Epson's claims of cheaper ink are empty

Windows Secrets Newsletter • Issue 114 • 2007-07-05 • Circulation: over 400,000

Table of contents

Introduction: SkipRearm doesn’t work, activation still broken
Top Story: Epson’s claims of cheaper ink are empty
Known Issues: Microsoft owns up to Vista Ultimate letdown
Wacky Web Week: Windows Live finds more than you think
Insider Tricks: You have ways to ferret out running services
Woody's Windows: SyncToy — free file sync for XP and Vista
Perimeter Scan: Experts debate claims of ‘undetectable malware’

SkipRearm doesn’t work, activation still broken

By Brian Livingston

In a Mar. 15 article, I reported that a Registry key called SkipRearm seemed to allow Windows Vista’s activation deadline to be pushed back many times.

It now appears that this effect isn’t caused by SkipRearm but by a different mechanism — and therein lies a story.

Vista activation deadline affected by system clock

Since my original article appeared, some readers and blogs reported that they could duplicate the results of changing the SkipRearm value in the Registry. Others found no effect on Vista’s activation deadline.

My continued tests have convinced me that SkipRearm cannot be used to extend Vista’s deadline. Instead, the results indicate that Vista has something I call “defensive mode.” In this mode, Vista changes its activation deadline if a PC’s system clock is changed.

Try the following steps on a fresh copy of Windows Vista:

Step 1. Install Vista on a clean hard drive.

Step 2. When prompted for the correct time by Vista, set the clock back at least a few minutes from the original time held by the system clock. Or set the clock back at any point after you’ve installed Vista.

Step 3. Open a command window with admin privileges. To do this in Vista, click the Start button, enter cmd in the Search box, and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter. If you’re asked for a username and password, enter the ones that log you into your domain. At the command prompt, type slmgr -dli and press Enter. This command, which can require as long as one minute to process, displays Vista’s license information. Note the number of minutes remaining before Vista’s activation deadline. It’s a maximum of 43,200 minutes (30 days) on a new installation. Type exit and press Enter to close the command window.

Step 4. Reboot the PC, then repeat step 3 to determine the new number of minutes remaining.

On the PC’s we’ve tested, Vista’s activation deadline has been pushed back a seemingly random amount of time by this procedure. We’ve seen changes of as much as 303 minutes (more than 5 hours). The process has nothing to do with the SkipRearm key in the Registry and doesn’t allow SkipRearm to push the deadline back indefinitely. This means dishonest PC sellers can’t use SkipRearm to create PCs that look activated but aren’t, as I had feared.

In our extensive tests of Vista, which I worked on with WindowsSecrets.com program director Brent Scheffler and associate editor Scott Dunn, we believed that the rollback of the activation deadline we saw was being caused by SkipRearm. We repeatedly wiped different PCs clean, installed Vista (and reset the clock each time), tweaked the SkipRearm key, and then rebooted. In most cases, after the Registry change and the reboot, the deadline shifted all the way back to 43,200 minutes because our latest clean install of Vista was only a few minutes old. We now believe that Vista’s “defensive mode” changes the deadline, not SkipRearm’s value in the Registry.

Vista seems to have built-in defenses against a user setting a PC’s clock, say, 10 years into the future, installing Vista, and then changing the clock back to the present to get more than the official 30-day activation period. When Vista notices that the clock has changed, it saves information about the original time and the new time upon shutdown. Vista then rewrites the activation deadline to preserve what’s left of the 30-day grace period.

Since Vista cannot know how long a PC will be shut down before it’s booted up again, the operating system appears to be programmed to add a random amount of time to the deadline. The additional minutes are apparently intended to make sure the user gets the full 30-day grace period, without the reboot time counting against it. That’s very considerate of the developers who coded this feature into Vista.

Never mind, Vista activation cracks are everywhere

At the time of my original findings, I considered the SkipRearm side-effect to be a glitch, a temporary programming error that would eventually be reduced to a footnote by some Microsoft corrective patch.

As it turns out, the SkipRearm value in the Registry truly is benign, but not because of anything Microsoft has done. Instead, hackers have found that Vista’s activation mechanism is full of holes. A query in any search engine on vista activation crack reveals numerous successful breaches of Microsoft’s defenses. These range from downloadable executables that effectively stop Vista’s countdown timer to brute-force algorithms that rapidly enter 25-digit license keys at random until a legitimate one is found. (I’m not linking to these techniques because I don’t recommend that anyone use them. But it’s indisputable that they’re out there.)

Once again, Microsoft has launched a copy-protection system that is a breeze for hackers to break, while causing headaches for honest, paid-up buyers. To deploy Vista, large companies are exhorted to administer cumbersome license systems, such as Microsoft’s Key Management Service (KMS) server. Meanwhile, hackers publish spoofed software that easily emulates such servers, as reported by Gregg Keizer in an InformationWeek article.

We can’t do much about Microsoft’s executive decisions now. But we can continue to educate ourselves about Microsoft Windows and its foibles.

Fortunately, all of the other tricks we’ve recently printed about Windows Vista still work just fine:

• Vista Upgrade accepts itself as a qualifying version. Developers within Microsoft decided that the cheaper, “upgrade” version of Vista would install over itself, eliminating the need for users to buy the more expensive, “full” version. I reported this in a Feb. 1 story.

• Use Vista without activation for 120 days. Far from being limited to a 30-day grace period, the Vista team built into the new operating system a simple command that anyone can use to push the deadline back to 120 days. I published the technique in a Feb. 15 article.

I’ll keep digging up the secrets of Windows for you and publishing them here, with your help and the assistance of my talented co-workers. I won’t always get the story right the first time out, but I promise you that I’ll always keep trying.

Brian Livingston is editorial director of WindowsSecrets.com and the co-author of Windows Vista Secrets and 10 other books.

Top Story

Epson’s claims of cheaper ink are empty

By Scott Dunn

Users of multi-color inkjet printer cartridges end up throwing away half of their ink, according to a study commissioned by Epson.

But a Kodak-sponsored study focuses on the bottom line, saying you’ll pay more per page with printers that require a different cartridge for each color, such as Epson’s.

Epson-commissioned study dwells on ink efficiency

In a press release dated June 2007, Epson announced results of a study it commissioned from TÜV Rheinland, an independent certification body. Epson trumpeted the study, saying single-ink cartridges were more efficient than those holding multiple colors of inks. “On average the multi-ink systems used less than 60% of the ink before the cartridge had to be replaced, this compares to an average of 82% for the individual ink systems tested,” according to the press release.

The study printed photos that were selected by focus groups, as well as the kind of business document typically output by home offices. Epson’s press release acknowledged that the documents, such as a presentation using a corporate template, tended to exhaust one color more than others. Running out of one color makes a multi-color cartridge unusable, even though the other colors in the cartridge may still have plenty of ink.

The TÜV study included printers from Hewlett-Packard, Canon, Brother, Lexmark, Epson, and Kodak. A summary of the report states that Kodak’s EasyShare model, which uses a multi-color cartridge, consumed less than 40% of each cartridge’s ink before becoming unusable. Models by Epson and HP, which have separate cartridges for each color, by contrast, had “ink efficiency” levels near 80%. Ink capacity was determined by comparing the weight of cartridges when they were full versus when a printer declared them exhausted.

“Now, as well as being cost competitive in the market, Epson’s individual ink cartridge system offers customers higher levels of consistency and efficiency,” states Rob Clark, Director of Consumer Inkjet Business for Epson Europe in the press release.

Oddly, despite repeated requests, I was unable to obtain from Epson a copy of the study. Finally, a summary of the study was posted on July 2 at the TÜV Web site on a Efficient Printers and Printing Consumables page. (The 1.87MB PDF summary is available from a link on that page under the heading Further Topics.)

My own research indicates that “ink efficiency” isn’t everything. If you want the lowest cost per page, a single cartridge that delivers multiple colors may be the winner.

Kodak-sponsored study touts cost per page

Just a month before Epson’s announcement, Kodak issued its own press release. This statement drew attention to a study the company had commissioned from third-party testing lab QualityLogic.

Unlike the TÜV Rheinland study, the QualityLogic study reported the number of pages (the “yield”) ink cartridges could produce when printing industry-standard 8.5″ x 11″ monochrome and color test documents and 4″ x 6″ color photos. A PDF of the complete study is available on the QualityLogic Web site.

The QualityLogic study does not include price information. However, Kodak ran the numbers itself, dividing the cost of the various printers’ cartridges into the number of pages that were produced. Kodak’s conclusions are the opposite of Epson’s. The results show that the Kodak Easyshare ink cartridges delivered the lowest cost per page or photo, while Epson and Lexmark cartridges resulted in much higher costs.

Here at WindowsSecrets.com, I analyzed the QualityLogic data for our readers. I first searched the Web for real-world prices of ink cartridges. I then used my own approach to calculate the cost per page from QualityLogic’s yield figures. I found that my cost results were nearly identical to the figures claimed by Kodak. (only in a few cases did the figures diverge by more than one cent per page).

The table below shows Kodak’s cost-per-page calculations, which I double-checked. Based on QualityLogic’s yield figures, and the street price of each printer’s cartridges, Kodak’s multi-color modules do seem to offer significantly lower cost per page for each document type:

COST PER PAGE OR PHOTO (in U.S. cents, sorted by color photo cost)

Printer	Mono Page	Color Page	Color Photo
Kodak EASYSHARE 5300	2.3	6.9	9.6
Canon PIXMA MP810	3.9	9.2	15.2
Canon PIXMA MP510	3.7	9.1	15.5
Canon PIXMA MP600	3.7	9.0	16.0
Canon PIXMA MP160	6.6	13.7	23.8
Brother MFC-5460CN	4.0	9.0	24.1
Lexmark X3470	8.7	17.2	26.0
HP Photosmart C5180	5.9	10.3	28.9
Lexmark X8350	8.0	15.2	32.9
HP Photosmart C3180	7.9	16.9	33.7
HP Photosmart C4180	5.2	14.7	34.1
Epson Stylus CX6000	12.8	16.6	38.7
Epson Stylus Photo RX580	7.4	18.4	50.1

In my research, the prices of all ink cartridges (except Lexmark) were obtained online from Office Depot. Taxes and shipping charges were ignored, as though all cartridges were picked up in-store. Lexmark cartridges weren’t available at Office Depot, and were priced instead at the Staples Web site. I computed the theoretical number of cartridges required to print 10,000 pages or photos, based on QualityLogic’s yield numbers, then calculated the resulting cost per page to substantiate Kodak’s figures.

HP has officially taken issue with the details of the Kodak/QualityLogic study. San Jose Mercury News writer Dean Takahashi has published HP’s critique as well as Kodak’s rebuttal in his tech blog.

Epson’s research study: damage control?

There are factors other than cost per page, of course, that should be used when evaluating printers. Print quality, paper handling, and product reliability are at least as important as the cost of consumables. But the recent flare-up over cost per page indicates how seriously printer manufacturers take pricing claims.

Epson’s press release comes just a year after the company put to bed a class-action lawsuit, which is described in a FAQ by the case’s claims administrator. Plaintiffs in the suit complained that the printer cartridges reported being out of ink, failing to print, even though a substantial amount of ink remained. Epson denied any wrongdoing and chose to settle the case out of court.

The company may be eager to draw attention away from the Kodak-contracted study and convince customers that the cost of its consumables is a good deal. Although the Epson press release specifically calls attention to the “ecological advantages” of single-ink cartridges, the clear message is that Epson’s single-ink system will save consumers ink and, as a result, money.

But Epson’s TÜV study didn’t look at cost. The Kodak/QualityLogic data indicates that packing multiple colors into a single cartridge can result in a lower cost per printed page than single-color cartridges. Until other studies validate or dispute these findings, Epson’s claims must be viewed with skepticism.

Scott Dunn is associate editor of the Windows Secrets Newsletter. He is also a contributing editor of PC World Magazine, where he has written a monthly column since 1992, and co-author of 101 Windows Tips & Tricks (Peachpit) with Jesse Berst and Charles Bermant.

Known Issues

Microsoft owns up to Vista Ultimate letdown

By Scott Dunn

As reported last week, Microsoft’s Vista Ultimate team has been missing in action when it comes to supplying the “Ultimate Extras” that were promised back in January for the new OS.

But, since our June 28 story appeared, the team has finally broken its silence, making its first statement since Mar. 13.

Ultimate team apologizes, breaking long silence

My article on the unkept promise of Vista Ultimate Extras was followed up by interviews in ComputerWorld and elsewhere. Soon thereafter, the Vista Ultimate team finally commented on its failure to deliver any of the promised Extras. The statement by Barry Goffe, director of Vista Ultimate, on the Windows Ultimate Web site says:

“We want to let our Windows Vista Ultimate customers know that we are actively working to deliver the remaining Extras that we identified in January. Our goal is to provide the highest-quality, most secure and reliable offerings, and as a result we are continuing our work on these offerings. We apologize for taking so long to provide a status update to customers.

“We intend to ship Windows DreamScene and the remaining 20 Language Packs by the end of the summer. We will not ship the last two Extras showcased in January (Windows DreamScene and the remaining 20 Language Packs) until they meet the high quality bar required by our enthusiastic customers — and we believe that we can achieve that bar by the end of this summer.

“We also intend to deliver additional Extras in the future. In addition to Windows DreamScene and the remaining Language Packs, we plan to ship a collection of additional Windows Ultimate Extras over the next couple years that we are confident will delight our passionate Windows Vista Ultimate customers. We cannot identify dates or provide details at this time — but once we ship Windows DreamScene and the remaining Language Packs, we will provide more information about the next Extras.”

Unfortunately, the statement — the first comment of any kind to appear on the team’s home page in nearly four months — includes no actual specifics of Extras to come and no schedule of dates the team can be held to.

Microsoft rescinds WGA requirement for critical patch

A number of readers attempted to fix the Svchost.exe problem described in our June 21 issue by downloading the update described in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 927891. Many of them, including Holly Vincent, discovered that Microsoft was requiring them to first install and run the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) utility. An earlier version of this intrusive and error-prone tool was denounced by editorial director Brian Livingston as spyware one year ago. Holly writes:

“It’s rather sneaky on Microsoft’s part. If one runs the Microsoft Update that is recommended, isn’t Windows Genuine Advantage slipped in as well? I’ve never been a fan of WGA, as it presumes my OS’s guilt and asks me to prove its innocence.”

After receiving similar complaints, I contacted contributing editor Susan Bradley, who passed the complaint on to her contacts inside Microsoft. “WGA is normally kept off anything security related,” Susan told me. “It wasn’t on that patch before. This was a screw-up on the part of Microsoft.”

The Svchost.exe patch can now be downloaded and installed without having to install WGA. Thanks to all the readers whose complaints made Microsoft correct the situation.

How to check Windows Update’s version number

I gave instructions in the June 28 issue on checking Windows Update’s version number. A few readers wanted to know if they needed to check the version number of other files with similar names. The answer is no — you only need to check the version of Wuaueng.dll (not Wuaueng1.dll or any other file).

Reader Peter Vanica had a related problem:

“I have 5 copies of Wuaueng.dll on my system in the following locations:

C:I386
C:windows$NtServicePackUninstall$
C:windowssystem32
C:windowsservicepackfilesi386
C:windowssystem32DLLCACHE

“Help!”

Peter’s search not only turned up the file that Windows actively uses — the one in the WindowsSystem32 folder — but also various kinds of backups and copies that Windows keeps for its own purposes. If you revert your system to an earlier state — using, for example, System Restore — you would need to apply the patch for Windows Update again.

Wacky Web Week

Windows Live finds more than you think

Our Wacky Web Week column last week featured a spoof of a video ad for one of Microsoft’s newest product ideas. But not every commercial needs a send-up to be funny.

As this promo for Windows Live reveals, some folks working for Microsoft have a pretty good sense of humor. Not to mention an inflated view of the search capabilities of Windows Live. Watch the video.

Insider Tricks

You have ways to ferret out running services

By Scott Dunn

In the June 28 issue, I noted that Task Manager shows multiple instances of Svchost.exe, but it doesn’t tell you what services each instance is running.

Our savvy readers responded with a host of handy solutions, ranging from command-line tricks to free downloadable utilities.

How to identify services Svchost.exe controls

Reader George Riley has a way to connect the services that are running to a specific instance of Svchost.exe, which in some cases in XP can go wild and starve other apps for CPU time:

“One way you can determine what processes Svchost.exe is running is via the command line. Bring up a command prompt (on XP Pro) and type Tasklist /svc. Press Enter. Each svchost executable will have a listing of processes it controls, right next to its PID.”

Thanks George! As a reminder, you can open a command prompt in XP by choosing Start, All Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt. You can also choose Start, Run (or press Win+R) and type cmd.exe. If you want to do the whole thing in one fell swoop, open the Run dialog box and enter:

cmd.exe /k tasklist /svc

Once you’ve identified which copy of Svchost.exe has the service you want to kill, make a note of its PID (Process ID). Then launch Task Manager (press Ctrl+Shift+Esc), click the Processes tab, and select the copy of Svchost.exe with the same PID. Click the End Process button at the bottom of the window.

Managing running services within Vista

Igor Gorjanc points out that the above procedure isn’t necessary in Windows Vista, whose Task Manager has its own Services tab. Just click that tab to see a list of both running and stopped services. To start or stop a service, just right-click it in the list and choose the appropriate command from the context menu.

Note that the Svchost.exe problem documented in the June 21 issue does not affect Vista, so you should not need this technique to stop the Windows Update service.

Process Explorer lets you under the hood

Regarding the Svchost.exe issue, “Bear” Bryant sends us this tip:

“My method to alleviate that problem is to load ProcessExplorer, identify which copy of Svchost.exe is the culprit and double-click it. You can then see all the threads being used by it. Watch for a little bit and you’ll there’s a single thread eating all the cycles. Kill that one and all is well. Well, almost all. Automatic Updates won’t work, but a reboot on the eve of Patch Tuesday turns it back on just in time. I’m sticking with my method until the problem is fixed.”

Thanks, Bear! Process Explorer (recently purchased by Microsoft and available from the company’s Web site), is a kind of Task Manager on steroids. As Bear points out, double-clicking a process opens a Properties dialog box with more information, including a Services tab showing what services the process controls. Designed for advanced users, Process Explorer is not for the faint of heart. But at least it’s free.

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Woody's Windows

SyncToy — free file sync for XP and Vista

By Woody Leonhard

In past columns, I’ve moaned about the lack of PowerToys for Windows Vista, seven months after Vista’s release.

There is one PowerToy, though, that’s fully Vista capable, and it also works well with Windows XP — meet SyncToy.

Why use a PowerToy like SyncToy?

I’ve been digging deep into Windows Media Center — both the XP-based Media Center Edition and the Vista versions — while researching a new book on Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Home Server (WHS). In my tests, I’ve found that this new “personal server” works reasonably well with Media Center, but there are several lapses. One of the worst: WHS will back up many kinds of files, but it won’t back up TV shows that you’ve recorded.

That’s how I came to download and try an old Windows XP PowerToy called SyncToy. Rushing in where angels fear to tread, SyncToy can readily copy recorded TV shows from a Media Center PC to a Windows Home Server, uh, server. Once copied, WHS takes care of the backup, restore, and gas-guzzling hard-drive demands of your recorded TV programs: the trick lies in getting the files onto the server in the first place. That’s where good old SyncToy comes into play.

I guess the term "old" is relative: Microsoft posted SyncToy version 1.4 as recently as October 2006. It’s officially listed as one of the Windows XP PowerToys. To my amazement, SyncToy works equally well (and almost identically) in both XP and Vista.

The only downside? Before you can use SyncToy on a Windows XP PC, you have to install the bloated, sometimes buggy .NET Framework, Redmond’s runtime environment. (On Vista, you don’t need to add .NET Framework, because it’s practically baked into the operating system.) If you don’t mind loading this download onto your XP system, SyncToy has a few great tricks up its sleeve.

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Perimeter Scan

Experts debate claims of ‘undetectable malware’

By Ryan Russell

Soon, I’ll be making my annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas for Black Hat Briefings and Defcon, my favorite security conferences (see my July 13, 2006, write-up).

This year, presenters are not just talking about rootkits, but are describing even deeper topics that you need to know about, such as “driver-signing bypass” and “virtualized rootkit detection.”

Can malware become totally invisible?

Joanna Rutkowska and Alexander Tereshkin of Invisible Things Lab are presenting a workshop on how to compromise the Vista x64 kernel. They also plan to describe “virtualization-based malware,” which they say is undetectable with current methods. Scary stuff.

Joanna is the author of Blue Pill, a novel attack on Windows that I discussed in last year’s column. One of her central themes continues to be the question of whether such virtualized rootkits are or soon will be detectable. It would be very bad for legitimate users if these infections turned out not to be detectable.

My opinion continues to be that the second coder wins. This kind of thing will always be an arms race. But I haven’t yet seen any of Joanna’s code, so I can’t judge it. There continues to be a heated debate as to whether a “perfect” rootkit is even theoretically possible.

Sure we can detect it, they say

And then we have the guys who take the other side. They’re not shy. Researchers from Symantec and Matasano Security are giving a talk entitled Don’t Tell Joanna, The Virtualized Rootkit Is Dead. Their abstract is short and sweet: “We are going to show that virtualized rootkits will always be detectable.”

That seems nice and clear. And, as a defender, that’s the kind of news I like to hear. Naturally, I’ll be attending both talks and you’ll get my unvarnished opinion in a future column.

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The Windows Secrets Newsletter is published weekly on the 1st through 4th Thursdays of each month, plus occasional news updates. We skip an issue on the 5th Thursday of any month, the week of Thanksgiving, and the last two weeks of August and December. Windows Secrets is a continuation of four merged publications: Brian's Buzz on Windows and Woody's Windows Watch in 2004, the LangaList in 2006, and the Support Alert Newsletter in 2008.

Publisher: WindowsSecrets.com, 1218 Third Ave., Suite 1515, Seattle, WA 98101 USA. Vendors, please send no unsolicited packages to this address (readers' letters are fine).

Editor in chief: Tracey Capen. Senior editors: Fred Langa, Woody Leonhard. Copyeditor: Roberta Scholz. Program director: Tony Johnston. Contributing editors: Yardena Arar, Susan Bradley, Scott Dunn, Michael Lasky, Scott Mace, Ryan Russell, Lincoln Spector, Robert Vamosi, Becky Waring. Product manager: Andy Boyd. Advertising director: Eric Gilley.

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