisi lehitsejaga.

Kuigi ametlikult on toetatud Mozilla Firefox, siis oletatavasti installib ID-kaardi tarkvara kaasaegne versioon EstEID Firefoxi plugina sellegipoolest Windowsi opsüsteemis pluginate üldisesse kataloogi. Sealtsamast kataloogist leiavad Gecko-põhised lehitsejad kõik pluginad automaatselt üles.

Tulemuseks peaks SeaMonkey' pluginate nimekirjas olema

EstEID Firefox Plug-in 3.7.1.1009

Kui see on olemas, siis on pool tööd juba tehtud.

Kui EstEID pluginat SeaMonkey pluginate nimekirjas pole, aga Firefoxis on, siis SeaMonkey-s peaks minema aadressiribal asukohale about:plugins — See peaks panema SeaMonkey ning teised Gecko-põhised lehitsejad otsima üles kõik olemasolevad ja võimalikud pluginad, mis opsüsteem pakub.

Siit edasi tulevad toimingud, mida Firefoxile tehakse automaatselt, aga mis SeaMonkey-s tuleb "käsitsi" teha:

• Laadida PIN-koodi küsimise moodul turvaseadete hulka:
  Edit > Preferences > Privacy & Security > Certificates > Manage Security Devices nupp:
  Device Manager akna vasakpoolses Security Modules and Devices nimekirjas peaks olema

  Estonian ID Card
 Virtual hotplug slot
 OMNIKEY CardMan 1021
  antud kaardilugeja mudel ^ on Eestis üks levinumaid, aga võib olla ka mõni teine.

  Kui seda pole (milles võib SeaMonkey puhul suhtkoht kindel olla), siis
  * vajutada vasakult nupule Load ja
  * uues aknakeses pealkirjaga Load PKCS#11 Device sisestada
  * Module Name: väljale
  Estonian ID Card
  * Module filename puhul ma annan praegu ette mooduli asukoha, mille leidsin Firefoxist:
  C:\WINDOWS\system32\onepin-opensc-pkcs11.dll
  Selle rea võib sinna nii asetada või kasutada Browse nuppu ja leida moodul failikorjajaga niimoodi üles ja sisestada. Vajutada OK. Device Manager aknas peaks uus moodul nähtav olema ning vajutada OK. Preferences aknas vajutada OK. Teha SeaMonkey-le restart.
• Edasi tuleb panna SeaMonkey-le kõik Sertifitseerimiskeskuse sertifikaadid. Need on saadavad siit:
  https://www.sk.ee/Repositoorium/SK-sertifikaadid/juursertifikaadid
  Põhimõtteliselt tuleks näiteks tirida sertifikaatide PEM-lingid uuele vahekaardile ja lubada igaühele autentimine vähemalt veebisaitidele [teine ja kolmas linnuke on vastavalt e-postile (e-mail) ja arendajatele (developers)]. Iga sertifikaadi puhul vajutada OK. Mõnedel juhtudel on osad sertifikaadid juba installitud ja SeaMonkey annab sellest lühikese teatega väikeses aknakeses teada. Teha lehitsejale restart.

Põhimõtteliselt peaks asi nüüd töötama.
Et järele vaadata, kas seadistus töötab, minna aadressile
https://digidoc.sk.ee
ja siseneda ID-kaardiga.

Täiendavad seaded:
Preferences > Privacy & Security > Validation —
Aktiivsed peaksid olema järgmised seaded:
[\/] Use the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) to confirm the current validity of certificates;
(*) Validate a certificate if it specifies an OCSP server.
Need seaded ^ peaksid olema vaikimisi sees, aga igaks juhuks tuleks üle kontrollida.

DataStore.edb and Windows Vista

This here is not so much an instruction, but a use case.

So I got me to look at a Windows Vista system that has been running for quite a long time. With just 1 (one) gigabyte of RAM.

At every operating system start, it would search for updates and the hard disk would thrash alot.

With Resource Monitor I discovered that the oft-accessed file was DataStore.edb, located at
%WINDIR%\SoftwareDistribution\DataStore\

DataStore.edb had ballooned to was the size of 325 MB.

The file is a log file in database format listing the history of all updates installed to the system, and also includes the current status of updates waiting to install.

Now, the typical solution^{[Yes, Citation needed]} to this that I had been looking at on the interwebs has been to create a backup of this file and then delete it. After that, Windows Update won't list the history of all updates installed to the system, and that would be that. < Well, there's more than that :>

Before manipulating DataStore.edb, turn off the Windows Update service, because when that service is active, the DataStore file is in use.

esentutl

For a short while I thought that defagmenting this one file with a command-line tool called esentutl would be the solution, so I wanted to go on with it. The catch was that the tool would not be able to copy the defragmented file to its original location and yielding an error about it, saying that the defragmented TEMP file could still manually be taken to its original location, with the original file replaced. I didn't do it and left it at that.

By the way, the esentutl tool does not list where the .TMP file is located. I eventually found out that it was at the main user data folder of a logged-in user:
C:\Users\username

For a long time I couldn't put my finger on what it was that was not working, and then a month or two later it turned out that I had not been running the esentutl command in Administrator mode.

The full command for defragmenting the file went on like this:
esentutl /d %windir%\SoftwareDistribution\DataStore\DataStore.edb

So I launched Command Prompt as Administrator and the tool did its job as expected. So that was that.

But checking for updates in Windows Update took a lot of time anyway, and the hard disk still kept thrashing when checking for updates.

What happens when removing datastore.edb

Note that you will still have to back up the file, just in case...

Well, Windows Update then knows no history of previous updates and takes a lot of time to check for them. Maybe an hour. Or so, because I assume it will check updates file-by-file for nearly all present Microsoft software. Before, when the still-large datastore.edb file was there, it seemed that the check for updates actually took much, much less time. Since I didn't measure the actual minutes and did not compare, then I can't tell with any reliable numbers as to what the effect was with regards to differences in update checking times.

Anyways, after installing the updates, DataStore.edb was recreated and sported about the same size as before (over 315 MB). So, there is really no point in deleting the file.

Worse is, that there doesn't seem to be any built-in way to merge two separate DataStore.edb files into one cohesive database, if the older database were absent for a short while and another one created anew.

Then I just moved the recently backed-up datastore.edb back, and checking for updates in Windows Update took about ten minutes, including a reasonably minor database refresh on account of the May updates installed in the interim, which was not reflected there.

To avoid Windows Update thrashing the hard drive anyway, it's then best not to have the Windows Update service run with such a low RAM count at all (1 GB); perhaps with the exception of every second Tuesday each month.

So much for now.

28.04.2014 update:

I don't have that Vista computer at hand, or any other Vista computer in any useful proximity, so it's impossible to tell with precision where to optimize wrt Windows Update.

Point being that it's possible to keep Windows Update from checking updates at every startup by making changes in scheduling.

• I remember there being a scheduler snap-in module in Windows Management Console, which feature-wise in Windows Vista replaced the Scheduled Tasks folder in Windows xp. The Task Scheduler snap-in is alot more complex and allows very granular configuration options.
• Turning off automatic updates is useful for very experienced users. If the computer has behaved well, then I've usually set the Windows Update service to delayed start. Attempt this at your own risk. Even if the risk is low, it doesn't account for unintended behaviour, especially when making large updates, such as upgrades to Windows service packs.

I also hazily remember a separate update not advertised on Windows Update itself, that also must have improved the situation, if only a bit. The overall result was that the DataStore file was touched only when I launched the Windows Update program.

27.01.2016 update:

I recently got my hands on a snappy Windows 7 machine with 4 Gb of RAM.

After making a large number of updates through Windows Update, one of the recent updates was KB3102810 (installed on 18.01.2016). While it apparently does not directly concern the use of the DataStore file, I noticed some performance improvement after applying that update.

12.11.2016 update:

A comment from a linkback contains more information about the innards of datastore.edb.

List of Canadian carriers that offer Nokia mobile phones (April 2013)

22.04.2013

Rogers Wireless
Residential
* Nokia E5
· Nokia Lumia 920
Business: Small Business & Enterprise
· Nokia Lumia 920

Fido (subsidiary of Rogers): No Nokia phones

Bell Mobility - No Nokia phones

Telus Mobility
* Personal - Nokia Lumia 620
Prepaid - Nokia Lumia 610
Pre-Owned - Nokia Lumia 610 (web-exclusive)
* Business - Nokia Lumia 620

SaskTel Mobility (Saskatchewan) - Website is "temporarily down for maintenance.
23.04.2013 update: No Nokia phones anyway.

Wind Mobile (Southern Ontario and elsewhere; website does not work properly with Firefox 20.0.1) - Nokia not listed and no Nokia phones available

MTS Mobility (Manitoba) -
* Personal
* Nokia 6350
* Nokia Surge
· Nokia Lumia 710
* Small and Medium Business
* Nokia 6350
* Nokia Surge
· Nokia Lumia 710

Videotron Mobile (Québec and Ottawa) -
* Residential
· Nokia Lumia 710
* Business
* Nokia C7-00
* Nokia E73
* Nokia 500
· Nokia Lumia 710

Mobilicity (urban: Greater Toronto area, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, and Vancouver) - No Nokia phones

Public Mobile (urban: Greater Toronto area, Greater Montreal and most of the Niagara region) - No Nokia phones

MVNO-s

7-Eleven Speak Out Wireless (uses Rogers) —
* Contract phones via cellstores.com, which defaults to the U.S. territory
Accounts: New, renewal/upgrade, more lines, replacement device
· Nokia Lumia 810 (T-Mobile)
· Nokia Lumia 822 (Verizon)
Prepaid devices/no contract:
* Nokia X2 (T-Mobile)
· Nokia Lumia 710

Brightroam (uses the Rogers network, offers 'inernational cell phones') —
* Nokia 1280
* Nokia C2-01

Chatr Wireless (Rogers) —
* Nokia 1616
* Nokia C2-02
* Nokia C3 + free Bluetooth headset
(and one Sony Ericsson)

Cityfone (Rogers) — No Nokia phones

CityWest (Bell) — Does not visibly offer phones on its website.

Clearnet (subsidiary of Telus) — phone offer links direct to Telus' own website.

DCI Wireless (Rogers) —
* Nokia 1100
----
Other European-brand phones:
* Siemens CF62 (refurb)
* Siemens S66 (refurb)
* Siemens SL56 (refurb)
Other interesting brands:
* Panasonic A100
* NEC e132
* Palm Treo 650 (part of specials, while quantities last, no rainchecks)

KMTS Mobility (Bell)
* Personal
* KMTS Mobility (CDMA, a division of Bell Aliant) — No Nokia phones
* NorthernTel (HSPA, a division of Bell Aliant) —
* Home: No Nokia phones
* Business: Phone offers take to original NorthernTel catalog
* Business — Takes to KMTS/NorthernTel choice page, so defaults to above information

KooDoo Mobile (Telus) — Wants location, chose BC
* Prepaid phones
* Certified Pre-Owned — Nokia Lumia 610
* Certified Pre-Owned — Nokia Lumia 610

Northerntel Mobility (Bell) — see above

NorthwesTel (Bell) — No Nokia phones

PC Mobile (Bell) —
* Nokia 7230

Petro-Canada Mobility (Rogers) — mainly sold in-store
* Nokia 1616
* Nokia 2220 (limited quantity, but hey :)
* Nokia 2720 (in limited quantities)
* Nokia C3

Primus Canada (Rogers) —
* Residential — No Nokia phones

Roam Mobility (T-Mobile USA) — No Nokia phones

SearsConnect Wireless (Rogers) > Cityfone — No Nokia phones
SimplyConnect (Rogers) > Cityfone — see above

Solo Mobile (Bell) — Not taking on new customers, directing those to Bell Mobility — No Nokia phones

Talk & Earn (Rogers) > Cityfone — See above for cityfone
Talk & Save (Rogers) > Cityfone — See above for Cityfone

Télébec Mobilité (Bell/Quebec, division of Bell Aliant) — No Nokia phones

Virgin Mobile Canada — No Nokia phones

Eastlink (Rogers) — Website not available

Fleetcom — No Nokia phones

ICE Wireless (Rogers) — Does not offer any phones

Keewaytinook Mobile (Rogers) —
* Nokia C2
* Nokia Asha 311

Lynx Mobility (Bell/Telus) — No Nokia phones

Sogetel Mobilité (Bell/Quebec) — No Nokia phones, but one Sony Ericsson W508

TBayTel Mobility (Rogers) — only 4G HSPA+ (smartphones, but apparently no featurephones)
Residential —
* Nokia Lumia 920
Business —
* Nokia Lumia 920

Good2Go Mobile Canada (Rogers)
* Nokia 1616
* Nokia 2720
* Nokia 2220

KORE Wireless (Rogers) — non-residential service

Overview of Nokia phones offered by U.S. carriers (April 2013)

US web offers for new Nokia phones as of 05.04.2013.

The list is somewhat incomplete, and emphasis is added to phones that don't have Windows Phone in them (all Windows Phone versions, including 7.5, 7.8, and 8). So this essentially means that while Windows Phone items (all Lumia phones) don't really count, they are still listed.

This list may also reflect which carriers' websites first ask for location without offering their phones first. The carriers whose sites do that, are more likely to offer locked phones and with a fixed contract instead of selling them to someone who would want to use their phone with a different carrier.

MVNO-s featured in the respective Wikipedia navbox also included.

Near the end of the compilation it turned out that most carriers and MVNO-s did not carry Nokias, so if I will ever make a future compilation of who carries Nokias, these will get further emphasis beyound colour.

Legend:
* "Nokia not listed" means that the website is offering phones by brand name
* "No Nokia phones" means that the website either does not offer phones by brand name, or that Nokia phones were not available.

National

• T-Mobile:

  Nokia X2 (refurb)
  Nokia Lumia 810

• AT&T:

  Nokia Lumia 900 (new & refurb)
  Nokia Lumia 820
  Nokia Lumia 920 (new & refurb)
  
  (While Nokia is not in the list of first four (primary) offered manufacturers in the filter, the brands are listed in alphabetical order.)

• Sprint Nextel (Wants zip code, but includes coverage maps) — Personal/Business: Nokia not listed

Regional

* C Spire (Memphis Metropolitan area, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida Panhandle, Rome, Georgia) — No Nokia phones
* Cricket Wireless — Wants zip code, Nokia not in bundles. But, www.mycricket.com/cell-phones is accessible (when going directly to the URL) — No Nokia phones.
* MetroPCS — Nokia not listed
* nTelos — Nokia not listed; Sony Ericsson listed by brand, but no phones featured.
* Revol Wireless — No Nokia phones
* SouthernLINC Wireless (Alabama, Georgia, Southeast Mississippi, the Florida Panhandle) — No Nokia phones
* U.S. Cellular — Nokia not listed

Local/Regional

• Cellular One
  
  • Montana, Northwestern Wyoming, Texas (TX-10, TX-11), and Oklahoma —

    cellonenation.com — Wants zip code
    celloneet.com — domain is for sale

  • East Central Illinois (cellular1.net, availability varies by location) —

    Feature Phones:

    Nokia Asha 303
    Nokia Asha 311

  • Northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico (cellularoneonline.com) —
    

    Hearing aid compatible:
    

    Nokia 2720
    Nokia 6085
    Nokia 7020
    Nokia E5 (Aspect)
    
    (also includes two Sony Ericsson phones)

  • Wayne and Pike counties, Pennsylvania (South Canaan Cellular, cellularonepa.com) — No Nokia phones
  • Texas and Oklahoma (Choice Wireless, cellonetxok.com) — No Nokia phones
  • Bermuda (Bermuda Digital Communications, cellularone.bm, aka CellOne) — No Nokia Phones, but features one Sony Ericsson phone.
     
• West Central Wireless (Central and West Texas) —

  Nokia 1661
  Nokia 2720
  Nokia 2760
  Nokia 3610
  Nokia 6061
  Nokia 6085
  Nokia 6126
  Nokia 7020
  Nokia C1-01
  Nokia C3-00
  Nokia C6

• Alaska Communications — Nokia not listed
• Alltel Wireless — Wants zip code
• Cellcom — Nokia listed, but no Nokia phones on offer. Also lists Sony Ericsson with no devices.
• Cincinnati Bell — Residential/Business: Nokia not listed
• Element Mobile — No Nokia phones
• i Wireless (Iowa, Western Illinois, Eastern Nebraska) — Nokia listed, but no phones available. (Sony Ericsson listed in the same fashion)
• Immix Wireless — No Nokia phones
• Open Mobile (Puerto Rico) — No Nokia phones

MVNOs

• Boost Mobile (subsidiary of Sprint Nextel) -- Nokia not listed
• Consumer Cellular -- No Nokia phones
• GosSmart Mobile (T-Mobile subsidiary) -- No Nokia phones
• GreatCall -- No Nokia phones
• Hawaiian Telcom -- No Nokia phones
• i-wireless (uses Sprint CDMA) -- No Nokia phones
• Kajeet (CDMA, Sprint-based) -- Nokia listed, but no phones on offer
• KDDI Mobile (KDDI America, uses the Sprint network) -- No Nokia phones
• Liberty Wireless (operates on Sprint Nextel CDMA) -- No Nokia phones
• NTT Docomo USA (subsidiary of NTT DoCoMo Group) --

  Nokia 500

• Page Plus Cellular (uses Verizon Wireless) -- No Nokia phones
• Ting (Verizon and MetroPCS) -- No Nokia phones
• TracFone Wireless -- (No Nokia phones)

  via tracfone.com -- wants zip code, takes to tracfone-orders.com -- No Nokia phones

  • Net10 Wireless -- No Nokia phones in the main lineup, No Nokia phones in the main Partner Phones lineup, more partner phones at an independent distributor, which is www.net10wirelessphones.com —
    • Basic phones:

      Nokia Asha 303
      Nokia Asha 311

    • Smartphones: Nokia Lumia 710
  • Straight Talk - Wants zip code, but offers 'gift' option for zip code -- No Nokia phones
  • Telcel América - Wants zip code, but offers 'gift' option -- No Nokia phones
  • Simple Mobile (subsidiary of America Móvil (parent of TracFone Wireless)) -- "Smart phones" available at mysimplephones.com --
    
    • Phones

      Nokia Asha 303
      Nokia Asha 311

    • Smartphones: Nokia Lumia 710
• Virgin Mobile USA (subsidiary of Spring Nextel) -- Nokia not listed

The post is not yet complete, but the basic listing based on the Wikipedia infobox should be.

Mozillale NoScripti installimine Windows Vistas

Seesinane on siis eestikeelne kokkuvõte oma varasemast ingliskeelsest blogipostitusest. Alguses kirjutasin selle kohta ühele sõbrale, ning kuna tekst osutus siiski pikemaks, leidsin ma seejärel, et jutt vajab avaldamist.

Hiljuti ühes Windows Vistaga masinas avastasin Mozilla 1.7.13. Tegemist on siis tarkvarapaketiga, mille lehitsejamoodul on sama vana kui Firefox 1.0.8 (Aprill 2006; esitlusmootor pärineb 2004. aastast ja Mozilla enda arhitektuur 2001.-st aastast).

Et Mozilla mõnede lehekülgede JavaScripti pärast kokku ei jookseks, läks alguses palju aega, et kuidas sellele NoScript nii peale panna, et töötaks, sest umbes sama vanale Firefoxile Knoppix 4.0.2-s (2005) sai küll. Lõpuks jätsin asja katki...

Mõni kuu hiljem leidsin lahenduse (Mozilla tuli käima panna administraatori õigustega) ja siis panin peale NoScripti, aga nii, et see tuli kindlasti installida Mozilla kasutajaprofiili kataloogi.

SeaMonkey 1.1-ga sellist probleemi ei tohiks olla, sest SeaMonkey 1.1 ja Windows Vista arendus/väljalase langes umbes samale ajale, et põhimõtteliselt sai seda Vista jaoks siis veel kohendada nii, et oleks parem ühilduvus.

SeaMonkey 1.1.19 on üks viimastest vabatarkvaralistest graafilistest lehitsejatest, mis töötab Windows 98/Me peal.

Tools to uninstall extensions in Mozilla 1.7.xx and SeaMonkey 1.x.

Mnenhy

In Mozilla Application Suite and SeaMonkey 1.x, removing extensions is not as easy as it is in SeaMonkey 2.0, given that the latter uses Firefox-based infrastructure.

First off, there is Mnenhy, which has many modules and which is more geared towards expert users. The important module is the Chrome Manager, which is accessible from the Tools menu.

* For SeaMonkey 1.1.xx, I use Mnenhy 0.7.6.666 (Can't remember where I got the version with the .666 patchlevel, but this should be the one for SeaMonkey 1.1.xx);
* For Mozilla 1.7.13, I use Mnenhy 0.7.6

Mnenhy 0.7.6 is compatible with Mozilla 1.7 and SeaMonkey 1, and it can be downloaded from mnenhy.mozdev.org

Extension Uninstaller 0.2

Unlike Mnenhy, this is one is more user friendly and even has easy-to-read error logs in case something doesn't work.

Extension Uninstaller 0.2 also requires the Extension Uninstaller API, which should be installed first.

Now, the problem with getting Extension Uninstaller is that its original website with
http://mozmonkey.com/extuninstaller/ and
http://mozmonkey.com/extuninstaller_api/
URLs is offline.

The only relatively good references I found to it are in
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=365228
— where only the addons.mozilla.org extension pages are references, but these are unfortunately closed, too.

The solution is to peruse the original official URLs in the Web Archive.:

Snapshot from 2010-03-04

There, scroll down to the Install section, see the "Install For:" Mozilla link. Right-click on the link, choose "Save Link Target As..." command to save the XPI.

It's a bit more difficult With the Extension Uninstaller API .xpi, which can be separately had from archive.org.

Installing NoScript to Mozilla in Windows Vista

This blog post describes how to install NoScript to Mozilla Application Suite in Windows Vista.
In all actuality, this should also apply to other compatible Mozilla extensions.

Conditions:

• Windows Vista SP2
• Mozilla Application Suite 1.7.13 (released 21.04.2006)
• NoScript 1.1.4.7

To install NoScript in an account with administrator rights,

• you must run Mozilla as administrator.
  For how to properly install NoScript in a guest account, see below.

  Attempting to install in any other way won't work. Yes, I've tried it myself before I found the solution.

• I chose NoScript 1.1.4.7, because it's the last version for Firefox 1.0.x.

  The reason is that Firefox 1.0.8 uses version 1.7.13 of the Gecko layout engine, which also matches the last version of Mozilla Application Suite. Any newer version might be incompatible, and I haven't tested NoScript 1.10, which is the last version for SeaMonkey 1.1.

• Since Mozilla 1.7.13 is eight years old and does not support modern web standards, installing any extension from addons.mozilla.org requires more steps:
  To download version 1.1.4.7 of NoScript from addons.mozilla.org,
  • go to its version section there and hover over the 1.1.4.7 section so that the Download Now link which looks like a button becomes visible.
  • Right-click on the Download Now link, choose to "Save Link Target As..." from the context menu, then save the extension into a folder of your choice. The Mozilla extension is saved with the .xpi file extension (but not installed.)
  • 01.03.2014 update:
    If that does not work (because of design changes at a.m.o), go instead to Mozilla's relevant addons folder for NoScript at ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/addons/722/, and scroll down to the chosen version.

    Firefox addons developers, either by tradition and culture or requirements from a.m.o, append their addons' XPI files with product acronyms as markers of compatibility with a client program in such a way that amongst browsers, fx stands for Firefox, sm for SeaMonkey, and mz for Mozilla. This should inform users of older client versions as to which extension version is still compatible.
    
    As I skimmed over Mozilla's NoScript FTP folder with above knowledge, I noticed that the most recent NoScript version marked with mz is actually 1.8.2.1. I don't remember having tested that version with Mozilla in Windows Vista before, but I hope other adventurous users might be lucky. Maybe in the future I will get to test that version, too.

  • in Mozilla, browse to the on-disk location of the saved extension, and click on it to install. The filename should be noscript-1.1.4.7-fx+mz+sm+fl.xpi
• Given the circumstances, always install NoScript and any other extension into the user profile and not the general installation folder, because it may be rather difficult to remove it afterwards.
• Once the extension reports it's installed, exit Mozilla.
• Then start Mozilla again as Administrator to finish the install process, then exit Mozilla again.
• Start Mozilla normally.

Added L., 01.03.2014.:

Installing NoScript in a normal/guest account.

Now, in a normal or guest account, it needs more work, mainly because of the differing designs of Windows Vista and Mozilla. We should remember that Mozilla 1.7.13 was made to run in Windows 95...

It won't be necessary to run Mozilla as administrator, because it will launch the instance with administrator credentials, which then brings its own settings as set in the administrator account.

Installing NoScript into Mozilla in a non-admin account mostly follows the steps of installing in the user profile space. After that, restarting Mozilla fails with this error:

"The program must close to allow a previous installation attempt to complete. Please restart."

The result in the background is that Mozilla starts, and starts xpicleanup.exe.

The following is an assumption: xpicleanup.exe wants to delete xpicleanup.dat, and unlike in Windows xp and older, the latter file is placed not where xpicleanup.exe anticipates it to be. xpicleanup.exe then fails to delete the file, Mozilla exits, and renders xpicleanup.exe an orphan process, hanging in memory. Trying to start Mozilla several times leaves more instances of xpicleanup.exe in memory. These processes must be ended either from Task Manager or Process Explorer.

Finding xpicleanup.dat within your profile, deleting or renaming it to xpicleanup.bak does the trick, and Mozilla will start again, with NoScript installed and functioning. (I usually rename such files as filename.ext.bak in order to preserve its extension, might I ever need the original and now renamed file again.)

xpicleanup.dat for a normal/Guest account (yours might be named differently) is located at —

C:\Users\Guest\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\mozilla.org\Mozilla\

^ to browse there, enable viewing of hidden files at folder options (Alt or F10 > Menu > Tools > Folder Options)

Useful instructions from a post by Alice at MozillaZine Forums.

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A little bit of background information and history

Mozilla Application Suite (Mozilla) was not designed with Windows Vista in mind, so using it in a modern operating system is not without obstacles. Yes, it does run, but this post about installing extensions sort of shows where some of the caveats lie.

Mozilla was at the time the open source base for Netscape, and version 1.0 of Mozilla was released on 05.06.2002, which is roughly 11 years ago as of 2013. I mean, wow, eleven years. Anyways, Mozilla was released to a wide variety of operating systems and for just as wide a variety of versions of each, including Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows Me, Windows 2000 (released 17.02.2000) and Windows XP (itself released on 25.10.2001).

After version 1.0, Mozilla progressed to have quick developments over its lifetime by getting new features added, but not too much by way of changes to its baseline architecture.

	Longevity
Mozilla's penultimate 1.7.13 version came out on 21.04.2006, just five and a half months before the RTM version of Windows Vista was finalized on 08.11.2006. Windows Vista was released to general availability on 30.01.2007.	Mozilla 1.7 Alpha is dated 23.02.2004, and 1.7 itself came out on 17.06.2004, so there is two years and about two months of time between 1.7 Alpha and 1.7.13, and exactly two years between 1.7 RC1 (21.04.2004) and 1.7.13.
After mozilla.org ceased development of Mozilla Application Suite, another team took over development and renamed the project SeaMonkey. Windows Vista was not released yet by the time SeaMonkey 1.0 arrived on 30.01.2006, but beta versions of Vista had to have been available already.
SeaMonkey 1.1.xx (18.01.2007 and on) was thereafter developed to accommodate Windows Vista, with SeaMonkey 1.1.19 (16.03.2010) being the last version of the 1.1 line, and the last for Windows 98/Me. Note that Windows 7 was released on 22.10.2009, so there's a great possibility that SeaMonkey 1.1.19 should run well on that operating system, too.	Three years and nearly two months between SeaMonkey 1.1 and 1.1.19. Overall, if I discount layout engine changes, then Mozilla and SeaMonkey are essentially the same product and programmatically the same infrastructure. When taking into account the release dates of Mozilla 0.8/0.8.1 (14.02.–26.03.2001), when it finally became reasonably stable and usable, and SeaMonkey 1.1.19 (16.03.2010), then that whole architecture has lasted for about nine years. Ten when factoring in development time, but that's a stretch considering official titles. If I were, on the other hand, to also consider Classilla, a browser for Mac OS 9, and the latest version of which was released on 19.10.2012, then all in all, Mozilla's run could certainly be timed to ten years from Mozilla 1.0, eleven years from Mozilla 0.9.5 (12.10.2001), and almost twelve years since Netscape 6 (06.12.2000). Such a long lifetime for one branch of development is a testament to its quality and reliability over a long span of time.

Future

The reason to have NoScript in Mozilla is that the browser is just so old and can easily crash with a piece of JavaScript newer than what Mozilla can support. It should be of relevant help that the post that follows this one, is a tutorial on installing extension uninstallers in Mozilla and SeaMonkey.

Mobiilinternet Samsungi telefoniga

Niisiis midagi ka eesti keeles, kuna tegemist on Eesti-põhise teenuse kasutamisega.

Eesmärk on ühendada arvuti mobiil-Internetti läbi vanema Samsungi telefoni, mis ei ole Android.

Mobiiliks on Samsung SGH-D830.
Töötavaid juhendeid sellise telefoniga ühendumiseks ei leidnud, seega tuli kirjutada ise midagi.

Antud telefon on umbes seitse aastat vana. Selle kõige kiirem ühenduvus ulatub vaid EDGE/GPRS standardini, mis on siis 2.75G — võrdluseks: 2013. aastal on levinuim "kiire" ühendusstandard 3.5G, ning juurutamisel on 4G.

Aparaat toetab lisaks Bluetoothi, mis on kasulik siis, kui Samsungi enda USB-juhet ei ole käepärast (teised USB juhtmed ei kõlba, sest telefonipoolne ots on omanduslik).

Niisama Windowsis sissehelistamisabimehega (Wizard) ühendust luues saatis mind ebaedu ning tuli välja, et seda tuleb teha Samsung PC Studio abil.

Esialgu juhendid USB-juhtmega ühenduvuse kohta, kunagi hiljem Bluetoothi kohta (suurt vahet ei tohiks siiski olla).

Eeltingimused: Windowsi opsüsteem, Samsung PC Studio 3 programmikomplekti olemasolu (mul oli versioon 3.2.3 IE2 (2009), ning see tahab Windows 2000 või uuemat, kuid väidetavalt toetab see ka Windows 98-t) ja vastava telefoni draiverid. Need on saadaval Samsungi kodulehe tõmbamiskeskusest. Proov oli tehtud Windows XP SP2 ja SP3-ga.

Windowsis peavad olema sisse lülitatud näiteks Telephony ja Remote Access Connection Manager teenused. Remote Access Auto Connection Manager vist ei pea sees olema (Started), aga see ei tohi olla välja lülitatud (Disabled).

Bluetooth ühenduse jaoks peab arvutis olema sisemine adapter või olema ühendatud Bluetooh USB-adapter (pulk vmt), telefon ja arvuti peavad olema omavahel paaris (i.k. paired).

Tarvis oleks eelnevalt oma numbrile tellida vajalik mobiil-Interneti pakett või piisavalt kõneaega. Minu puhul oli teenusepakkuja EMT. Simpeli omanikud saavad laadida korraga 10 või 15€ ja saada piisaval määral andmemahtu (kunagi olla Simpelil olnud ka mobiil-Interneti päevapiletid).

Juhend ühenduse loomiseks

	USB-juhtmega	Bluetoothiga
1.	Ühenda oma telefon arvutiga	Bluetooth peab telefonis ja arvutis olema sisse lülitatud. Telefonis käib see eestikeelse kasutajaliidesega nii: Menüü > (9) Seaded > (7) Bluetooth > (1) Aktiveerimine > (•) Sees Bluetooth on võimalik lisada ka telefoni kiirmenüüsse, kuid aktiveerimine võib võtta peaaegu sama nupuvajutuste arvu kui tavamenüü kaudu aktiveerimine.
2.	Ava Samsung PC Studio. Eeldatud on programmi ingliskeelse versiooni kasutamine. PC Studio olekuriba peaks enam-vähem automaatselt näitama, kas telefon on ühendatud (ilmub mobiili mudelinumber).
		Kui ei ole, siis PC Studio 3 menüüs vali File > Connection... • Uues aknas kliki Bluetooth ikoonile, mis peab olema sinist värvi, mis näitab, et Bluetooth on aktiivne. • vajuta Connect. • Kui akna olekuribale tekib kiri <mudelinumber> connected — vajuta OK
3.	Ava "Networking Wizard"
4.	PC Studio Networking Wizard abimehe tervitusaken, vajuta "Next"
5.	Ühenduse loomine: uue jaoks vali "Create" raadionupp, vajuta "Next"
6.	Ühenduse nimi (Connection Name): Sisesta tekstiväljale oma ühenduse nimi, esialgu (teiste puudumisel) näiteks EMT Internet vajuta "Next"
7.	Modemi valik:
	SAMSUNG Mobile USB Modem	Bluetooth Modem
	Vajuta "Next"
8.	Riik (Country) ja teenusepakkuja (Network Provider): Antud versioonis Eestit pole, aga riik tuleb ikka valida; seega "[Other]" ja teenusepakkuja on seejärel automaatselt samuti "[Other]". APN name: internet.emt.ee Phone number: *99# See on siis väli sissehelistamisnumbri lisamiseks. Kasutajanimi ja parool jäävad tühjaks (EMT seaded) "Advanced" nupp on DNS serverite seadistamiseks. Sinna minema ei pea, kui teenusepakkuja DNS serverite nimesid oma dokumentatsioonis ei täpsustanud. Sellisel juhul on DNS-seaded on automaatsed (AFAIK). Vajuta "Next"
8.1	Tuleb sisestatud info kohta ülevaade (Summary). Vajuta "Next"
9.	Järgmises aknas on linnuke "Connect to the Internet directly" järel. Et siis kohe ühendumiseks. Vajuta "Finish". Linnukese võib ära võtta ja ühenduda hiljem, sest peale "Finish"-nupu vajutamist on Samsungi-põhine "EMT Internet" otsetee loodud Windowsi töölauale ning samuti otsetee Windowsi Network Connections kaustas. Viimasele saab ligi ka Start > Connect To > "EMT Internet" ja edaspidi otsustasin seda kasutada.
10.	Ette tuleb võrguabimehe teatis, kus on kirjas, et kui telefoniga ühenduda, siis PC Studio enda ühendus telefoniga katkeb ja selle kaudu andmete ülekanne tuleb vajadusel samuti katkestada. Sama dialoogiaken küsib veel kord, kas kasutaja soovib ühenduda Internetiga (valitud ühendusega).
11.	Vastates jah (OK või Yes), tuleb Windowsi enda sissehelistamisaken pealkirjaga Connect to <sinu mobiilinterneti nimi> — kus kasutajanime ja parooli väljad jäävad tühjaks. Kui väljad ei ole tühjad, tuleb nad tühjaks teha, sest EMT tavajuhistes ei ole sätestatud, et seal peavad andmed kirjas olema Erandina peavad kasutajanimi ja parool olema kirjas siis, kui teenusespakkuja juhistes on need kindlalt sätestatud. • Lisaks on võimalik (tühjad) kasutajanimi ja parool salvestada, kas siis ainult endale ("Me only") või kõigile, kes seda arvutit kasutavad ("Anyone who uses this computer"). • Vajutada tuleb vaid "Dial".

Nii ja põhimõtteliselt peaks ühendus valmis olema ja tegumiriba teavitusalal (kellast vasakule poole jäävad ikoonid) tekib loodus ühenduse kohta oma ikoonike ja teavitus. Tähtis: Kui mobiil-Interneti ühendust rohkem ei kasutata, tuleb sellele ikoonile parema nupuga klikkida ja valida "Disconnect" (see on oluline, et ei tekiks arveid).

Peaks mainima, et telefonis oli sarnane ühendususprofiil juba valmis, seega ma ei tea, kas telefonisisesest seadistusest sõltub ka midagi või mitte.

Tuleb tähele panna, et niisuguse telefoniga ühendus kiire olema ei saa; küll on võimalik oma e-posti kontrollida ja veebis surfata. Lisaks piiratud mahuga ühenduste puhul (väike pakett vms) ei tasu näiteks teha videokõnesid, tõmmata filme ja muusikat (YouTube, Spotify jne), säärased programmid tuleb enne ühendumist kõik välja lülitada.

Eelistatuim on kasutada näiteks Firefox lehitsejat koos NoScript, Flashblock ja võib-olla isegi ka Adblock Plus lisadega. Need kõik peavad olema muul kasutamise ajal "välja treenitud", et vajalikud saidid töötaksid ja mittevajalike reklaamid, skriptid ja Flash-pluginad oleksid vaikimisi blokeeritud.