I just finished helping a friend remove some pretty bad spyware from his system. In addition to the usual removal tools - AdAware, and Spybot I found the Autoruns utility from Sysinternals to be very useful.
It is a comprehensive piece of software that will allow you to see every possible startup program in one place. It beats searching through the registry by hand.
Best of all it is totally free, and can be downloaded from Microsoft here:
http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/Autoruns.zipMore info about the utility can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/Autoruns.mspx
Written by Steve Wiseman on October 16th, 2007 with comments disabled.
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The soon to be released in 2008 Windows XP SP3 is rumored to have Vista Features. According to
NeoSmart Technologies, Windows XP SP3 build 3205, which was released to beta testers on last week, includes four new features among the many hot fixes and patches that have been issued since XP SP2.
Features allegedly said include:
- Network Access Protection (NAP), an enterprise policy enforcement technology that inspects client PCs before they access a corporate network, then updates the machines if necessary or blocks them if they don't meet specified security criteria.
- Kernel module updates containing several encryption algorithms that can be accessed by third-party developers for the in kernel-mode drivers and services.
- A new Windows activation model that doesn't require users to enter a product key.
- New “Black Hole Router†detection - Windows XP SP3 can detect and protect against rogue routers that are discarding data.
Written by PCWizKid on October 16th, 2007 with comments disabled.
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Dell says what many of us know, Vista uptake is slow, but will come around quickly once businesses have time to test it, and hardware is compatible.
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You’ll need a solid state drive (SDD) to see any significant power savings.
Written by Joe on October 16th, 2007 with comments disabled.
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I create millions and billions of Virtual Machines - ok, maybe not that many but it feels like it. Everytime I have copied the physical files (VHD/VMC) a number of things must be done if I want to join those virtual machines to my domain(s) - most importantly: the machines SID (Security ID) must be re-generated to be unique and the computer must be renamed of course.
So, heres the thing. Back in the good old days you had to find the Windows CD, find and extract the Deploy.CAB file to you hard drive and then execute the SYSPREP.EXE tool. But, with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 the SYSPREP file(s) can be found below:
%WINDIR%\System32\Sysprep - ready “out of the box”, just waiting for you to go for it!
And this is the important thing (and the reason why I started this blog): If you want to create a new SID, remember to CHECK the “Generalize” checkbox - or else you have to go all over again…
During the following reboot a new SID is automatically generated - and you will have to type in your Product/License Key, provide a new Computer Name, select an Administrator Password etc.
You may have known this already - personally I didn’t because I tend to use the wonderful Sysinternal NewSID tool for this purpose in most cases (it’s much faster)… However, that tool is not officially supported for Windows Server 2008 (or even Vista) at this time - but hopefully it will be soon?
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Written by Jakob H. Heidelberg on October 16th, 2007 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Virtualization and Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista and generalize and newsid and security id and sid and sysprep and vista.
