No, the title doesn’t refer to a Korean horror flick.
This is actually about the latest Windows security scare.
I had my own problems when I tried to download the patches from Windows Update. I had no problems updating Windows Update but I couldn’t seem to get the critical OS updates I needed.
I snooped around Windows trying to figure out why and was startled to find a program called PowerReg Scheduler V3.exe in my Startup folder. I had no idea how it got there and more ominously, I had no idea what it did.
Googling about it set alarm bells off initially but additional checking revealed the program is relatively benign. PestPatrol rates PowerReg Scheduler V3 a 5 (which is still safe) and both Ad-Aware and Spybot-S&D 1.3 seem unconcerned about it. According to Leader Technologies, the company that makes it, PowerReg Scheduler V3.exe is merely used for online product registration.
But that raised another question: how did PowerReg Scheduler V3 get on my system? What was it bundled with? A bit of digging around revealed it had been installed on my PC on June 10. Hmm, what did I install on June 10 that would require product registration? The blog revealed I had received the Neverwinter Nights expansion, Hordes of the Underdark, and had reinstalled the entire game plus the two expansions that same day. The penny dropped. That game did indeed ask me if I wanted to register with Atari and if memory serves, the two valid options were “Never Register” and “Remind Me Later.” I must have clicked on “Remind Me Later” and this resulted in PowerReg Scheduler V3 being dumped in the Startup folder. Removing the program seems simple enough but this annoys me a little. I had uninstalled Neverwinter Nights so why was that registration reminder still on my system? Shouldn’t PowerReg Scheduler be automatically uninstalled when users uninstall the product it was bundled with?
Anyway, once I solved that mystery, I turned my attention to discovering why Windows Update wasn’t letting me download updates. I kept getting the 0x8024402C error and Microsoft’s solution wasn’t applicable in my case.
Google to the rescue again. Someone else had the same problem and evidently it occurs when users rig the firewall to prevent Generic Host Process for Win32 from accessing the net. I managed to update Windows without further problems once I remedied that.
