Archive for the ‘Software Fixes’ Category

Microsoft Security Essentials 2 Released-Still the Best Darn Antivirus Around

Windows: We’ve learned to stop worrying about antivirus software since Microsoft released their great Microsoft Security Essentials suite, but today it gets even better, improving Windows Firewall integration, network traffic inspection, and an heuristic scanning engine.

Microsoft’s next version of Security Essentials is actually a pretty great update from its already-great predecessor. Microsoft’s option has always been adequate at finding new malware without definitions, but the addition of an heuristic engine bumps its power up quite a bit.

It may be subject to a few more false positives, but you’re much less likely to get hit with malware than ever before.

It also includes some Windows Firewall integration that lets you tweak the Firewall from inside Security Essentials, as well as a network inspection feature that can inspect traffic as you browse, which is pretty neat.

All in all, if you’re using Microsoft Security Essentials (and why wouldn’t you be?), you’ll want to grab this update. Hit the link below to manually download and install the update.

Download: Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0
Source: Lifehacker

How to hack your Windows Vista-7-XP password

This case was given to me by a friend, whose sister had a virus. The virus reset the password on her Windows 7 account. I wanted to remove the virus, but before I could do that, I had to bypass her password somehow. I knew of a way to do this in XP, but that wasn’t possible in Vista/7. So, I tried a few things and this is the one that worked.

www.timstechtips.com

Clean your bug filled machine with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

tutorial here

Windows  / Shareware; $24.95 / 7,128,060 downloads
Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware is a high performance anti-malware application that thoroughly removes even the most advanced malware and spyware. With one of the fastest, most effective quick scans and malware removal capabilities on the market, this program is the perfect addition to your PC’s defenses.
The full version of the product includes a number of key features, including the ability to schedule updates and scans and most importantly, a real-time malware protection module that blocks malicious processes before they even start.
- Improved database loading speed by approximately 15%
- Drastically improved performance of Website Blocking on Windows Vista and 7
- Fixed various scheduler compatibility issues on Windows 2000
- Fixed issue with quotations around paths passed to /logtofile and /logtofolder
- Fixed issue with detecting certain leftover traces of an infection
- Fixed issue with freeze when adding a shared printer on the network
download

Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware is a high performance anti-malware application that thoroughly removes even the most advanced malware and spyware. With one of the fastest, most effective quick scans and malware removal capabilities on the market, this program is the perfect addition to your PC’s defenses.

The full version of the product includes a number of key features, including the ability to schedule updates and scans and most importantly, a real-time malware protection module that blocks malicious processes before they even start.

- Improved database loading speed by approximately 15%

- Drastically improved performance of Website Blocking on Windows Vista and 7

- Fixed various scheduler compatibility issues on Windows 2000

- Fixed issue with quotations around paths passed to /logtofile and /logtofolder

- Fixed issue with detecting certain leftover traces of an infection

- Fixed issue with freeze when adding a shared printer on the network

download

CCleaner – Daily Automatic Task in Win 7

Features
CCleaner is our system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it’s fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware!
Cleans the following:
Internet Explorer
Temporary files, history, cookies, Autocomplete form history, index.dat.
Firefox
Temporary files, history, cookies, download history, form history.
Google Chrome
Temporary files, history, cookies, download history, form history.
Opera
Temporary files, history, cookies.
Safari
Temporary files, history, cookies, form history.
Windows
Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary files and Log files.
Registry Cleaner
Advanced features to remove unused and old entries, including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more… also comes with a comprehensive backup feature.
Third-party applications
Removes temp files and recent file lists (MRUs) from many apps including Media Player, eMule, Google Toolbar, Netscape, Microsoft Office, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and many more…
100% Spyware FREE
Features
CCleaner is our system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it’s fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware!
Cleans the following:
Internet Explorer
Temporary files, history, cookies, Autocomplete form history, index.dat.
Firefox
Temporary files, history, cookies, download history, form history.
Google Chrome
Temporary files, history, cookies, download history, form history.
Opera
Temporary files, history, cookies.
Safari
Temporary files, history, cookies, form history.
Windows
Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary files and Log files.
Registry Cleaner
Advanced features to remove unused and old entries, including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more… also comes with a comprehensive backup feature.
Third-party applications
Removes temp files and recent file lists (MRUs) from many apps including Media Player, eMule, Google Toolbar, Netscape, Microsoft Office, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and many more…
100% Spyware FREE

Download

Tutorial here

This is set to run automatically nightly on my Win 7 machine - tutorial here

App-V – Virtual Internet Explorer 6 on any Windows Platform

CSS has a solution for running IE7 and IE8 on XP as well as running IE6 on Windows 7 all using Microsoft App-V Technology and NOT Med-V. However this solution is not supported by Microsoft and only is supported by CSS

You can contact them at 877-715-5448

http://www.css-security.com/contactus.html

Demo could be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3m_kGbh56c

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHQ1VLBmk1g

How to Migrate Your Winxp Profile to Win 7

If you’re running XP and skipped the Vista update and need a good way to transfer files and settings, today we take a look at using Windows Easy Transfer and an external USB drive to easily complete the task. Tutorial here

Download Windows Easy Transfer to a external USB drive.

Install on your Winxp machine

Run WET to save the data to the external usb drive.

Run the Win 7 install disk, delete and create a new partition in advanced drive options

Install drivers, updates, additional applications(try Ninite)

create user name that is same as Winxp machine

WET comes with Win 7 , Run WET and import the data from the external usb drive.

Win 7 has no outlook express, movie maker, messenger, Winmail

Live Essentials is where to find these.

This should work for Vista as well.

Enabling Auto-Logon and the Administrator Account in Vista and 7

Have you ever wanted to create an automatic logon for your Windows PC but couldn’t find the option to do so? Or, on the disruptive side, have you ever found yourself without administrative access? We have… far too many times, and have decided to produce an article that offers up a slew of different ways to take care of both tasks.

Introduction; Enabling a Windows Vista / 7 Automatic Logon

While both Windows Vista and 7 have obvious advantages over Windows XP, especially with regards to their ease-of-use, there are occasions that can arise where you may have to smack your head and wonder what went through Microsoft’s collective minds during development. In an article I wrote earlier this year entitled, “10 Things Linux Does Better than Windows”, I summed up most of my personal gripes against the OS.

Of all the items mentioned there, the one that has personally affected me in the worst way ever since Vista’s launch is the process of automatically logging into a user at boot. During the XP days, I never encountered problems with having this work, thanks in part to the useful TweakUI utility, but with both Vista and 7, the process can at times be a bit more complicated.

It’s not so much the fact that it’s harder to create an auto-logon for either Vista or 7, but the chance of experiencing a brutal side-effect seems to be far greater. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been bit by random issues related to auto-logons more than once, and on more than one PC. This includes an incident that occurred just this past weekend. Do I have bad luck? I’m not sure, but one thing I do know is that I’m not alone. If you search Google for anything related to the Administrator account or auto-logons, there will be no shortage of content.

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Top Ten Activities to Improve a New Windows 7 System

Whether you’ve just bought a new PC, upgraded to Windows 7, or reinstalled your OS, a just-installed system is a great opportunity to make some helpful changes and fixes. Here are the things we recommend anyone tackle on a minty fresh Windows.

We’ve previously rounded up the bulk of our Windows 7 advice, from first installation to fine detail tweaking, in our complete guide to Windows 7, as well as packaged our favorite little utilities and customization apps in a list of 10 booster apps. This guide, in contrast, doesn’t include many downloads, and focuses on what one can do to fix up their system from the get-go, no separate app required.

10. Change Up Your Theme

Unlike its predecessors, Windows 7 offers a lot of non-hacker-ish ways in which you can change the entire look of your desktop, not just the wallpaper. We took an early tour of Windows 7’s many free and legit themes, and noted that Microsoft checks in occasionally to provide more themes at its site. If you’d like to keep your wallpaper fresh, but don’t want to hunt down the widescreen-friendly pics yourself, set up

9. Take Advantage of the Better Printer Setups

When Vista came out, it broke a lot of printer compatibility. Now that most manufacturers have had time to update drivers (and users had time to replace old printers), we can get the most from Windows 7’s better printing tools. You can, for example, make your computer change its default printer based on network connections, which can be a real boon to laptop warriors. You can also keep your XP systems connected on your network happily, as Windows 7 and XP can share printers, as explained by the How-To Geek’s own site. (Original post: XP/7 sharing)

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