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http://www.computerworld.com/a...

http://simpleprogrammer.com/20...

https://lonesysadmin.net/2008/...

http://windowssecrets.com/lang...

http://serverfault.com/questio...

*YAWN* Try again when you're an actual competent system admin, APK. You're completely fucking useless, outdated, and even 5 year olds know better than you.

Try Windows Secrets Patch Watch http://windowssecrets.com/cate...

Windows Secrets is a great site and the Patch Watch is invaluable in tracking patch conflicts and problems.

~~~
Think before swallowing Microsoft's blue pill.

I will counter your googling for office crashes, not with facts, but with my own googling of libre office crashes! That's a sure fire way to get people on-side!

Libre Office crashing all over the place:
http://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/952/writer-35-keeps-crashing/
http://askubuntu.com/questions/41329/how-can-i-stop-libreoffice-from-randomly-crashing
http://www.sevenforums.com/software/163405-open-office-3-libre-crashes.html
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/data-crash-and-recovery-with-libre-office-937038/
http://en.libreofficeforum.org/node/1259
http://en.libreofficeforum.org/node/2908
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=12071436

Libre Office crashing on startup:
http://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/3511/libreoffice-crashes-on-opening/
http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread.php/151139-Open-Office-and-Libre-Office-crash-on-start-up

You certainly cannot do this but waste half of your life trying to undo the metro system and have to do some registry changes and even that does not work to get rid of the offending system. There was a report on slashdot about M$ blaming manufacturers about the failure of Windows 8.

Here are some links below that will help you out;

http://www.classicshell.net/

http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread.php/149299-Method-to-hide-the-Charms-Bar

But that only helps so far as the damn thing does keep on appearing the only thing you can do after booting up is to run the metro killer

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/System-Tweak/Metro-Killer.shtml

The metro system is that intrusive that one might want to think about downgrading and you can get help with that from;

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/36726-UpDown8-Windows-8-Upgrade-Downgrade-Helper

hope that helps and if all else fails just get hirens boot cd; reformat and start over from scratch

Official untouched links to windows iso's Digital River here http://www.mydigitallife.info/download-windows-7-iso-official-32-bit-and-64-bit-direct-download-links

"The argument between HP and nVidia over defective GPUs is between HP and nVidia, not between me and nVidia."

The way nVidia has acted in the past is an indication of how it may act in the future. See one of the many articles, for example: Dell and HP balk at replacing bad Nvidia chip.

If you buy something with an nVidia product in it, you may get involved with enormous hassles like that. People who weren't following the sneakiness and dishonesty closely didn't get their computers replaced because there was a very limited period in which customers needed to act.

Both AMD and nVidia need better management, in my opinion.

Here's a better one: http://windowssecrets.com/2007/11/08/02-One-quick-trick-prevents-Autorun-attacks

Thanks to whomever originally posted this.

There are PLENTY of autorun.ini based trojans that spread thanks to many versions of windows insane desire to interpret autorun without asking. What's more, with the default settings, the victim would never even see the trojan files.

Even turning off autorun isn't enough.

If you're interested:

http://windowssecrets.com/2007/11/08/02-One-quick-trick-prevents-Autorun-attacks

I set these registry settings on every family member's PC.

WGA Secret is that it is Spyware and Microsoft is sued over WGA Spyware complaints and Tool is invented to remove WGA Spyware.

Here's a link to disable autorun on 2k and XP for real. You won't get a prompt for what to do, the system won't try to do anything with a USB key or CD rom or removable drive. I recommend it to anyone who has to put other peoples' USB drives in their systems. http://windowssecrets.com/2007/11/08/02-One-quick-trick-prevents-Autorun-attacks

"Obviously, the terms are ludicrous and nigh-unenforceable."

Also, there is another point. Slashdot editors change stories submitted to them seemingly at random, but retain the submitter's name.

The story as I wrote it mentions that Adobe is allowing Octoshape to use Adobe's Express Installer to install the software.

Basically, that means that if you allow rights to Adobe, you are also giving rights to anyone who pays Adobe. Adobe's updating software is very annoying, in my opinion, but this new situation takes the abusiveness to a much higher level. See the linked story, Watch a live video, share your PC with CNN, at WindowsSecrets.com.

"Obviously, the terms are ludicrous and nigh-unenforceable."

Also, there is another point. Slashdot editors change stories submitted to them seemingly at random, but retain the submitter's name.

The story as I wrote it mentions that Adobe is allowing Octoshape to use Adobe's Express Installer to install the software.

Basically, that means that if you allow rights to Adobe, you are also giving rights to anyone who pays Adobe. Adobe's updating software is very annoying, in my opinion, but this new situation takes the abusiveness to a much higher level. See the linked story, Watch a live video, share your PC with CNN, at WindowsSecrets.com.

Yeah, the US-CERT bulletin linked in the summary does actually disable processing the autorun.inf file. DISA put forward the recommendation last month to change that setting. I've tested it in the lab at work and it seems to do the trick.

I think everyone is taking this thing way over the top, the registry key setting has been known for a while now, as evidenced by this 2007 article. Users, the industry, etc just love to hate Microsoft and create panic to generate web hits. Granted MS could have came forward right away and said "in addition to the patch, make this regedit to really make sure you're safe", but it is what it is.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer]
"NoDriveTypeAutoRun"=dword:000000ff

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoDriveTypeAutoRun"=dword:000000ff

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoDriveTypeAutoRun"=dword:000000ff

The joke was referring to a bug that was new to Excel 2007, where the number 65,535 was interpreted as 100,000 (the parent apparently remembered it the other way around). Excel 2007 added quite a few bad calculation bugs - heres an article about some of them.

And I'm assuming they are using a variation of the old "autorun" trick to infect the pc when it is plugged in.For those that have XP or Vista and wish to remove the risk of this trick,here is how.The nice thing about this is you can save it as a .reg file which you can send to clueless relatives and friends.Simply turning off autorun in the GUI doesn't work as bugs like this will turn it back on when connected.

How do you know what data is sent since it is all encrypted? A person much more knowledgeable than me wrote about it at http://windowssecrets.com/comp/060615/#story1

It does every single thing a spyware does and additionally, it is written by the same company who got access to your entire kernel source.

say bye bye to autorun.inf...

One quick trick prevents Autorun attacks

I hate these scripts that utilizes autorun.inf. In my country they are so popular, everyone makes one, script kiddies! On the bright side, it could be easily removed most of the time.

The current (as of writing) Windows Secrets newsletter features an article that would let you at least prevent most kind of autorun.inf scripts from ever running in the first place. It would save me some trouble from all those college girls (errr.. I mean relatives) that gets infected by these sort of things all the time...

One quick trick

Why don't you stop using Windows? I know that's not an option for everyone, but these days it's something you should consider. It's not like there aren't alternatives out there. There are! A Google search just turned up several blog posts that talk about Windows alternatives:

Langa Letter: Exploring Windows Alternatives
Avoid Windows Vista anti-piracy shenanigans by using BSD, OpenSolaris or Linux.
Mac OS X Leopard vs Microsoft Windows Vista
Dump Windows Update, use alternatives
Alternatives to Windows Software

I'm sure you could find a lot more information, too. So there's really no excuse for still using Windows, especially if there's really nothing keeping you from switching to one of the many alternatives.

CORRECTION: MS: You've made a career at being unhappy with whatever prevails, right?

Look at this: Unpatched software abounds on user systems, for those of you that want the government to take care of your health care, your roads, what other people are allowed to eat, making sure nobody smokes, ever, why do you balk at MS making you patch your system?

The figures reveal that many people haven't patched their media players and other run-time software: Java, Flash, QuickTime, Adobe Reader, and RealPlayer. This exposes you to infected media files. I'll explain below how you can keep these apps patched and your computer safer.

For those of you that say they should have released it as secure from the get go, show me how Linux was released as secure, without bugs, etc. Show me Moz, show me GIMP, show me any of your OSS applications that were released that way.

Since the browser is the most used on almost any system, show me that all the issues identified have been patched faster than MS patches. Show me that Moz/FF has responded to ALL. Nope, its still has existing issues that have not been patched.

Deal with it, you're pissed at MS for being the top dog. Then you've looked around for the low hanging fruit, that exists for all projects, for your justifications.

Possibly this is all part of a drive to get people with no technical experience to buy new computers. If you apply patches, Microsoft has control over how fast your computer runs.

For example, Problems with an important Windows component, svchost.exe, can consume up to 100% of CPU time.

On one computer with which I am familiar, the RPC service takes 30%-70% of the CPU time.

I'm not saying Microsoft managers deliberately slow computers. I'm saying that maybe they are not particularly intense about fixing bugs that slow computers.

I'm not the only person who thinks that may be an issue. See this quote from the parent comment: "I've been thinking that MS would come up with something that would make XP less useful - some sort of bug or new type of unpatchable vulnerability to force Windows users to adopt Vista. Maybe this is the beginning of the end of XP."

For a lot of us, using Microsoft software has the feeling of partnering with an enemy.

The person who wrote the parent comment could fix the problem himself. Most people, maybe 99% of Windows XP users, could not. Most people who find that there computer is running very slow will buy another computer. The New York Times article Corrupted PC's Find New Home makes that point.

Yeah you sell more at a higher price. This is why Windows Vista is flying off the shelves right?

Or it could be because they're trying to sell a steaming load of cow dung under the guise of it being a gold nugget. Photoshop is good but its not worth $600 no matter how you slice it. The only reason companies artificially inflate their prices to these ridiculous extremes is so that they can also inflate their 'piracy' claims as well. Hey it worked oh so well for the RIAA and the $750 per song claim

From the story: "Microsoft refusing to reveal the number of actual activated Vista licenses..."

It often seems to me that the entire job of some marketing people is to be deceitful. We can be SURE that if the number of actual activated Vista licenses was high, Microsoft would be talking about the number with everyone.

We can then suppose that the number of people actually using Vista is very low. Probably companies are buying new computers and installing their old corporate licenses of XP.

It was enormously expensive to our company to deal with the bugs in Windows XP until Service Pack 2 was released. (The cost of ownership of Windows XP SP2 is still many, many times higher than the cost of a license.) We have been burned by Microsoft many times, and are not about to get burned again with Windows Vista, so we are waiting to consider it until the second Vista service pack is released.

I'm not the only one who thinks that Microsoft is abusive, of course. Woody Leonhard of Windows Secrets, in the most recent paid edition, called himself a: "card-carrying member of the 'Association of Windows Victims' ".

I'm not gonna do it since I have legal XP already, and I don't want Vista. But Brian Livingston (of windowssecrets.com) argues that Microsoft put this loophole in intentionally, so it's ethical to do. I have my doubts, but. . .

WindowsSecrets.com's latest newsletter also has this information. "The secret is that the setup program in Vista's upgrade version will accept an installed copy of XP, W2K, or an unactivated copy of Vista itself as evidence of a previous installation." (Emphasis theirs!) They also address the ethics issues.

Why is this important? Because a clean Vista install is strongly preferred to an in-place upgrade install (munging your existing XP installation so it's now a Vista installation); but Microsoft does not allow this: "you cannot use an upgrade key to perform a clean installation of Windows Vista". This same Microsoft Knowledge Base article then provides a workaround, the same thing discussed by DailyTech and WindowsSecrets: "Start the installation from a compliant version of Windows, such as Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows XP, or Microsoft Windows 2000. After you have started the installation, you can select Custom at the installation choice screen to perform a clean installation."

I'm glad for this particular huge security hole, but it makes me wonder how many more they are.

Free Windows Update alternative is released

Genuine Advantage is Microsoft spyware

Dump Windows Update, use alternatives

Free Windows Update alternative is released

Genuine Advantage is Microsoft spyware

Dump Windows Update, use alternatives

Free Windows Update alternative is released

Genuine Advantage is Microsoft spyware

Dump Windows Update, use alternatives

If you really object to where Microsoft is going with WGA, here is a good article on how to remove WGA and use an alternative to Windows Update.

The article doesn't mention how to get access to other Microsoft downloads, however, such as Windows Defender.

Brian Livingston's Windows Secrets has waded into the WGA mess with a fairly straightforward suggestion: Dump Windows Update. Along with that, he points to Microsoft's WGA unistall information in the KB article 92914. Note the KB article refers to the "pilot" version of WGA, so Things May Change.

Brian Livingston's Windows Secrets has waded into the WGA mess with a fairly straightforward suggestion: Dump Windows Update.

A simple device that prevents spammers from delivering junk to your mail server outperforms complex spam filtering. https://windowssecrets.com/comp/060126/#story1 https://windowssecrets.com/comp/060216/#story1

A simple device that prevents spammers from delivering junk to your mail server outperforms complex spam filtering. https://windowssecrets.com/comp/060126/#story1 https://windowssecrets.com/comp/060216/#story1

Tweaks for the ultimate in performance

There are several settings and options that can make Firefox run as a much faster browser. You should test these techniques before you roll them out to, say, a thousand workstations in your company.

Speeding up the maximizing of Firefox By default, when you minimize Firefox, it gives back to Windows most of the RAM the browser was using. It sometimes can take several seconds for the browser window to become fully loaded when you restore the window to its original size. This is one of those "version 1.0" things, in my opinion, that will become more streamlined in future bump revs of the program.

Fortunately, there's a hidden setting that can accomplish the restoration of Firefox windows much more quickly:

Step 1. Use about:config to create a new, Boolean value. Type or paste the following string into the dialog box that appears:

config.trim_on_minimize

Step 2. Click OK to close the dialog box. Change the value from "true" to "false" and restart Firefox.

This doesn't piggishly retain all of the RAM that Firefox has claimed. If Windows needs more RAM to devote to another application, Windows can take it. What the setting does is prevent Firefox from giving up most of its RAM until the memory is actually required elsewhere.

Setting this item to "false" may noticeably slow down other applications while Firefox is minimized, if your PC has less than 256 MB of RAM. If so, change the setting back to "true."

There's an extremely long discussion about the development of this trick, going back to March 2004 (and continuing up through today), in Bugzilla bug report #76831. If you're determined to delve into this, I'd recommend starting with comment 329.

About the "memory leak" and other things, have a look at this article. (Start reading about a third of the way down).

the particular options you'll be interested in are browser.cache.memory.capacity and config.trim_on_minimize

He said Microsoft was alerted to the first vulnerability March 16.

That bug was found in default installations of IE and Outlook and could allow malicious code to be executed, contingent upon minimal user interaction, he explained.

Default install problem. Minimal user interaction.

According to security alert aggregator Secunia, more than 30 percent of the security holes found in IE remain unpatched.

...more than 30 percent of the security holes found in IE remain unpatched. Last I saw, that was 13 known holes (not necessarily rated critical).

http://windowssecrets.com/comp/050512/#story1

As of today, Secunia reports that there are still 19 unpatched security flaws in IE, the most severe of which is rated "highly critical." Firefox has only 4 unpatched flaws, all of which are rated "less critical" or "not critical," the lowest severity rating. Opera has none.

Oh. It's 19 now.

Sorry. You're right. Nothing for *you* to see here.

There are some tweaks that you can make to control Firefox's memory usage.

Goto about:config, and create a new integer setting called browser.cache.memory.capacity. Set it to something like 16000.

What this does is limit firefox's memory cache to 16M. you can see how much it's currently using by going to about:cache.

Note: you'll have to restart firefox for the change to take effect.

My source, which includes several tweaks, like moving the disk cache etc.. The interesting stuff starts about a third of the way down.

This can be fixed by setting the preference browser.cache.memory.capacity to something like 16000 in about:config. This will limit the memory cache to 16M.

see this article (about 1/3 of the way down) for more details on this and other tweaks such as changing the disk cache location... My roaming profile is now a sensible size again.

In the case of firefox, the application itself is responsible for getting out of RAM when minimized. I don't know what Mozilla you're running, but it may have the same behavior & fix.

You can change the behavior by modifying the config.trim_on_minimize key (accessible via about:config). See http://windowssecrets.com/041202/) for more info on this.

Makes a big difference - no more two second pauses when restoring firefox.

"Also, the bug that causes the user to lose the entire contents of their hard disk drive while uninstalling Firefox 1.0 is worrysome."

No offense intended, but like the post above me asked, either provide proof in the form of a link, or shut up.

On an unrelated note, while Firefox is doing better, the FF team needs to figure out what they're going to do about the extensions mess. Every incremental x.x.1 upgrade of Firefox forces the extension developers to recode their extensions to work with the new FF version. While that may be fine for geeks like us, it /WILL/ be a major pain in the butt for all the average users who don't want to laboriously re-install their extensions after every upgrade. For an interesting take on this, about halfway down the page:
Force extensions to work with 1.0.1
http://www.windowssecrets.com/comp/050310