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Actually Sumatra is pretty nice. it is fast, low resource, haven't done any side by side but so far looking at a ton of PDF that I have they look the same as they did in Foxit so I assume they are rendering correctly.

So if you want to give Sumatra a spin the easiest way is to use Ninite which turns 'clicky clicky next next next" into click and run. They also have tons of nice software from CCleaner to Glary Utilities and all of it TOOLBAR FREE without having to worry about checkboxes hidden on page 5.

as for TFA good luck, with the big complicated security mess that is PDFs? They are gonna need it. Personally I don't think having everyone with the same default PDF engine would be all that smart as it gives a common denominator for the bad guys to target. But then again I still think H.264 sucks compared to flash performance on older machines so what do I know.

McGrew there is actually a REASON for patch Tuesday and that is because everyone was having a shitfit that the patches would come willy nilly! With Patch Tuesday it makes it MUCH easier to plan for updates in a corporate environment, and since Windows rules the business world by a HUGE margin you can't expect them to fuck over such a large client base just because Mcgrew wants updates quicker.

That said if you show even tiniest bit of common sense .then your risk of infection is practically zip which my customers that have been running 8 years on the same XP install and simply having me come over to do an occasional memory upgrade can attest, so whether patches come out on Tuesday or the week after tomorrow really shouldn't matter! Watch how easy it is to have a nice clean running Windows from first install..

1.-Install Wndows. 2.- Run WSUS Offline from a flash, which if you've checked the little checkbox will have all the SPs, .NET, and all the patches in one nice easy to run place. 3.- Install Comodo Dragon from the same flash, so they'll have a nice browser that uses low rights mode and sandboxing and so you won't have to worry about IE, after installing go ahead and add ABP for Chrome which kills ad based malware dead. While you are at it you can install any third party software that doesn't need constant updating, I install LibreOffice, Win 7 Codec pack (which is great as it lets you burn just about any format in WinDVD maker, which folks just love) and Media Player Classic Home Cinema 4.- Go to Ninite to install the third party software that needs to be fresh, depending on the user. I usually install Flash, Foxit PDF Reader, any messenger program they use, along with Irfanview, Picasa, Avast Free, Malwarebytes, along with CCleaner and Defraggler. For burning I carry Ashampoo on the flash as folks like its layout better than CDBurnerXP. As this finishes up I usually add WinUtilities, which automates registry cleaning and the dumping of temp files along with tossing broken shortcuts. For the finale add Filehippo Update checker which only takes up 300Kb and will let them know when there are third party updates like flash, so they aren't using an old vulnerable solution.

And that's it! Notice how nothing there is more complex than going "clicky clicky" and doesn't cost you a dime? And a machine you've followed these simple steps with will be fine for anything short of user stupidity, which NO OS can keep the stupid from doing dumb shit, like running "Iz_Not_Viruz_Porn_Codecs!" trying to see teh tittiez. But a machine done this way, while sensibly having Automatic Updates set to Automatic (duh!) will give you years of trouble free service, while having all the third party software updated without the user having to constantly check for patches and with both Comodo dragon AND Avast doing sandboxing, as well as dragon running low rights mode, means web bugs really aren't going anywhere. With just a tiny bit of preparation and common sense (don't run email attachments, if they want free porn tell them to go to myfreepaysite.com which has like 5000 DVDs of porn for free, if they insist on having P2P Gnucleus or Emule with P2P shield running in Avast, no making kids accounts admin) your Windows machine will run trouble free for years, just as my customers after I'm through only need to come to me for hardware upgrades.

Allow me to agree and disagree. yes to being a pro, and I have never EVER looked at someone's files (I go so far as to tell them if they want me to back up their files they should be aware I may see file names during the backup so please don't be asking me to back up funky files) but as far as MSE? Meh.

It is great if you already know what you are doing and aren't going to any dodgy sites, but home users? Avast free is a better choice, as it has web shield which scans pages before they load and will strip out nasty scripts like drive bys, has P2P and messenger protection, all in all I'd say it is a better AV and with both being 100% free (I'd never give a customer trialware crap) why not use the better solution?

As far as NTBackup? If you want built in Windows 7 imaging backup is fine, personally I prefer to give my customers the free Paragon backup and recovery. Its solid, its free, it is reliable, it gives you a live CD option if the machine ever gets borked beyond booting, and if the customer has a USB HDD I'm happy to set it up to backup to it so they don't have to worry about HDD failures.

I used to have this argument with my former boss all the time. he was one of those "give them just enough rope" types, that wouldn't patch it, no AV, just clean it, so they'd get boned later and have to pay him again, whereas I believe I've done my job if the ONLY reason they have to come to me is they want to upgrade the hardware. I give them either Dragon or Firefox for a browser, put in ABP so they don't get ads (which are a big source of infection) give them a full AV, I even ask if they'd like the "full package" at no extra charge and if they say yes they get the latest Flash, Klite codec so they can play any format, and Libre Office so they can edit word docs, and a PDF reader (Foxit) along with a PDF printer so they can easily save files offline without printing. Thanks to Ninite it takes no real time from me and gives them a nicer PC

Between that and Comodo time machine which lets them just push F11 if they ever screw up the boot to restore from there, otherwise they can restore straight from Windows, makes it pretty damned hard to screw up a machine that I fixed. Sure I don't see these people again hardly ever, but I get enough referrals from their friends and family they send by to make the extra effort worth it. I'm quite proud to say many of my builds from a decade ago are still going, they just get passed down through the family as they age. Like I tell my new build customers "My machines won't be as cheap as a Dell, but you know what? MY machine will keep going past the warranty period." Just take pride in your work, treat folks right, and you'll get a good rep and with that comes the work.

Question: Why is it taking 3+ hours to do a simple wipe and reinstall? You just wipe the machine, put in a pre built OS install CD/DVD with all the patches already done, put in the key on first boot, install the apps from the local server or via flash drive, done. Maybe an hour and a half tops.

Using a combination of WSUS Offline (which you can tell to include MS Office updates along with MS Essentials AV) and Ninite I can whip off a dozen boxes or more a day easy and spend less time per box than I do trying to figure where I sat my Coke down. Just a little preparation goes a long way friend.

As for TFA, welcome to the game Android users! Anything that becomes popular WILL become a target for malware as long as they can use social engineering, because it is just so damned easy to do as in TFA. I mean 50k infections and they didn't even have to write the app, just attach their malware to an existing app and upload? How easy can you get!

So welcome to the game Android users, where you have to watch out and worry about malware just like us Windows users. The donuts are over in the back, right next to the Apple users who are currently sulking after finding out shiny plastic and aluminum doesn't stop bugs. Look on the bright side, it just means you're popular now! Hell the Linux guys would kill to be that popular on the desktop! So enjoy the coffee it's fresh, meetings are on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Um, you leave us Apple users out of this. This was ANDROID. A-N-D-R-O-I-D, not APPLE, A-P-P-L-E.

Oh, and note that, just like that OTHER malware-infested platform (Windows), the ONLY way forward seems to be either to throw perfectly good hardware away (think of the planet!); OR to "Wipe and Reload" (It so SIMPLE! It's Easy! It's FUN!).

And, just like with Windows, the Androids will be out in force, blaming the USERS for taking advantage of the ONLY "advantage" to Android: The ability to download any dodgy app you want.

But notice, the apps weren't on some dark, dank dark alley of the internet; they were on GOOGLE's OWN APP STORE! The MOTHERSHIP.

No, this is more like we'll be seeing Google announcing their new "Curated" App Store in 3... 2... 1...

Question: Why is it taking 3+ hours to do a simple wipe and reinstall? You just wipe the machine, put in a pre built OS install CD/DVD with all the patches already done, put in the key on first boot, install the apps from the local server or via flash drive, done. Maybe an hour and a half tops.

Using a combination of WSUS Offline (which you can tell to include MS Office updates along with MS Essentials AV) and Ninite I can whip off a dozen boxes or more a day easy and spend less time per box than I do trying to figure where I sat my Coke down. Just a little preparation goes a long way friend.

As for TFA, welcome to the game Android users! Anything that becomes popular WILL become a target for malware as long as they can use social engineering, because it is just so damned easy to do as in TFA. I mean 50k infections and they didn't even have to write the app, just attach their malware to an existing app and upload? How easy can you get!

So welcome to the game Android users, where you have to watch out and worry about malware just like us Windows users. The donuts are over in the back, right next to the Apple users who are currently sulking after finding out shiny plastic and aluminum doesn't stop bugs. Look on the bright side, it just means you're popular now! Hell the Linux guys would kill to be that popular on the desktop! So enjoy the coffee it's fresh, meetings are on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Or you could just get Comodo AV or Internet Security which is free for BOTH business and personal use and which uses a default deny policy along with default sandboxing of ALL apps helps keep the crap from ever getting in and doing damage in the first place.

I have some customers that are SERIOUSLY click happy, we are talking some serious PEBKAC here, ones that would pick up more viruses than a Bangkok Whore. Since switching them to Comodo AV they've been clean as a whistle and everything "just works".

Now if you are setting up a new PC I'd suggest a quick trip to Ninite first just to get the basics installed, and if you are wanting to install any bloated drivers like Realtek or seriously funky ones like DaemonTools SPTD drivers I'd go ahead and do those first, as Comodo naturally doesn't like the way certain drivers like Realtek splatter files all over the place and you'll have to click through multiple warnings otherwise.

But once you have a machine set up you can just drop in Comodo AV or Comodo IS and it "just works" with no hassle. And if you want the PC to be pretty much break proof short of hardware failure just add Comodo Time Machine which makes daily snapshots and gives the user an easy way to restore even if they manage to somehow bork booting (for those users that can kill a Sherman tank with a toothbrush) and with CTM getting it back up is as easy as push F11> choose snapshot to restore > let it reboot and you're back up and running.

So I'd say its not real hard to keep most bugs off the machine, just use software that by default deny policies and sandboxes everything. Sadly NO AV is 100% perfect, especially if they use the right bait, as I have sat there in shock and watched as a user refused to listen to me OR the AV and shut it down so that he could "see free blockbuster movies with this super(tm)codec!" Sometimes even the best tools and advice just can't stop the stupid.

Then all they would have to do is pop up a screen that says "Hi! We're afraid the video isn't working because you are lacking a common codec. If you are on Linux please go to your distro's forum to find out where to enable the universe repository for your distro and download the codec, if you are on Windows please click this link to go to Ninite and check the box that says "Klite Codec Pack" which will give you all the common DirectShow codecs required to play any content on Windows. Thanks"

See how easy that was? If they didn't want to link to a codec pack (which frankly would be the easiest and IMHO best solution, as it allows the users to play all the major formats both offline and on, and with Ninite they don't even have to "clicky clicky" just pick install and it is all unattended) they could provide a link to VLC which plays everything under the sun OOTB and then just call VLC.

No this is just BAD ATTITUDE on the part of the FF developers, which they have been showing for quite some time. Look at how they first tried to claim there weren't major memory leaks in the 2.xxx branch, or how it had to be the user's fault because they MUST have installed a dodgy extension. Now they show the same BAD ATTITUDE when it comes to codecs and adding support for low rights mode (which both IE and the Webkit based have had for some time). Hell last I checked their forums their attitude was "don't care since low rights isn't in Linux". Well duh, Linux is a completely different arch A, it is less than 4% compared to nearly 45% for Vista/7 B, and C if Webkit which works on all arches can support it easily so should they.

Frankly the quality of Firefox IMHO has been going seriously downhill of late, and their bad attitude doesn't help things. The last two releases have been slow as ass on the 1.8GHz Sempron I use as a Nettop and as a baseline tests for apps (since it is roughly on par with your average Netbook) and the last 2 builds of FF have been sucking up 500MB+ of RAM with 4 or 5 tabs open for any length of time, and when launching a new tab will spike the living hell out of the CPU, punching it to 100% and leaving it there for as long as 15 seconds at a time. The new Chromium doesn't do this even using the same extensions (ABP and ForecastFox) so something is up.

So they really need to lose the attitude, make it easy on users with regards to codecs, and start worrying more about their code and less about funky formats like WebM which don't have a snowball's chance in hell. Because more and more folks I see coming into the shop are running Chrome or some other Chromium based, and even I whom have been a diehard FF supporter has started including Chromium based browser on my builds. FF has just become a mess of late and their bad attitude isn't helping things, this codec mess is just another in a long line of bad attitude moves by FF. Not simply using what is installed on the system (which is better optimized than any generic browser plugin) is just stupid IMHO, and a waste of resources by a browser that frankly wastes resources too much already.

Then you can go here http://ninite.com/ to batch install the useful stuff you do want.

And the funny part is the pirates did better at stripping down their own OS than MSFT did. Look up "Tiny XP Rev 09" for a nice uber light version of XP that takes just 45MB on the desktop and runs a good 80%+ of Windows apps, or even thinner is "MicroXP Rev 03" which uses less than 32MB. If you have an older P4 you want to try Win 7 on for shits and giggles download "Tiny7" and be amazed at a Windows 7 that just uses 145MB of RAM! They also have a "Tiny Vista" but of course it really isn't very popular. If you have valid WinXP or Windows 7 licenses you can use them instead of the included key and have a nice stripped down desktop that is just CRAZY fast. I recently installed the "Tiny XP" for a customer that needed XP uber light for a low powered laser cutter C&C. I used his provided legal key and now he has a 1GHz with 256Mb of RAM that barely sips power and runs his laser cutter like a champ.

As for TFA, is anyone surprised? Like XP Windows 7 is just a good OS, and I have yet to have anyone switched that didn't take to 7 like a duck to water. Hell my dad is about as clueless as they come when it comes to tech, he still can't figure out how to work more than half of his cell phone, but he has gotten more use out of his PC and laptop since I got him the family pack of HP in Oct than he did in nearly a decade of XP. What amazed me was being the impatient sort when I told him after dropping off the family pack at his work that it would be the weekend before I could install it he took it upon himself to install. I figured when I heard that and finally got a chance to come over the PC would be a big mess and cause me to start over but nope, it has done all the work and set it up for him, even pointing him to a free AV on first boot. All I had to do was show him how to get to Ninite to install his Firefox and MS Messenger and that was it. When he got a little headset mike to talk to his friends on chat it even asked him "You have a headset plugged in, would you like to learn about and use speech recognition?" so he is trying that out as we speak. A nice touch to a nice OS.

Well I'm happy to help. Dealing with quite a few senior customers I found there really isn't any way to break them of their trusting nature, I guess because they grew up in a time when there weren't so many douchebags. But I would like to point out there are a couple of things you'll have to do, although I doubt it will affect any clueless family members.

1.-Comodo Time Machine does not like dual boots with Win 7. Linux, win9x, win2k, not a problem. But if you install windows 7 to anywhere but the C: drive it changes itself to C: on startup, for example I am running Windows 7 and even though I installed on my D: it currently says it is on C: and my XP which is on C: is on E:. it does this because win 7 file and registry virtualization requires the C: drive letter but as a side effect it freaks Time Machine out. it won't hurt anything, it just won't run.

2.-after first install and scan it will take Comodo Av or Comodo Internet Security (on XP I prefer CIS, and on Vista/7 I prefer Comodo AV, as the firewall in XP doesn't block outbound like Comodo AV and Vista/7 does) about a week to learn their usage habits. By that I mean it will ask them "Did you mean to launch this?" for the first week until it learns their apps. If you know which apps they use most often you can launch them yourself, otherwise they will have to click yes when they first launch an app. Once it has learned their patterns it is pretty unobtrusive and doesn't require an email address or constantly hit the with pop ups wanting to upsell them either. It also has a well designed control system so if someone knowledgeable such as yourself wants you can customize everything to your tastes or the desired security level, for example setting a rule that all browsers MUST run in the sandbox. It also has an excellent whitelist so once the PC is declared clean essential windows services won't cause a permission pop up.

But if you have clueless relatives or those you have to support that live a good distance the Comodo one two punch along with Ninite and Filehippo Update Checker really are a Godsend. Ninite gives you a simple way to give them the latest of the most popular apps and codecs, so if say they call and say "It says I need Flash" you can send them to Ninite and tell them after running it if it still asks for Flash it is a virus. With Ninite it is easy as "check box, run installer" since it does a full web based unattended with NO TOOLBARS or other crap. And with Filehippo it will put a little icon that uses just a few dozen KB of RAM in the tray and will alert them if a third part app is out of date, because as we know third party apps like Adobe Reader when out of date (which I just give them Foxit from the Ninite site) are one of the biggest sources of malware drive bys.

But with these plus those two Comodo apps I linked to earlier you can take the hassle and guesswork out of admin duties for family PCs. Comodo AV keeps them clean, Time Machine gives you a way to restore easily by phone even if they manage to BSOD the box, Ninite gives you an easy secure way to get them the latest apps, and Filehippo lets them keep them updated so YOU don't have to. Believe me with nearly 2 decades supporting home and small business users there really is no easier way to keep a Windows box up and running smooth.

But there are a couple of BIG differences between IE and the others that mean they should always looked at with more suspicion and scorn, and I'm a Windows guy. 1.-Refusing to backport IE 9 to XP means you are gonna have hundreds of millions of IE installs running on old versions, 2.- Thanks to their idiotic "Hey lets all run as admin!" design of XP when combined with IE just increases the risk of nasty, and 3.- the webkit based browsers, such as Chrome, Dragon, Safari, SWIron, etc at least attempt to sandbox the browser, whereas MSFT to kill off competition buried IE deeply into the system making IE the more dangerous choice.

Finally since you read TFA you would see that while the others kept working with the writer MSFT closed the ticket and cut off communication right up to when he said he would release even though the writer was able to replicate the bugs with the July tool and so was MSFT. Then when he was ready to release did they begin talking about "PR nightmare" instead of actually seeming concerned with the security of their browser. Lets be honest folks, IE was nothing but a tool to kill Netscape and once it had accomplished its goal it was left to rot. You had millions infected thanks to their lax treatment of security via IE 6, and they are just now trying to get to where everyone else was a year ago. Considering your browser is the closest your OS gets to being "bare metal" with the wild and woolly Internet trusting your machine to a browser that is only updated on patch Tuesday unless something completely embarrassing hits is more than a little nuts.

One of the nice things we have today is plenty of free choices is that department and thanks to the scourge of "This site requires IE" being all but a distant memory getting folks away from IE has never been easier. Just send them to Ninite and tell them which box to check. It is really just that easy. But trusting the weakest part of your security to a browser that always seems to be a day late, a dollar short, and has the biggest bullseye painted on it? There is a good reason to always assume the worst when it comes to IE, it is because that has been time and time again what you got.

Sure you can, just get it from Ninite and off you go. Of course if you are running a pirated version of Windows it won't work even without WGA, since it will call home on first run, which is when I guess it'll go ahead and check your key. You ARE running a legal copy and not just being a filthy pirate, yes MR AC? Anyway I've checked and no WGA on my XP machine, so if it is a principle thing no worries.

As for TFA, allow me to throw a couple of extra letters and say BS. I just run the update check on BOTH WinXP and Windows 7 X64 and both find new updates to the scanning defs but do NOT update to 2.0. So I'll wait until tomorrow and if it still doesn't update I guess I'll have to do the old fashioned uninstall and reinstall bit.

Personally I like it for myself, as I know I'm just going to places like /. and checking my email. Whereas with my waaaay too click happy customers who may or may not be searching for the pron I prefer Comodo Internet Security, which while being a little more talkative during the learning phase has an excellent sandbox with file and registry virtualization. If you have those kinds of people that can pick up more viruses than a Bangkok Whore I heartily recommend Comodo. It actually uses less RAM than MSE, especially during scanning, which you would think since MSE does less than Comodo would be the opposite. Oh well, I have gobs of RAM and like the fact that MSE never asks me shit, especially when I'm typing, which is when Comodo seems to think is a good time for a nice chat.

Then you are doing it wrong I'm afraid. Use the combo of XP ISO Builder and RyanVM and you are looking at maaaybe 20-30 minutes, and that is if you want the full customized unattended install with everything from the desktop to services preconfigured.

For XP X64, Vista, and Windows 7 I've found having WSUS Offline makes it trivial to bring a machine from fresh install to fully patched. It will even integrate service packs if you so choose, but I prefer to simply have a disc with the latest service pack slipstreamed so WSUS Offline can fit all the X86 on a single DVD and all the x64 on a second single DVD. That way I just require 2 DVD to update ANY Windows OS from Win2K- Windows 7 X64. Just burn a new Driverpack disc every couple of months and that will cover a good 90% of the hardware out there, more if you go to the forums and pick up the third party packs like TV cards and funky drivers for things like Bluetooth.

Finally for software your old friend Ninte has that covered, with more than 90 of the most common apps in x86 and x64 with NO toolbars or other crap to worry about, and you can even suggest your favorite apps and they will check them out and often add them. I personally like Klite Codec pack because of its hardware acceleration, so I suggested it and voila! There it is. And the apps are constantly being updated to the latest version, all unattended and ready to go. Finish it off with Filehippo Update Checker so the user doesn't have to worry about keeping up when the latest version of an app has been released. And all is gravy. Time? Maybe an hour and a half on a slower P4, less than an hour on most modern systems.

So now instead of all the BS I simply run WSUS offline once a month after Patch Tuesday, burn the two DVDs (x86 and x64) it automatically produces for me which also has all the Office patches included, and check driverpacks Base app once every month or so to make sure I have the latest X86 and X64 drivers. my actual time for doing so is maybe 5 minutes, since I can simply launch the apps and let them do the work. So if it is really taking you a half a day then you are simply taking the long way about it. So please enjoy these free tools and not have to deal with the long wait again!

Well there are a couple of other choices, at least if you are on Windows. One you can use a third party tool like CCleaner (which I prefer this link as it is a fully automated install that doesn't ask to install Chrome and will install CCleaner to the right click of the recycle bin) that has a nice little checkbox for cleaning out Flash crap, or Two if you don't mind spending some money for some cool extras you can pick up SuperSpeed RAMDisk and set your temp folders to a RAMDisk which will be wiped on reboot. This also gives you the advantage of having much faster RAM for temp and if you have more than 4GB on Windows x86 it will even let you use the RAM above the 4GB limit for a RAMDisk. Nice for those of us that dual boot with Windows XP for older apps.

So while I agree that the evercookie asshattery needs to DIAF, it isn't like there aren't easy ways around it.

Windows doesn't bring in all that much money. Most people simply don't buy it retail. The real money is in the "software assurance" program, and in Office. Get rid of those, and Microsoft is a perennial money loser.

And linux has been used as a threat to dump the software assurance program, which most businesses don't need, since they can now get by with doing a cheap hardware refresh instead with the money they save. Desktops no longer cost $2k apiece.

The only reason anyone would buy a Windows site license is not for software assurance, it's because the OEM license has a clause which says "if you are the end user rather than the OEM, you're not allowed to use this as the basis for an image you roll out to your desktop PCs." - there's no such clause on the site license. Having said that, things like DeCrapifier and Ninite make most of the things you'd have to do to have an image unnecessary.

There is actually an EASY way to get around this, as well as for apps like CCleaner that try to add crap. Just go to Ninite and check what you want installed. They have over 90 of the most common apps and you can even suggest more to add at the bottom of the page. They have made it a total unattended install with NO TOOLBARS on ANY app they have there, be it Foxit, CCleaner, Java, etc. It also makes setting up a new PC with all the basics as simple as "check box, run installer, done" so enjoy!

That is why I have been saying for ages the most common software like Flash, along with updates to drivers like NV and ATI, should come through Windows Update. But sadly every Joe Schmo company that didn't get included would scream "antitrust!". What I've found to work in the meantime with clueless users is simply tell them "If a site says you need to update Flash or Java or whatever, go here, put checkboxes on what you need, then run it". Ninite has all the most common like Flash, Silverlight, .NET, Java, as well as browsers, media players, KLite Codec pack for those that get the "you need codecs to play" problem, pretty much anything they need.

I tell them if the site still demands they install something after running Ninite it is a virus and should be ignored and avoided. It does help to cut down on the clueless ones whose machines I don't have direct access to. For those I DO have access to I have Update Checker installed and running in the background so they KNOW if Filehippo don't tell them there is an update there is NO update. Everyone makes fun of the "stupid" users, but really nobody can know everything and some of these sites are damned hard to tell from real. Giving the clueless a few tools such as this really helps cut down the infections, although I think windows Update doing it would be even better.

Well here is a nice tool that you may like..WSUS Offline Update. Don't let the name fool ya, you do NOT need a WSUS server to enjoy this puppy. It makes Autopatcher look lame by comparison. It lets you download ALL the Windows Updates for ALL the current OSes, both x86 and x64, PLUS all the Office updates, PLUS the Service Packs PLUS MSE definitions, hell if you get it this month it'll even give you the full Win2K updates for those that have old machine they want to add the final updates for.

And the best part is after it is done you can have it either burn a DVD with ALL the x86 updates, along with another for x64, or have it burn separate discs for each OS version, OR have it load itself onto a thumbstick. Basically it is like having a full WSUS server in your pocket. Great for fixing PCs. Just clean, update, and use Ninite to automate the install of the common apps like Firefox, Chrome, Flash, Java, etc. Ninite also has MSE ready to go along with Malwarebytes. All automated, just pick the apps and go. easy peasy!

As for TFA anything that will cut down on infected PCs I'm all for it. I may make my living fixing and selling them, but my Internet gets slowed down by bots and I have to deal with spam like everyone else. If this helps insure that so many boxes aren't sitting there with a horribly out of date POS Norton Trial-ware sucking space than I say great! Frankly it is the AV companies own fault if they lose share, the past few years they have all seemed to jump on the "kitchen sink" approach with a ton of apps most never need, and the bloat is just insane. MSE is fast, it doesn't suck up the RAM and bog out the machine even with the older P4s, I have NO problems with it.

It's not package management, but Ninite makes installing free software much more convenient.

Hi! I just read your article, good read and follows many of the best practices I try to drum home to customers. As for CP? It is child pornography. I am friends with a buddy that runs a task force at the state crime lab. He keeps trying to recruit me because I'm good at rooting out data....but HELL NO! There ain't enough brain bleach in the world to get that crap out of your head! Like I told him "there is no way in hell I could sit calmly in that box while staring at the scum who I know for a fact was messing with his kid because I saw the pictures". No way. But he says they are already beginning to see when they trace down a source of CP instead of the source or a lead to it some poor Joe that got infected by a bug and now has a backdoor CP server running on his box via bot. Nasty.

And sure, I'd believe some playing with them for fun, just to see how they work. For years I ran a honeypot just to see what nasties the old thing would pick up and to learn which tools did the best on cleaning it. I just meant that other than a few that are assholes (which there is ALWAYS at least one asshole in ANY job, ever notice?) that most guys are honest Joes. The PHBs on the other hand can be real jerks. The "more infections is good" attitude is seen too much at places like Worst Buy, which when I worked a shop near a Worst Buy we spent half our time cleaning up their messes. NO patches, autoupdates turned OFF, just real shitty work. Now they charge for applying iPhone updates and for "optimization" which is just removing the crapware with a script! Nice guys that bunch.

As for doing it right? I'm an old southerner and was raised to take pride in my work and to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. I'm never gonna make the money a worst buy does but then again I'm not trying to push granny into a quad core either. I'd rather sleep well and know my machines will be purring like a kitten than be a douche. You're right that some customers never learn. I got a good example "Mr Brown" who is a hell of a nice guy, but know just enough to be dangerous. I'm sure you've met the type. He'll be bringing his PC over tomorrow because he decided to "clean the programs and registry for a speed boost" and borked the sound. Sigh, and of course Mr. Brown didn't bother making a restore point beforehand. But on the flip side I met a sweet gal online when I helped her through getting her pictures back after a nasty bug. We have been together for nearly 2 years now and we switch off spending weekends at each others places. This weekend she is taking time off to spend the whole week. So being a nice guy DOES pay off now and then ;-)

And I agree on the tools, including LiveCDs and Process Explorer, although I personally prefer Comodo over AVG as it uses less resources. Another good one if you can find a download on the net is "the computer repair toolkit V2" which a bunch of FOSSies had a fit because they were actually sharing FOSS tools instead of forcing them to go to a dozen different websites (WTF?) but it is easy to update it to the latest and is a hell of a tool to have. Just drop it on a $5 4Gb flash stick and you have the tools to fix most of the major "uh ohs" like TCP/IP stack problems as well as the usual bug removal. Has all the tools for checking networks as well as being easy to add your own stuff to. Give it a try as it is a great Swiss Army Knife to carry around on your keychain. I also use Spywarebalster to automate updating the HOSTS file, as I've found that is easier to teach folks than how to manually update HOSTS or go get a new one when new nasties come out. Like I said the only bitch is I can't find a way to automate third party programs. I've found Ninite works great on initial installs, but you really have to do updates yourself. Maybe after Xmas I'll buy a subscription to Ninite and see about setting up a local server using a Ninite front end where I can just point the customers towards it and use Task Scheduler to check every week

Well I would say whether you are building this machine as an "ePeen" or not. By that I mean I have a couple of customers who spend frankly insane money just so they can brag they get some huge number on benchmarks. Now if you aren't building for an ePeen, I'd say go AMD as the lower price will allow you to put nicer gear in the rig. For example my PC is an AMD Phenom II Quad 925, with 8Gb of DDR2 800, 2 500Gb HDDs, a nice case with 500w PSU, and finally an HD 4650 (I'm not much of a gamer, so the 4650 is all I need, although it plays Wolfenstein and Bioshock II like a champ) and Windows 7 HP x64, all for $650 before MIR and around $570 after.

If you don't want to wait you can buy AMD now and thanks to socket compatibility drop in a bigger CPU later. That's what I did, buying a cheap dual core kit and upgrading to the quad with some of my Xmas bonus. You can see they have real cheap quad kits and you can even get a 6 core kit for under $600. All you have to do is pick your favorite OS and whichever video card you like (I'm partial to ATI after the bumpgate fiasco, never had a bit of trouble from Gigabyte Radeon cards) and you are good to go. Most games now are just starting to hit dual cores, so a quad will last you quite awhile and a 6 core will be pretty future proof.

So if you are just getting back into the game personally I'd go AMD. There is nothing wrong with the Intel but when you figure in the higher prices plus them getting caught paying off OEMs...well I believe in competition and a REAL free market. But of course your main reason will be performance and my AMD quad purrs like a kitten, with an idle of less than 96f and the hottest it ever got was 135f after hours of transcoding, and that is on a stock HSF. But I really torture my machines, audio and video recording and transcoding, audio and video editing, and my AMD takes everything I throw at it and then some. I can also tell you as a system builder I've not had a bit of trouble from any of my AMD builds, even those I have built for extreme conditions like construction trailers. They take a licking and keep on ticking. Let me know how it goes!

Oh, a word of advice...Once your build is done use Autopatcher and Ninite. Just use Autopatcher to have the updates for whichever Windows you choose already downloaded and ready to go, and then use Ninite to get all the basics like Firefox, K-Lite Codec Pack (great for hardware acceleration) and Open Office. Using those two together will save you several hours on a build. Enjoy!

Well let the old Hairyfeet add some helpful wisdom to those out here that have clueless relatives. Tell them to uninstall Adobe, then send them to Ninite and tell them which boxes to check. Ninite has fully automated installers for all the popular apps, including FF and Chrome, Songbird and Winamp, and of course Foxit and Sumatra PDF reader. Oh and ZERO toolbars from those companies that give you crap like Oracle Java.

So trust your old pal Hairyfeet. You got clueless user/relatives, maybe that live many miles away? One phone call and Ninite can make a lot of those problems go away. Hell getting folks away from Adobe and IE seems to have cut down repeat infections by a good 80%. Thanks Ninite!

Actually I have found that Windows ALREADY HAS something similar, you just have to tell folks to go there...its called Ninite. As a PC repairman I've found a good 80-90% of the "I can't open X" "I want to (insert task)" can simply be taken care of by pointing them to Ninite. And yes you can have proprietary as well as FOSS, as Ninite has MS Office 2k7 trial alongside OO.o. It would be trivial for MSFT to create something similar, as I'm sure many software houses would loooove to have their software offered alongside MSFT's in a Windows Update style "app store".

The REAL problem would be MSFT getting buried alive in lawsuits. Look at all that BS in the EU over the browser, when it is so fucking trivial to change a browser nowadays it ain't even funny. Can you imagine the lawsuits from every company whose crapware wasn't included? You'd have Real having a fit their bloatware wasn't included, or Apple having a fit the first link under media players wasn't iTunes, it would be a fricking mess. Hell I was amazed they were even allowed to put Windows Defender in, I figured the anti-spyware companies would have a shitfit.

So lets be honest folks, the kind of real changes it would take to really kill this kind of threat, like making it really hard to install apps not signed by MSFT or having a default repo, would end up with MSFT being sued for the next 20 years and tied up in court forever. I don't see why so many guys here have a shitfit about MSFT anyway, it is pretty obvious the next wave will be the phone and ultramobile space, and it is pretty damned obvious by now MSFT sucks at mobile and have a snowballs chance in hell of getting that monopoly. Nope the funny part is everyone will just replace Darth Gates with Darth Jobs, All Hail Steve! Sadly talking to folks I've found this video to practically be a documentary.

Foxit actively sandboxes and refuses to run ALL code embedded in a PDF unless you actively turn off safe reading, and they have been doing this for quite awhile now, since that last bug you mentioned.

And for anybody dealing with clueless users that want a butt simple way to install Foxit or several other free PDF readers like Sumatra, or need a butt simple way to install most of the basics like chrome, Firefox, or Flash, I'd suggest Ninite which has fully automated installers for over 90 programs. simply tell them which boxes to check and then run the installer. That's it. No toolbars, no "clickly clicky next next next", it just installs the software and leaves a shortcut on the desktop. Sweet and simple.

You've obviously never worked tech support. Trying to walk a totally clueless user by phone through installing software can be a fricking nightmare! So yeah, while we can see in hindsight it was a bad idea, at least on CDs I could see why they did it. BTW for those that have to deal with clueless users by phone? Let you old pal Hairyfeet hook up up with Ninite which is a fricking Godsend. More than 90 of the most common apps, including Chrome, Firefox, Flash, Java, .NET, even free AV, and all you have to do is tell them which boxes to check and then run. That's it! Oh and for those working corp they have a pay version that sets those and any other apps you want on an on site server to save bandwidth.

And for those that still have XP boxes on their networks (which I would be switching to Windows 7 right about now, its better on security and really stable) allow me to give you the reg fix for disabling autorun. Ironically you can point an autorun.inf on a flash at it and use it to disable autorun on any PC it is plugged in to. But ultimately I'd say the problem with Windows, or any other OS for that matter, is still PEBKAC by far. Just look at how many clueless users would pick up a flash drive out of the parking lot and plug it into a PC in the office? Hell I still get one or two a week that fall for that fake Windows dialog box on websites. To quote the Gump "Stupid is as stupid does" and anyone that hasn't killed autorun at this point is nuts.

Yep, I MUST be a horrible troll for daring to point out the LAST thing Ubuntu needs is more bling bling bullshit, instead of saying "Gee, isn't Linux perfect and problem free? Well Biff it sure is, and Ubuntu is the bestest ever!". Yeah, I'm sure things will improve greatly if everyone pretends REAL hard. Hey, you want the specs for dad's PC? Because I'll be happy to give them to you. I know them by heart since pretty much everything but the CPU and RAM amount is a twinkie to mine so I could test new software on mine before letting it loose on his. The specs are thus....ECS Business Class motherboard with 4Gb of RAM and an HD3200 onboard, a Phenom 9650 quad I believe (that and the amount of RAM are the only differences between his and mine, I went for the Phenom II 965 quad and 8Gb) Realtek sound and networking, and a 500Gb HDD.

So I'm sorry, you can spread your FUD all you want, or stick your head in the sand and pretend Windows is still like Win98, but that simply ain't reality anymore. My dad didn't need a SINGLE DRIVER, those that Windows 7 HP didn't have it got from windows Update at first boot, He had to answer a grand total of THREE questions, and those were simple "personalize your software" type of questions, and as I said at first boot it pointed out he didn't have an AV and brought up a page with several free and pay AVs. So if you aren't trying to troll I suggest you try Windows 7. It has to be the easiest Windows I've ever had to deal with, built in disc imaging, hell everything on that OS is designed for ease of use. Webcams, even a USB TV Tuner, Windows just pops up a "hey, would you like me to get a driver for you?" and takes care of things. It even popped up a "You have plugged in a headset mike. Would you like to learn about the built in voice recognition?" and walked dad through teaching Windows 7 to respond to his voice.

So show me where you can take a random collection of NEW hardware, not some circa 1999 dumpster junk, hand a disc to a completely clueless user, and have them set it up with NO help, then I'll believe you, but until then I want to see with my own eyes just like I did with dad and Windows 7. The ONLY thing I had to do when I got there on Saturday was set up his Firefox and ABP,l since he didn't know where to go to get it (for those with clueless users I suggest Ninite with totally automated installers for most of the popular apps. Just tell them which boxes to check and run it) but everything else was done. NO yellow exclamations in device manager, NO viruses (dad followed the first run pop up and installed MSFT Security essentials) just a perfectly running PC.

As I said I hoped that Canonical would do for Linux what Jobs did for NeXT or what Ballmer has with windows 7, but it seems like it is the same old headaches, just with some new bling bling on top. It certainly isn't any easier for a new user to set up by themselves than Debian or any other Distro. I had real hopes, which is why I set up no less than 4 boxes, all with different hardware, to run Ubuntu from 6-9.04. I really believed the "Linux for humans" bull and as a retailer I hoped that Shuttleworth would open a "third way" and do for Linux what Jobs did for NeXT. Instead what we got was a whole lot of bling bling, an OS that even the OEMs can't update from the Canonical repos because of lousy QA, in short I think we all got...well not really anything.

Linux has been out there for 15 years now, and on the desktop it is still lower than the margin for error. You can lie to yourself and say it is a MSFT conspiracy, or that OEMs prefer paying Redmond, but any normal company would ask "What are we doing wrong? Why aren't we gaining numbers?" and do what they had to to address those issues. Instead you get labeled a troll for saying anything other than "Gee isn't Linux swell?" and nerds telling you with a straight face that users should be forced to "embrace the power of CLI" like it is the fucking force or something. Give me a damned break.

Well if Sumatra doesn't do it for you I give my customers Foxit which has safe mode built in which halts executable code in PDFs by default, which is of course how they hit you with malware in the first place. Why Adobe decided executable code was just gravy for a document format, I'll never know. But that link will install any of the programs on their page with no toolbars, including Sumatra or Foxit, all automated. Great for setting up a PC for the first time. After version 6 Adobe became just too bloated for me to recommend to customers, but I've not gotten any complaints with Foxit.

Actually I've found you can keep an older MSFT OS purring like a kitten, it is just like everything else you need third party tools to do so. I use a combination of CCleaner and Revo Uninstaller along with Winutilities Pro to keep my older machines squeaky clean and running fast. CCleaner to get rid of old Hotfix Uninstallers and clean the temp crap, Revo because it is aggressive about removing the crap most third party installs leave behind, and finally Winutilities Pro for its excellent registry and disk defrag, along with several other useful tools with easy to use built in scheduler.

Using these free third party tools I've been able to keep my circa 2004 XP machine running like the day it was bought. No slowdowns, no cruft, just a good clean running XP. With MSFT having to worry about antitrust you really need third party tools to keep older versions running at peak, although I've found they've gotten a lot better with Windows 7 in that regard.

Example please? Because with mine (Windows 7 HP x64) I had a grand total of TWO downloads to have everything as pretty as you please (and one wasn't really necessary as Windows 7 had a driver for my tuner, I simply wanted the latest) and everything purring like a kitten. I simply went to Ninite and had it auto install the latest Klite Codec Pack (Along with FF, Irfanview, .NET, Foxit, Flash, Silverlight, ImgBurn, great site for new builds) which gave me support for all the funkier formats, installed the latest for my USB Tuner, and Voila! Everything "just worked".Now I can't tell you about HD-PVR, since my cable is analog, but it is certainly less of a PITA than Myth to setup by a LOOONG shot!

Considering my 67 year old dad, whose is about as PC clueless as they come, was able to set up his own WMC because he decided he didn't want to wait until the weekend when I was free, I'm really gonna have to ask for citation please. Does ANYONE here think my dad could have done the same with MythUbuntu or any other Myth based and had a snowball's chance in hell of having a working system? With WMC it is beyond simple for him to set up recording, schedule shows, pause live TV, watch Internet TV like Netflix or CBS.com, I honestly don't know of any way they could make it more simple.

So while there are things I would criticize MSFT over (don't like the new system restore layout, you need to make shortcuts to keep from scrolling sub layers to get to common networking tasks) I'd say WMC isn't one of them. It is easy to use, automatically downloads DVD covers for your vids, is plug and play with most current TV Tuners, and like I said if it passes the "dad test" then you know it is easy and intuitive. And it is certainly head and shoulders easier to set up and the client/server model Myth uses and a hell of a lot less of a PITA, at least with my hardware.

Glad to help, as I tell my customers I do my damnedest to make it so they won't need me except for new hardware upgrades or new PCs. If it is a new install might I suggest another couple of additions to make your life easier? I'd add Winutilities Pro Free which thanks to that link is not only free but comes with free updates, and allows you to easily automate HDD and reg defrags, reg cleaning, shortcut cleaning, basically gets rid of the cruft that builds up in Windows over time. And I would go to Ninite on first boot, which gives you a web based unattended installation of most of the popular apps, like Flash, FF, and .NET, along with media players like iTunes and IMs. Really cuts down on the time it takes to get a desktop up and running.

So there you have it. You use the above links with the earlier Comodo links I gave, and you'll have your desktop up and running in no time at all.

I honestly think it is Shuttleworth and his totally insane 6 month release schedule. How in the fuck are you supposed to do even minimal QA in that little amount of time? I got so damned tired of being told "It'll get better in the next release" only to have two things fixed and three things broken! It got to the point I looked at the update notification as a "break Linux NOW" button. How can I sell an OS to customers that I myself am afraid to update?

And I hear your pain drinkypoo, God I spent more time after Drapper just trawling forums hoping to God somebody somewhere knew how to get whatever broke working it wasn't even funny anymore! Graphics, wireless, sound, networking, you name it broke at least twice, usually more, and in wonderful combos like no wireless AND no Ethernet! And it wasn't like I was using some uber strange hardware here, we are talking bog standard ATI and Nvidia GPUs, Realtek sound, and either Realtek or SiS Ethernet. If it can't work on the bog standard gear that a good 90%+ of desktops have onboard, what chance do we have?

Definitely get Windows 7 drinkypoo, you will NOT regret it! I went from sliding the DVD in to a fully functional desktop in under 35 minutes, Windows found and downloaded ALL the drivers, no hassles, no trawling looking for fixes, it all "Just worked. If you are worried about whether it will run well on your hardware you can get a free trial of enterprise 7 but I can tell you it purrs like a kitten, even on this 1.8GHz Sempron with 1.5Gb of RAM. Windows 7 HP x64 was the best $100 I ever spent!

A word of advice, just to make the journey a little easier, a little trick from your old pal hairyfeet, once you get to desktop load IE and go to Ninite. There you will find FF and Chrome, iTunes and songbird, Irfanview and Picasa, even free AV like MSFT security Essentials, all automated so a single click will install any combo you desire. It really takes the setup hassles out of a new windows PC, and if there are any programs you want they don't have, just let them know and they'll add it!

And sorry for the length, but I am just fed up with the hype and bullshit. I wanted to believe in Linux, I really did. I came from the days of Atari and Amiga and wanted there to be a "third way" to offer my customers choices and lower prices. But when I can't even run a SINGLE update without something breaking, every single damned time, how can I sell that to customers? I take pride in my work, I have computers over a decade old still working in factories or as point of sale PCs. I can't sell a PC where the first update is gonna take out half their hardware, and where the forums would tell me either "it'll get fixed next release" or "buy new hardware". Yeah, like my customers would like being told they have to throw out half their gear because update foo broke everything. No sale.

Actually ABP and ForecastFox is the two extensions that have made getting folks off IE an easy sell for me at my shop. When folks see how ABP gets rid of the crud AND speeds up page loads, and I tell them that ForecastFox will pop up a warning when severe weather is headed their way? They are sold.

And all it takes is a few to get a domino effect going. ever since I showed my GF and a couple of out of town relatives how easy it was to get Firefox and Flash by using Ninite I've gotten emails from all over the place from "a friend of a friend of relative twice removed" wanting to know how to add ABP and ForecastFox now that they have Firefox and Flash going. I figure anything that gets more folks off IE on XP is a good thing though.

As for TFA I think it'll all come down to performance. Mobile devices just don't have a lot of oomph, and nobody will want to use it if all you get is a slideshow. I know that on those Atom netbooks my GF's family seems to love it is a royal PITA getting decent flash performance, at least without a Broadcom HD card, so I don't even want to know what it will be like on a cell. Hey, does anybody know of a way to boost performance on those damned FB games? I swear I must get a dozen calls a week wanting more performance on those damned FB games.

Or you could just run this IE6 VPC Image and be a lot safer by not having vulnerable IE6 left on the machine. As for TFA I wish him the best, IE6 was an STD on the Internet and the quicker it is dead the better.

For those that have friends/relatives on IE and whom you want to GTFO Ie, here is a trick I've developed working PC repair that has a 90% success rate, at least with my customers. The key is to use the carrot, not him them with a stick. So in that vien I give them Firefox with ABP and...this is the key here...Give them ForecastFox set to their zip in the Menubar position. Once you point out that no longer will they get those screeching ads, but that ForecastFox will actually warn them with a popup if bad weather is approaching? Well then they are sold, no arguing and no hassle. One caveat though, you MUST set Firefox to their home page, which is usually the Yahoo portal. You and I may think it sucks ass but to them it is "the paper" where they read the news, check their mail, check sports scores/horoscopes, before going out to the big web via the Yahoo Search at the top. Which is why I know MSFT is full of shit when they say Bing can't get a "long tail" because if they can't mine enough data with the vast majority of average users using Yahoo's portal, well then they suck.

But just use the above trick to get those irritating friends/relatives off of IE and make theirs (and your) life better in the process. If they are clueless or live a distance so you can't set it up directly you can point them to Ninite to get the install automated (along with Flash, Silverlight, MSFT Security Essentials, IMs, etc) and not have to worry about them falling for a fake Firefox install site. Then you can easily walk them through getting ABP and ForecastFox via email links. The quicker we get the masses off of IE on XP and onto FF (Or Chrome, Safari, or Opera, all available at Ninite) the better off we will ALL be. Because I don't even wanna know how many PCs I've had to fix this month can be traced back to IE drivebys. I swear any PC that crosses my desk that only has IE seems to have 5 times the amount of malware.

Have you tried Foxit PDF Reader? It's free, they seem to get patches out more quickly, often on the same day an exploit is announced, they use a separate light and more locked down PDF reader for Firefox to help make web based PDFs less of a security risk, and they aren't a bloated mess like Adobe.

If you decide you want to try it I would get it through Ninite as Ninite is a single click online unattended installation, has dozens of apps that you can install in any combo you choose, has all the ones friends/relatives call you complaining they don't have, such as Flash, Java, .NET, Silverlight,etc, and is pretty much a one stop shop for apps that even your grandma could use. Oh and NO toolbars allowed, which some companies just seem to love to drop on you nowadays (I'm looking at YOU Sun/Oracle!)

So give it a try. I have a feeling once you switch over to Foxit and Ninite you won't be going back. Ninite is especially good if you have any long distance relatives you need to support. Just tell them which programs to tick the checkbox for, tell them to run it, and voila! Free apps all installed and set up pretty as you please. Makes a great way to set up a new PC too.

Oooookay...your company so poor they won't even shell out $50 for Nero Burning ROM? In that case you can always use IMGBurn which as far as I can tell is 100% free, no matter the environment. although if you were going to use IMGBurn I would get it from Ninite instead of the IMGBurn website, as Ninite does a one click unattended install of IMGBurn along with any other software on their site you may like and NO toolbars, which waay too many apps bundle nowadays.

so it isn't like you don't have choices, and IMGBurn is so simple even my computer clueless Aunt can use it to back up files and burn music CDs. If you want a simple, no nonsense burning software that handles CD/DVD/BD, makes disc images, burns music and data CDs/DVDs, and does it all with a minimum of fuss, then give IMGBurn a try. I bet you'll like it.

Uuuuhhhh...You DO know that if all you want is the burner Nero will let you have it for free, yes? Or that if you want an even more simple interface there are great free choices such as IMGBurn which you can even install with a one click unattended installation thanks to Ninite that will install nearly all the major apps folks need/want, like FF,.NET/Flash/Silerlight/Java, even IM, AV, and Media Players, all in an interface so simple even your grandma can use it?

So while the full Nero may not be YOUR cup of tea, there are enough folks buying it that Nero thinks it is the correct way to go for their customers, but they are still nice enough to offer the basic version for $0. And just because you think it is "bloated" doesn't mean the masses do. Just look at home pages, which working PC repair I can tell you the average Joe by a good 99 out of 100 have set to this instead of this because they actually LIKE it that way!

Nice to see I'm not the only one that does that! Like I always say, it is better to lure the clueless with candy than threat them with a stick. I would add another way I've added to my "get the fuck away from IE!" arsenal works nearly as well as ForecastFox...Show them how easy it is to add extensions. Just tell them anything they don't like, or anything they want it to do, can be found in a couple of minutes thanks to extensions.

i tripped over this one by accident when my dad was always complaining about screen resolutions thanks to his eyesight. He always had trouble seeing the pictures anyone sent him so I showed him how to use the extensions add-on to get Imagezoom. Well the next thing I know he is raving to all his friends and our relatives about how easy it is, and suddenly when anybody that knows dad comes in not only am I not having to deal with IE, but they all have their own customized FF. One filled hers with social add-ons, another added videodownloadhelper, thanks to the way the extensions add on is built with that handy search button it is really easy for even a noob to find new things.

And for all you geeks/repairguys having to deal with distant friends and/or relatives? let your old pal Hairyfeet turn you on to a little lifesaver called Ninite. This site is worth its weight in gold guys. All the major freeware and add-ons you need (and if there are any that aren't included let them know and they are good about adding it. I wanted Klite and BAM! There it is) and NO TOOLBARS. They are having problems getting Flash going? Ninite. Need Java or Silverlight? Ninite. Need music software, imaging, Open Office, or even AV? Ninite. It is beyond simple too. Just tell them to check any software they want in ANY combination, or give them a list of what you want them to install, have them click the "install now" button at the bottom, and that's it! No tweaking, no 40 questions, no "clicky clicky next next next", no toolbars or worthless crap, just an easy over the web unattended installer that any kid could use. Really great for when you have friends and family too far to service in person.

Are you a sad panda because win98 isn't supported anymore? I'm sorry but there are previous version to be had. Why would you WANT to go and have to download every codec you need individually, end up with a bunch of shit like DivX dumped into your Start>programs, only to still end up not being able to play the content you want? Maybe you find "hunt for a codec" to be a great Where's waldo? adventure, who knows.

For everyone else Ninite is the ultimate unattended installer for the masses. Got a relative having trouble with Flash? Ninite. Grandma could use Firefox but don't know squat? Ninite. Just built a new PC and want all the basics like browser, multimedia, office software, even free AV, and don't want to sit there installing all afternoon? Ninite.

In short for everyone other than useless trolling Anon Cowards (or may I call you Cow?) Ninite just works and is simple enough you can send your grandma there. Oh and all my customers just loooove Klite, as I often get told "make sure I get that media classic thing" when building them new PCs. And considering I am making good money, while you sit in your basement Cow watching Pokemon (do you liek Mudkips?), I think my opinion counts a little more than yours. at least I stand by my posts with my nick, you're afraid to use yours.

What you need is the Klite Codec Pack, which you can get in just a couple of clicks at Ninite. I have found their DXVA ffdshow enabled MPC Home Cenima to be the easiest way to get really good hardware acceleration for HD. I don't know how well a 9400m runs, but on my HD6450, which cost a whole $36 after rebate, HD purrs like a kitten and doesn't even work my AMD 925, nor the 7550 Athlon x2 I had before it.

So if you are watching BD Rips I would recommend Klite, and Ninite is the easiest way to get it. Also a great site when you set up a new machine as it has all the basics like Flash, Firefox, Silverlight, Chrome, etc.

Now as for TFA, aren't dual Atoms still crappy in order CPUs? I've had to work on a few Atom netbooks at my shop and the single cores really didn't impress, hell an old 1.3Ghz Celeron box I had felt more snappy than the Atom. If I wanted multimedia on a netbook I would probably go with one of those new AMD Neo based ones I got to play with the other day, as with an ULV Athlon plus a Radeon GPU it was really smooth and felt more like a little laptop than a netbook. They weren't bad priced either, as I've seen them for less than $400 online. I never got why Intel would push in order CPUs for netbooks. Embedded sure, but from what I saw of the XP netbooks I worked on they were just slugs, especially when paired with an Intel GPU.

Lord I wish I knew, as maybe we could get these brainiacs to stop doing it!!! The only thing I can figure is they install so damned much crapware on OEm PCs these days they are worried about confilcts with the buttload of garbage they put on these things. I just dealt with a Compaq laptop yesterday that had more than 45 damned startup entries, all OEM crapware!

They had "extra offers" for the printer that loaded, some sort of "helpful HP service" trying to push crap, crap for the Roxio burner, the picture software, you name it the damned thing had a startup entry for it. I know it wasn't installed by the user because the user had me wipe and reinstall from the OEM CD, since he wanted his Roxio (bleech!) back. Sure enough after a wipe and reinstall that thing was as slow as a 486Sx trying to run WinME! Luckily this user wasn't averse to learning new things, so I showed him how easy IMGBurn was to use and he let me kill the Roxio.

But if you or anybody else reading this finds out why OEMs kill auto updates dead, feel free to email me and let me know. I have been dealing with this since XP came out and it drives me nuts! I am just sooooo glad there is Autopatcher, as between it, the service packs for all the Windows versions on DVD, and Ninite that takes care of all the usual software like Flash, Java and Firefox (with NO TOOLBARS! Yay!) my life is a whole lot easier. Still I would be happy to lose a little business if the OEMs would quit turning the dang autoupdates off.

You get a PC from an OEM that is more than a year old with updates off? That thing has more viruses than a Bangkok whore pal. It ain't a pretty sight, and like the plumber that has to deal with the busted shitter i got to wade into that mess and clean it up.

Except from what I have seen HTML V5 sucks ass? No offense but it does. I can play full screen SD H.264 flash on this 1.8GHz Sempron that I use as a netbox perfectly. It don't skip, or jerk, everything "just works". If I want to spend a whole $70 and add a AMD 4xxx AGP card I can do full screen 1080p on this same PC, no problem. The last time HTML V5 came up everyone was providing links to HTML V5 sites, so I tried them....yuck. Most had it in a little tiny window and even then it was a slideshow.

As far as licenses go I just don't see how they could need a license to use whatever codec the user has already. I mean I kinda doubt that all those free MP3 players have licenses for the MP3 codec, do they? If the user doesn't have a codec a simple like to KLite Codec Pack (for Windows) or VLC (on OSX or Linux) would solve the problem without forcing FF to carry a license, wouldn't it? And then we could give the users the choice. Those that wanted to remain RMS style "free" simply didn't have to use it, the rest of us would have nice hardware accelerated FF without hassle.

So I'm sorry, but until they can get HTML V5 or Theora to play as smooth and easy as H.264 on low power devices like my Sempron I'll pass. I'd say TFA was a step in the right direction, but in a way it ain't. They should have went for the "Big Three"...AMD, Intel, Nvidia, and gotten hardware acceleration on them FIRST. Since AMD and Intel have open specs it should be easier than Nvidia, and once two out of the three were on board Nvidia would have produced one just to have the "us too!" bullet point. Then millions of motherboards and discrete GPUs could come with Theora hardware acceleration out of the box, like they do with H.264 now. And it DOES make a BIG difference, believe me, as a PC builder and repairman I've seen firsthand. Video plays smoother, less chance of stuttering or dropped frames, better multitasking, it just makes the users experience much better, especially with the lower end machines which are VERY popular these days.

While I wish Theora and HTML V5 the best of luck, unless they get hardware acceleration like yesterday I have a feeling the ship has done sailed. The only real chance IMHO of open video taking off would be now open VP8 codec which if it has made the gains shown in previous versions could be an H.264 killer. If whatever container they use plays as well as VP6 in a flash container we've got a winner here. But considering the frankly incredible mish mash of differing hardware when it comes to mobile it would probably have been better to get the desktops/laptops/nettops on board first, and hopefully get enough momentum going that the hardware manufacturers would jump in and help with Theora support on cells and other mobile devices.

Uhhhh...dude? Windows users now have Ninite, which covers pretty much all your average Joe is gonna do with a PC besides game. Audio/video, browsing, office apps, even free AV, it's all there, just one click and there you go. Can't get much simpler than that.

/pulls up flame proof long johns/ And for all you "Linux yay, Ubuntu yay, MSFT boo!" folks around here? Y'all always seem to miss that giant elephant in the room....what happens when something goes wrong. You seem to think because YOU have no problem with CLI, or reading man pages, or tweaking config files, that the average Joe will be able to do that too. Nope, sorry Charlie, not even close. Hell most of the folks I've met, from business owners to sally home makers, are afraid to touch the control panel in Windows because they are afraid they'll break something. Would you really expect these folks to tweak "fixes" in a CLI where there is NO spellcheck and a single wrong command can pretty much hose the thing?

You see they don't have to worry about that in Windows, because if they don't have a relative that does Windows tech support they got me, their friendly neighborhood PC repairman. Hi! They can just drop it off with me, pick it up in a day or two, and voila things are running better than new. But we don't support Linux, sorry. We can't because nobody will get their shit together and get with the manufacturers to put penguins on boxes so Joe clueless can shop Walmart without studying for a test.

In conclusion, you can buy a nice P4 which will do all that Joe and Sally average is gonna do with a PC for less than $100 with XP. Ninite allows you a one stop shop to put all the programs they are gonna need with a single click, and because it runs Windows they can shop at Walmart, which is what Joe and Sally do. Linux is great if you need a web server, or are writing for embedded devices like cell phones, or have CS degree and are comfortable with CLI and don't mind spending time trawling forums when something breaks. Windows is good for everybody else who don't have the time, skills, or knowledge to do such tasks and who don't mind taking their PC to someone like me every once in a while when they break it. And of course Apple is good for those with Ferrari money. Simple, yes?

Bingo! Give that man a ceeegar! Ever since my GFs family learned learned I was a PC repairman I get at least a half dozen or more emails from their friends and relatives saying "I can't play (insert Farmville Bejeweled or other flash game) because it says I need something. can you help me?". For those in the same boat I suggest Ninite which is pretty much check the box and go and has all the biggies like Flash, Firefox, Picasa, Java, as well as free AV software. Butt simple for the clueless too and NO TOOLBARS hooray!

But I'm afraid with regards to Flash the boat has sailed, just as it has with H.264 and MP3 VS Theora and Vorbis. Most folks have no clue what is proprietary and what isn't, and don't give a wet fart about "free as in freedom" all they want is for their games to play and their videos to run smooth. Now that Flash has GPU offloading (does Theora have ANY GPU support yet?) I just don't see Flash going anywhere. I'm afraid the TFA is right, Flash is easy to create with and to use so it just ain't going anywhere.

Again you completely ignore every single thing I wrote. Are ANY of my facts untrue? Do you see the gobs of Linux boxes in the B&M stores? If every single store in the fucking USA wouldn't touch your product with a 20 foot barge pole, even though it is cheaper than the alternatives, you really should be looking in the mirror at what you are doing wrong.

And funny you should mention FSF, which of course is headed up by RMS, the most left wing radical zealot on the face of the planet. do you know what "PC" he runs? I do, it is a Loongson Netbook, because it is the ONLY machine on the entire planet that will meet his radical idea of "free", why do you people still take advice from that nut? Why do you think Linus won't release the kernel under GPL V3? Because he has become too radical for even Linus, that's why.

As for how long to install Office and other apps? About a half hour, usually less. Between Ninite and Almzea (which says it is for unattended XP discs but is actually much better at making unattended software installers) I can click a button and walk away, come back in a hour it is ready for pick up. Add in the 25 minutes or so for an unattended Windows installation I can easily whip off 4 or 5 in a day without having to even rush. Thanks to the fact that in all Windows versions from SP3 up you can put in the key after install it really is a joke how easy it is.

Now here is a question for you? How much time did you waste researching products before purchase? 5 hours? 6? And when was the last time you fired up bash...hmmm? Last month? Last week? Today? the reason I bring those up is to point out the stupid hoops Linux users have deluded themselves into jumping for "free is for freedom man!". The hilarious part is most have deluded themselves into thinking the general public will put up with that bullshit, such as the Linux user that told me with a straight face I should force Joe and Sally average to "embrace the power!" of CLI. damn, that still cracks me up.

But here are some very basic questions you should ask yourself: Why is my product dead last? why will no B&M stores carry it? Why in 15 years has it gone virtually nowhere on the desktop? Why did my brand new product get its ass stomped by a decade old XP in netbooks, a form factor it was practically built for? Why do so many go to the trouble and risk of pirating MSFT, when they can have my product for free?

Ask those questions and I'm sure that it will come down to the same answer I came to long ago: It is because your product is a server OS that is a royal PITA on the desktop. And as for the "it will lock in developers" argument? So you are admitting that MSFT can build a better product, since they have made it trivial to support their product, while yours can't even get its shit together enough to come up with a way to put a fucking penguin on the box? STOP thinking like a hacker, think like a customer. Ever hear the customer is always right? Your product is NOT ready for desktops, because you can't even walk into walmart, one of the largest chains on the entire planet, and buy a simple AIO printer or USB device without playing paperweight roulette.

But you don't like a stable ABI? Fine, riddle me this: How exactly do you propose to get drivers on CDs and penguins on boxes without it? I already pointed out your putting kernel numbers, which would be like expecting Windows users to know which kernel and patch level their PC was up to, is a complete waste of time, because by the time the device hits market it will already be far out of date. So what is your answer? Because without solving this fundamental problem your OS is going exactly nowhere fast. Nobody but you care about "free as in freedom man!" as evidenced by the fact that everyone is carrying iPods made by a company that makes MSFT look cute and fuzzy by comparison. Apple never met a lockin they didn't like, yet they are gaining and already several times more popular than your free OS o

You want to know the trick to getting folks like that to switch? as a PC repairman I've had great luck getting folks off of IE. The trick is to NOT talk about things like security, which they won't understand anyway, but to give them a carrot. For example my 67 year old Luddite father was a lifelong IE user, but after I gave him FF with ABP and (this is the REALLY important part) ForecastFox set to his zip code he will call me when over at a relative's house and say "This blue E thing is awful! How do I give them that Fox thingy again?".

It is actually really easy. Find out what they do with their browser, give them a couple of easy to use carrots like ForecastFox, and all is golden. for another example my dear mom who just turned 68 today (Hi Mom!) swore up and down she would never give up IE and Outlook Express, which is what she used at work since the days of Win95. After seeing that she still uses her ISPs email I set up SeaMonkey for her and showed her how she could check her mail in a single click and how it would pop up when she got a new email. Now she refuses to touch a PC that doesn't have "the blue bird" on it. I have converted young and old, business folks and homemakers. Make them feel they are getting better and easier than what they had and they will gladly drop IE and never touch it again.

Oh and if you need an easy peasy way to switch folks from a distance? say hello to your new best friend Ninite. After showing my GF who lives 2 hours away how easy it was to use Ninite to give her sis Firefox she happily went around using Ninite to give all her friends and family Firefox and showed them how to use the site. Now I am getting little questions from them about their "great new software" like Open Office, IMGBurn, and Songbird. with Ninite all they have to do is check the box besides the ones they want and click "get installer" which they run. That's it! And NO toolbars on apps like CCleaner or Java either, so no "uncheck the third box on the fourth page" BS. I hope this helps get your GF's mother away from IE!

Well I'm pushing 42, which in PC years is like 100, so I AM old. As for how I stand it? Let you in on a little secret which I learned from my former boss Doug who was the master of dealing with home users. I have a sign on the wall that lists the prices, and at the bottom it says in bold letters "THESE PRICES ARE NON NEGOTIABLE" that way I am no different than McDonald's. You don't see people arguing about the price of a Big Mac, do ya? You would be surprised how ingrained obeying signs is with the public. Just make you a sign and all is golden. They also can't argue they didn't know it was gonna cost that much, because your hourly rate is on the sign.

I myself started at 12 with A VIC20, a Trash80, followed by an early IBM PC in 84. My dad runs his own business so he would buy all these devices that were supposed to "save him time" and then haul me in there when he couldn't figure it out. So I guess I got lucky as I got in when the tech was young and learned about things like languages and arches instead of the school of "clicky clicky".

Finally as one fixit guy to another, he are some cool tools that will save you some time. One a little program called Dependency Walker, for when you have a Windows program that is acting weird, Computer Repair utility Toolkit V2, which is basically a full repair kit in a box and is butt simple to add tools to (add Winsock fix for the rogue AV bugs) and has tools for file recovery, network management, etc, you just need to update the AV, NLite and VLite I'm sure you know of to make automated Windows installs,just use Ryan's VM to integrate the latest patches and fixes, for fresh installs there is Ninite which gives you all the basics they'll need with NO TOOLBARS like Firefox, IMGBurn, and Flash, all from a single install. There are a couple of pay tools I use like Almeza for unattended app installations or Autoplay Menu designer for making nice FOSS CDs to give to customers, but those above will get the job done for $0.

Well there you go. all of the above tools are 100% free, and will seriously cut down the time you spend fixing boxes, so give them a spin, you'll be glad you did.

It sounds like what you want buddy is to bookmark Ninite. Launch IE after a clean install and in a couple of minutes...BAM! You have a usable box all ready to go. Anything most folks would need from Grandma to geeks, from Firefox and Flash to Notepad++, Putty, and Eclipse, all a single click away from installing in any combo YOU choose, oh and NO TOOLBARS! And if there is a freeware program you want but don't see? Let them know and there is a good chance they'll add it.

So personally I would much rather have it this way than "One OS to rule them all" which as you've noted ends up with dumbed down programs that just don't cut the mustard. With Ninite you got everything from browsers to utilities, any combo you want, all with a single installer. For building a new PC or dealing with one with crappy programs Ninite is a must. Give it a try, I bet you'll like it.

Oh and for your little ISO mount problem I would recommend Kels CPL Bonus Pack which is just control panel geeker heaven. Virtual CD, CPU/GPU-Z, Memtest, USB Format Tool, just about everything a geek could want installed into easy to use control panel icons. Easy uninstall through add/remove if you don't like it too. Windows just tries too hard to be "grandma friendly" to have decent geek tools. Better to just use the above and set it up your way easy peasy.

Not only that, if they are not recording what the actual website looked like when you visited it what is to keep the IP address from changing to something naughty two years from now? After all IP addresses change all the time, and what was...say some stupid fan site a year ago...who knows what it will be two years from now?

And how would you "prove" your innocence? They show up with a list of IP addresses from a year and a half ago, how do I prove they are/aren't mine? How do I prove where I did/didn't go a year and a half ago? Hell I don't even have the same PC I did a year and a half ago as it finally gave up the ghost!

This smells a little too much to me like a "bust anyone you don't like for free" card as defending yourself against some list held in a cop's hand will prove damned near impossible. What's next? "Oh he used CCleaner to empty his temp files and Defraggler to defragment his hard drive, which just proves he was destroying evidence!". Give me a fricking break! How come we supposedly won the cold war and now I have the urge to do " In Soviet Amerika" jokes?

Uhhhhh...Anonymous Dude? We actually have that in Windows too you know, it is just like everything else in Windows in that you need a third party tool. My guess is if MSFT tried to add it natively they would get screams of antitrust! and be accused of playing favorites if it detected Adobe but not Bob's Media Player.

But it works from 98-Windows 7, only takes one click, unless you have it start with Windows then you don't have to click at all unless it finds something out of date. Just use ninite to install the software you need on a clean machine, along with Update checker afterward once a week (or day if you are paranoid) and voila! Easy Peasy Windows.

Actually there is an easy way to prove it is nothing more than DRM. If it actually was "for security" and not DRM crap then autopatcher wouldn't work, which of course it does. While my XP is legit, I don't want to be dealing with that crap, nor would I install spyware like WGA without a client's permission, so I use autopatcher. Installs all the updates, along with nice reg tweaks I can choose from along with non security add ons like Java and Flash. I highly recommend it along with Ninite after a clean install to give them all the basics like FF, OO.o, and IMGBurn.

But the only ones that "win" in these class action lawsuits is the lawyers. It will not make MSFT do squat differently, the consumers if they are lucky get a coupon they have to jump through hoops for, which most never do (I had a chance with 3 different class actions, but they wanted so much info on me I refused to do it for a lousy $5-10 coupon) so nothing ever changes except the lawyer can afford a nicer trophy wife. Yeah I would say the system is pretty damned broken at this time.