How To Remove Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications

How to Remove Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications

Windows genuine advantage notifications occur when your computer hasn't passed the validation test. The validation test can be failed due to being sold a pirated (non-genuine) copy of XP, or because you have changed your XP product key to a software-generated key, or sometimes it just happens for no reason at all. The failed validation installs three types of notifications on your computer: one on the log in screen, one log in timer, and one balloon. It also stops updates from Microsoft and disables your ability to install IE7 and Windows Media Player 11. This solution can get rid of all three notifications, even though you will still not be able to update through Windows Update. You will not be able to download things from Microsoft that requires a valid license either.

Steps
If you have only just installed Windows Genuine Advantage notifications, simply using the system restore function will remove the program. Then refuse to accept the WGA update next time Windows updates... Otherwise, proceed as detailed below. (NOTE: If you try these steps while you are in "Safe Mode," step #8 is unnecessary).

First Try the Following:
- Open a CMD Line Window by Clicking on Start ==>Run ==> type CMD and Press OK.
- Change Directory into the System32 Folder (Like Cd c:\Windows\System32)
- Open a notepad Window and type the following lines:

taskkill -IM wgatray.exe
del wgatray.exe
del wgalogon.dll

- Highlight and copy to the Clipboard the three lines above
- now Paste the the contents of the Clipboard to the CMD Window

This should kill the wgatray.exe Process from the Taskbar and imediately delete both files wgatray.exe and wgalogon.dll without the need to to go through all steps bellow.

If that does not work, then continue and follow the steps bellow
Open System32 by either A or B of the following methods:


a) Click "Start", "Run", then type-in "System32". Click "Okay".
b) Find System32 manually by clicking "Start" > "My Computer" > "(X:)" (Replacing "X" with the drive letter of the host of Windows) > "Windows" > "System32".

In "System32", go to "Tools" > "Folder options" > click on the tab, "View" > Uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types". Now you can begin...
Check to make sure the window that comes up has a full screen of various files. The files are in alphabetical order, which makes it easier to locate the specific file.

Find "WgaLogon.dll" and rename it "WgaLogon.dll.bak".
Create an empty copy of WgaLogon.dll:


Right click on a blank space in System32 and select "New" > "Text Document".
Leave the text document empty and label it "WgaLogon.dll". Press Enter (on your keyboard).

You may get a warning from the above step that says, "If you change a file name extension, the file may become unusable. Are you sure you want to change it?". Click "Yes" on this warning.
Be ready to complete the next two steps very quickly! Find "WgaTray.exe" in "System32" and delete it. You will then have 5 seconds to find "WgaTray.exe" in the Task Manager (the next step). NOTE: If you remove the files mentioned above while you are in "Safe Mode," step #8 is unnecessary.

Immediately open Task Manager. You can do this by pressing the Ctrl, Shift, and Esc keys simultaneously, pressing the Ctrl, Alt, and Delete keys simultaneously, or right clicking the Taskbar and selecting "Task Manager". Click on the process tab and click end process when "WgaTray.exe" is selected. Note: If you take longer, do NOT panic! All that will happen is that "WgaTray.exe" will keep reapearing in the processes list (i.e. you won't be able to delete it as required). To remove the notifications after this, return to system32. You will find two files:"WgaLogon.dll.bak" (the one you renamed) and an Application Extension (0KB) called "WgaLogon.dll". Delete the Application Extension, rename "WgaLogon.dll.bak" to "WgaLogon.dll" and repeat the steps from the fifth one onwards (at a greater speed!!).
Restart your computer once you have finished. All the notification messages should be gone.

Virtual Machine

Virtual Machines
A virtual machine (VM) is a software implementation of a machine that executes programs like a real machine. It is a program running on a computer that creates a self-contained operating environment and presents the appearance to the user of a different computer.

At the simplest level, computing environments are thought to consist of hardware, an operating system that runs on the hardware and applications that urn on the OS – thought in embedded systems, the operating system is sometimes eliminated and applications run directly on the hardware. The OS is aware of all the capacity and capability of the underlying hardware and controls it directly.

If another layer of software were placed between the OS and the CPU, then the OS would know only what that extra layer of software told it. Its understanding of the capacity and capability of the underlying hardware would depend on the intervening software layer, and it would be able to control the underlying hardware only in ways the intervening layer of software allowed it to.

The intervening layer of software could tell the OS everything there was to know about the hardware and simply pass through control directives without translation. But it also might not reveal everything about the underlying hardware and might add some control of its own as it passes on the control directives to the OS. In either case, the configuration would not be the standard tripartite configuration. It would be one of the many possible configurations that is called a virtual machine.

Of course, there are servers, networks and Web interfaces, as well as other devices and interfaces that add nuance and complexity to computing environments. But using a software layer to package a set of computing resources and behaviors and to present it as an available computing environment is at the core of what is means to create a virtual machine.

A virtual machine is a computing environment whose set of resources and behaviors is built through software on top of some other computing environment.

Hypervisor VMs
Virtual machines are at the core of server technologies like VMware Inc.’s ESX Server and the open-source Xen virtual machine monitor. Both of these products offer servers that run multiple x86-based OSs simultaneously. Their approaches are slightly different variations of what are called hardware-level, bare-metal or hypervisor virtual machines. The intermediary software layer called the virtual machine monitor or hypervisor is between the OS and the hardware. The hypervisor gives all the OSs that are running the illusion that they are the only OS running on the hardware.

Running multiple OSs on one server platform offers several advantages. It makes it possible to more fully use the resources of very powerful servers, provide backward compatibility for legacy programs and partition applications to different OSs so they can’t corrupt one another.

VMware uses transparent virtualization, which means that the OSs that urn on the hypervisor do not need to be modified. Xen uses paravirtualization, which means that it needs to modify the OSs to make them run simultaneously on the hardware. Xen claims that paravirtualization increases speed and efficiency.

Hosted VMs
Microsoft Corp’s Virtual PC and VMware’s GSX Server and Workstation are called hosted virtual machines. In these products, the VM is like any other application running on an OS. The VM application is divided into an intermediary software layer, and OS and an application running on that OS.

This scheme is less efficient and less powerful than that used for hypervisor servers, but it provides the same kind of advantages, allowing a user to run legacy programs and to partition applications from the rest of the system. A user who wants to visit dangerous Web sites, for example, could add a layer of protection by doing his surfing via a virtual machine.

Application-level VMs
Application-level VMs, such as the Java virtual machine, are similar to the hosted model in that they run as applications. These VMs, however, combine the intermediary software layer with the OS. The Java VM runs like an application on the native OS, and the Java application runs on the VM.

One of the advantages claimed form this programming paradigm is that a Java program will run on any Java VM without recompilation. That is left to the provider of the Java VM, which must make it run on a variety of native OSs.

Parallel Virtual Machine
The parallel VM is a slightly different approach to creating a virtual machine. In this case, the intermediary software layer exists as a daemon, or a server program, along with a set of library calls, which must be compiled into the application that is going to be run on the parallel VM. The library calls, which interact with the server programs, make a network of computers appear to be a single computer with parallel processors.

Faraday Cages

Faraday Cages
A Faraday cage is a metallic enclosure that prevents the entry of escape of an electromagnetic field (EM field). An ideal Faraday cage would consist of an unbroken, perfectly conducting shell.

To protect your Wi-Fi network from surrounding buildings. The most obvious way to do this would be to secure the devices on your network using the wireless security protocol of choice. A very effective, but more extreme, way to do this would be to secure the building itself by making it act as a Faraday cage, shielding the radio frequency waves used by Wi-Fi.

Making a large building into a Faraday cage involves encasing the building in a thin layer of conductive material or metal mesh. In physics, a Faraday cage or Faraday shield – named for the British physicist Michael Faraday, who discovered the phenomenon in the 19th century and built the first iteration in 1836 – is an ingenious application of Gauss’ law. Gauss’ Law establishes the relation between electric flux flowing out of a closed surface and the electrical charge enclosed inside the surface. Basically, in a hollow object that can conduct electricity, such as an aluminum sphere, charge will ideally distribute itself evenly over the surface of the sphere, and there won’t be an electric field inside the sphere. This has the effect of blocking EMFs (electromagnetic fields) and shielding radio frequency waves.

Faraday cages are far more common entities that you might realize. For instance, cars and airplanes can act like Faraday cages. That’s why a lightning bolt striking an airplane is unlikely to take the airplane down; the aircraft will distribute the electric charge over its entire surface, protecting what’s inside. If you were in a car, and the car got struck by lighting, it is not in fact the rubber tires that would save your life. What actually happens is by being enclosed by the car’s cabin, the lightning travels around you, though the conductive frame of the car. This is because the car forms a Faraday Cage. You’ve probably experienced the phenomenon in even more mundane circumstances like losing your cell-phone coverage inside an office building, or radio reception as you pass thorugh a tunnel. And you are like to “assemble” a Faraday cage on a regular basis: The metal screen built into the glass of your microwave oven the act as a Faraday cage when the door is closed.

But constructing a functional, building-size Faraday cage might be another matter. Not only would it be costly, but other equipment is likely to be hindered by the effect. For instance, cell phones will get poor reception or most likely not work at all in a building tricked out to be Faraday cage. For a small space, though, such a structure might make perfect sense. Other expensive and goofy techniques to achieve similar ends, such as “Wi-Fi-proof wallpaper” and “Wi-Fi paint” with metallic ingredients, have been rolled out over the past few years, but unless you live in a cave, you’d probably also need to replace your windows with special radio-absorbing glass.

Small installations of RF shielding don’t have to be expensive, and the basic concept of a Faraday cage can be extended to all kinds of small everyday objects. Leather wallets sandwiched with a conductive RF-shielding layer can prevent RFID scanners from reading personal information implanted in everything from RFID-enabled access control cards to some credit cards; they’re widely available for as little as $15.

For those favoring a more DIY route, several websites have information on how to make an RFID-blocking wallet with duct tape and aluminum foil. The US passports are now set to include RFID chips, and future editions of the US currency might be RFID-enabled too. Expect further expansion of the burgeoning market for RFID-blocking wallets, passport holders and other paraphernalia for the paranoid and/or privacy savvy consumer, from companies such as Envelope and DIFRWear, which sports the motto “Faraday caged apparel.”

Model Driven Architecture

Model Driven Architecture (MDA)
Model Driven Architecture is an approach to translating real-world algorithms into computer code; it’s an automatic translation of models into code.

MDA focuses on representing algorithms in a modeling language, followed by automatic translation of models into codes. Doing justice to the definition of MDA’s innovation requires a short, potted history of computers. Without instructions, or code, computers are just expensive heaters. One of the main problems of the Computer Age has been how to give computers instructions to translate human desire into outputs.

For about 50 years, the answer has been to code in text-based languages, all of which try to aid programming. The first of these text-based languages was assembly, which is more human-readable than machine code.

FORTRAN, which stands for “formula translator”, was the next step in divorcing programmers from a required knowledge of hardware. It hides the computer architecture of registers and present a syntax that allows humans to concentrate on creating algorithms. FORTRAN incidentally fortifies the notion of free-floating subroutines and functions.

Other third-generation languages have offered varieties of abstraction from computer hardware, imposing rules and providing new ways for organizing algorithms and data. Type-safe languages have taken a stab at preventing programmers from making certain mistakes. Permissive languages, which allow easy casting of pointers, have enabled programmers to do all kinds of marvelous things, including stringing up their own coding nooses.

Different approaches to managing algorithms have been developed. Programming languages that facilitate these paradigms have been created, and libraries of code have been published.

A culture of best practices, peer reviews and modeling has arisen to help create software that contains fewer errors and that is more efficient.

Model Methodology
Unified Modeling Language (UML) has been promoted by Object Management Group Inc. (OMG). It has become the language for modeling algorithms and has been adopted by the software community a large. Originally, an algorithm was expressed in UML before it was manually translated into a text-based language, which was then automatically compiled into assembly language and machine code. But that raised the question of whether the models themselves could be compiled into machine code, thus improving ways to think about algorithms and to produce software. Efforts to make the process simple and universal were the genesis of the paradigm shift that has led to MDA.

The OMG turned its attention from Common Object Request Broker Architecture to MDA with a white paper in 2000, beginning an effort at classification and standardization and it the process producing a new lexicon, including core notions of the platform-independent model (PIM), platform-specific model (PSM) and Meta-Object Facility (MOF). UML has a role in MDA, but models do not have to be created in UML to conform to the OMG’s MDA. Instead, both text-based and graphical languages must conform to MOF, which could be called a kind of mother language. MOF is general and universal that the disparate companies that make up the OMG do not have to agree to use the same modeling languages. They only have to agree to follow the same principles.

After requirements analysis, modeling in MDA begins with PIMs. These models are meant to capture an algorithm but to ignore the computer hardware and software. The models are intended to be pure expressions of the algorithm, with the best division between design and implementation. PIMs are translated into PSMs in the next stage, “compilation,” in which the algorithms are made more ready to run. PSM have features that correspond to the capabilities of hardware and software. Also, PIMs may have been “marked” to facilitate this transformation. Finally, PSMs are translated into actual code, which will run on actual hardware or on actual middleware on actual hardware.

The vision behind MDA is to automate as much of the process of code generation as possible. Using tools and languages that will make the design as good as possible, the implementation will come later and will have as little of the pesky interference of fallible humans as possible. If the underlying hardware or operating system is changed, the model is simply “recompiled” or “retranslated” to work on the new system. If maintenance is required, the model serves as an accurate document of how the algorithm works, and only the model needs to be maintained. The idea is that implementation and coding errors will be minimized. The OMG lists several projects on its website that have successfully used automated MDA to produce efficient, successful code with fewer resources that would have been used in more traditional projects. These include work done for Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development, Postgirot Bank AB, Looking Glass Network Inc., Credit Suisse Group and others.

What Is Preboot Execution Environment (PXE)?

What is PXE?
Preboot execution Environment is an environment to boot computers using a network interface independently of available storage devices or installed operating systems; PXE, as it is widely known was introduced by Intel.

As those thousand of computers were increasingly interconnected via enterprise networks, the designers came up with an answer. During the mid 1990s, researchers at Intel Corp., along with a wide range of hardware and software vendors, began promoting an open-standards specification called Wired for Management (WfM).

Aimed at reducing the total cost of ownership, WfM allowed IT managers to interact remotely with PCs for monitoring, updating and configuring, using standardized communications software and remote management applications. From WfM to Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) implementing WfM called for standardized hardware (including circuitry, BIOS, memory, power supplies and network interface cards) in user PCs. WfM covered a range of PC networking technologies, including the Desktop Management Interface remote wake-up also called wake-on-LAN or service boot and the Preboot Execution Environment PXE.

PXE harkens back to the era before all computers had internal hard disk drives. PXE most commonly involves booting a computer from firmware – i.e., a ROM (Read Only Memory) or programmable ROM chip – rather than from magnetic media. Booting from firmware removes dependence on an electromechanical device the physical disk drive, which enhances reliability, eliminates drive read errors and speeds up the boot process. PXE can also be used to boot a computer over a network.

Although WfM has been superseded by newer management standards, such as Intel’s Active Management Technology, the capabilities that PXE enabled are still valuable tools for network administrators.

PXE is geared toward auto-mated, unattended management of user PCs and workstations. It is based on industry-standard Internet protocols, including TCP/IP and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). A PXE enabled PC typically has a network interface card NIC that remains active and connected to the LAN even when the computer itself is powered down. It listens to LAN traffic for a special data sequence – the PC’s unique media access control address repeated six times. When the NIC receives this “magic packet”, it powers up the PC. For this to occur, wake-on-LAN must be specifically enabled in the PC’s firmware BIOS. Wake-on-LAN cab be problematic for some very old PCs, because it required a power connection between the NIC and the motherboard – definite hardware requirement that can’t be fudged with just a BIOS update. This isn’t a problem for most enterprise PCs, however.

Once the local PC wakes up, it starts up the network card and configures itself. Making use of PXE requires an appropriate server infrastructure. When a PXE client boots, it must do two things. First, it obtains an IP address from a DHCP server. Unfortunately, PXE calls for some options that may not work on all DHCP servers, so most software that supports PXE also includes a proxy DHCP services. This proxy service doesn’t offer IP addresses directly but does allow DHCP operation.

After connecting to the DHCP server, the system locates a PXE boot server that will send it the appropriate files from which to boot. The DHCP server provides a boot file name, and the PC then downloads it from a Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) server.

Once PXE is enabled – anytime the PC boots up – an on-screen message appears, offering the user the choice of booting to PXE or continuing with the normal boot sequence from the local hard disk or optical media. PXE offers a menu of boot options that can include a variety of maintenance and diagnostic tools that do things like scan for viruses, check the integrity of hard drives, inventory installed software, update drivers or even install an entirely new operating system on the PC. All these actions can be performed remotely and largely in an automated fashion, which little or no hands-on intervention.

Download E-Books From Google

Download E-Books From Google

Code:

+("index of") +("/ebooks""/book") +(chmpdfziprar) +Topic of the book

To Find a particular eBook fileTry this query:

Code:

allinurl: +(rarchmzippdftgz) TheTitle of the book

20 Interesting Facts About Google

This is not a trick; but its a useful information that i founded, and like it to share with you all.

1. Google started in January, 1996 as a research project at Stanford University, by Ph.D. candidates Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were 24 years old and 23 years old respectively.
2. The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn’t know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. In fact it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life.
3. Google is a mathematical term 1 followed by one hundred zeroes. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasne.
4. Gmail was used internally for nearly 2 ears prior to launch to the public. They discovered there was approximately 6 types of email users, and Gmail has been designed to accommodate these 6.
5. It consisted of over 450,000 servers, racked up in clusters located in data centers around the world.
6. The Google search engine receives about a billion search requests per day.
7. Google's index of web pages is the largest in the world, comprising of eight billions(2005) of web pages. Google searches this immense collection of web pages often in less than half a second.
8. Google has a tradition of creating April Fool's Day jokes - such as Google MentalPlex, which allegedly featured the use of mental power to search the web. Some thought the announcement of Gmail in 2004 around April Fool's Day was a joke.
9. Google receives daily search requests from all over the world, including Antarctica.
10. Users can restrict their searches for content in 35 non-English languages. To date, no requests have been received from beyond the earth's orbit, but Google has a Klingon interface just in case.
11. Google has a world-class staff of 9,378 full-time employees known as Googlers. The company headquarters is called the Googleplex located at Mountain View at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway.
12. Google translates billions of HTML web pages into a display format for WAP and i-mode phones and wireless handheld devices.
13. "I feel lucky" is nearly never used. It was a comfort button which actually takes to the first web page returned by the search results.
14. Google use the unique 20%/5% rules. That is ,if at least 20% of people use a feature, then it will be included. At least 5% of people need to use a particular search preference before it will make it into the 'Advanced Preferences'.
15. Employees in Google are encouraged to use 20% of their time working on their own projects. That's why we have GMail,Google News and Orkut now.
16. Google Groups comprises more than 845 million Usenet messages, which is the world's largest collection of messages or the equivalent of more than a terabyte of human conversation.
17. The basis of Google's search technology is called PageRank™, and assigns an "importance" value to each page on the web and gives it a rank to determine how useful it is. However, that's not why it's called PageRank. It's actually named after Google co-founder Larry Page.
18. Googlers are multifaceted. One operations manager, who keeps the Google network in good health is a former neurosurgeon. One software engineer is a former rocket scientist. And the company's chef formerly prepared meals for members of The Grateful Dead and funkmeister George Clinton.
19. Google’s Orkut is very popular in Brazil and India. It was the brainchild of a Google engineer who was given free reign to run with it.
20. In a 2006 report of the world's richest people, Forbes reported that Sergey Brin was #26 with a net worth of $12.9 billion, and Larry Page was #27 with a net worth of $12.8 billion

Use CD ROM without Computer

It might seem a strange thing to suggest, but it's true. A computer CD drive can be used for playing CDs on its own without being part of a computer. First, let's make one important thing very clear before going on about it: The CD drive MUST have TWO buttons on the front. Some CD drives have only one button, which presumably saves a penny in production. This type won't do - it has to be the TWO BUTTON variety for this trick! However, the good news is that the CD drive doesn't need to be 128X speed or anything silly like that. The best ones for this are the old 2X speed or even single-speed drives. So, having got that sorted out, the connections for the CD are: Power in (required), Audio out (recommended), and NO IDE DISC CABLE. Audio out is the easy bit, as this consists of a piece of cable that would normally connect to the sound card. Lop this off and wire it up to one of the inputs of a hi-fi with the following wiring:

Red: Right

White: Left

Metal outer braid: Ground

Or to put it another way: Left channel = [white, ground] , Right channel = [red, ground] Next, the power. This requires the cable of the type which would normally go into a hard disc drive, and one easy way to power a CD drive on its own is to use a computer power supply. Another way is to provide your own supply, considering that the power connector wiring to the CD drive is:

Red: 5 volts

Black: 0 volts

Black: 0 volts

Orange/Yellow: 12 volts

This can be achieved by using two 6v motorcycle batteries in series, with a diode to drop the centre-tap to 5.3 volts, which is most likely near enough. You can also use rechargeables, but don't use dry batteries as they are expensive and might not be able to supply the current.

Another helpful design note: Computer CD drives aren't especially vibration-proof and will only work the right way up, so if you are thinking about fitting a computer CD drive in your car dashboard, check it's going to work ok first by driving around a bit playing a CD with the drive on a tray on the passenger seat BEFORE cutting a hole in the console!

Security Help Tools

Best Online Scanners:

1. HouseCall http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
2. Panda http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/
3. BitDefender Online http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html
4. eTrust Antivirus Scanner http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx
5. Jotti.org single file scannerhttp://virusscan.jotti.org/

Online malware scan Utilizes 8 major Antivirus Scans to analyzeindividual files. AV "sandbox" component provides detailed analysis.

Libraries and further information:

1. Symantec http://securityresponse.symantec.co...er/vinfodb.html
2. Trend http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/
3. McAfee http://vil.nai.com/vil/default.asp
4. Sophos http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/analyses/
5. Panda http://www.pandasecurity.com/virus-encyclopedia.html
6. eTrust http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/...nfo/browse.aspx

Multiple Vendor library and informational repository from Secunia

1. http://secunia.com/virus_information/ (Excellent research resource)

Spyware Database and research Links

1. Parasites (descriptions and removal information from Doxdesk)http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/
2. Parasites (descriptions and removal instructions from PestPatrolhttp://www.securemost.com/articles/trou_3.htm
3. Spyware Guide http://www.spywareguide.com/

Free fix and removal tools:

Viral:

1. Grisoft AVG Free Download http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5#avg-free
2. Specialized Removal Tools from Grisoft AVGhttp://www.grisoft.com/us/us_ts_removers.php
3. Symantec http://securityresponse.symantec.co...tools.list.html
4. Trend Micro Damage Cleanup Services (uses the latest definitions, downloadable) http://www.trendmicro.com/download/dcs.asp
5. BitDefender http://www.bitdefender.com/html/free_tools.php
6. McAfee AVERT Stinger (Stinger is a stand-alone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses) http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/

Parasitic:

1. Spybot Installation and Usage http://tomcoyote.com/SPYBOT/index1.php
2. Ad-Aware Home Page http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/ and VX2 Plugin http://www.lavasoft.de/software/addons/vx2cleaner.shtml (this should go to an .exe file)
3. HijackThis QuickStart http://tomcoyote.com/hjt/
4. HijackThis direct download http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/hijackthis.zip and
5. Tutorial http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/htlogtutorial.html
6. SpywareBlaster http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html and Tutorial from http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/for...showtutorial=49
7. lspfix (Layered Service Protocols) repairs damaged Winsock2 vxd associated with connectivity problems http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm
8. Winsock fix specific to XP by "Option Explicit" http://www.spychecker.com/program/winsockxpfix.html
9. SpywareInfo: Detection, Prevention and Removal Tools, SpywareBlaster and others http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads.php?cat=all#s-p
10. RapidBlaster Removal http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spec...pidblaster.html
11. CoolWebSearch -- Information and Removal Tool Latest version (2.0) http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html
12. Kazaabegone and other downloads from Merijn http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html
13. Other Tutorials from BleepingComputer.com http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/for...owtutsection=38

Alternate Download Sites for HijackThis, Spybot, CoolwebShredder (and others):

1. HijackThis http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html
2. Information, Advice and Specialized Tools from Aumha.org http://aumha.org/a/parasite.php#tools
3. Lurkhere http://www.lurkhere.com/~nicefiles/
4. Spybot download and Tutorial at Safer-networking http://www.safer-networking.org/en/tutorial/index.html
5. Anti-Spyware at Majorgeeks http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads31.html
6. Merijn downloads and others at Castle Cops http://computercops.biz/downloads-cat-14.html
7. HijackThis Analysis Tutorial http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/htlogtutorial.html

Lists:• BHOs and Toolbars (02,03)

1. http://computercops.biz/CLSID.html
2. http://www.castlecops.com/CLSID.html
3. http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/
4. http://www.castlecops.com/O9.html
5. http://www.castlecops.com/LSPs.html
6. http://www.castlecops.com/ActiveX.html
7. http://www.castlecops.com/O18.html
8. http://www.castlecops.com/O20.html
9. http://www.castlecops.com/O21.html
10. http://www.castlecops.com/O22.html
11. http://www.castlecops.com/O23.html

Free Firewalls:

1. ZoneAlarm http://www.zonelabs.com/store/conte...reeDownload.jsp
2. Sygate http://www.tucows.com/preview/213160
3. Kerio http://www.kerio.com/us/kpf_home.html
4. More FireWall help and infohttp://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads34.html

Vulnerability testing, Information and Fixes:

1. Steve Gibson's Homepage http://grc.com/default.htm Are you safe? Gibson's site is a world of its own, with tests andfixes for many Windows security vulnerabilities.
2. Microsoft Security Information: Security Updates (Bulletins) http://www.microsoft.com/security/b...ns/default.mspxSecurity and Privacy http://www.microsoft.com/security/default.mspxUnderstand and Maintain Security with Internet Explorer (includes latest Critical Updates) http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie...ty/default.mspx
3. TechNet Security Resource Center: technical information and security updates for IT professionals http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/default.mspx
4. Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) Support Centerhttp://support.microsoft.com/defaul...pr=windowsxpsp2

Microsoft Windows Amazing Facts...

MAGIC #1

An Indian discovered that nobody can create a FOLDER anywhere on the computer which can be named as "CON". This is something pretty cool...and unbelievable. .. At Microsoft the whole Team, couldn't answer why this happened! TRY IT NOW ,IT WILL NOT CREATE " CON " FOLDER

MAGIC #2

For those of you using Windows, do the following:

1. Open an empty notepad file
2. Type "Bush hid the facts" (without the quotes)
3. Save it as whatever you want.
4. Close it, and re-open it.

MAGIC #3

microsoft crazy facts This is something pretty cool and neat...and unbelievable. .. At Microsoft the whole Team, including Bill Gates, couldn't answer why this happened! It was discovered by a Brazilian. Try it out yourself... Open Microsoft Word and type =rand (200, 99) And then press ENTER

Difference Between HTTP and HTTPS

The main difference between http:// and https:// is, It's all about keeping you secure

HTTP stands for HyperText Transport Protocol, which is just a fancy way of saying it's a protocol (a language, in a manner of speaking) for information to be passed back and forth between web servers and clients.

The important thing is the letter S which makes the difference between HTTP and HTTPS.

The S (big surprise) stands for "Secure". If you visit a website or webpage, and look at the address in the web browser, it will likely begin with the following: http://.

This means that the website is talking to your browser using the regular 'unsecure' language.

In other words, it is possible for someone to "eavesdrop" on your computer's conversation with the website.

If you fill out a form on the website, someone might see the information you send to that site.

This is why you never ever ever enter your credit card number in an http website!

But if the web address begins with https://, that basically means your computer is talking to the website in a secure code that no one can eavesdrop on.

You understand why this is so important, right?

If a website ever asks you to enter your credit card information, you should automatically look to see if the web address begins with https://.

If it doesn't, there's no way you're going to enter sensitive information like a credit card number!

Basic FTP Commands

What is FTP?The FTP (File Transfer Protocol) utility program is commonly used for copying files to and from other computers. These computers may be at the same site or at different sites thousands of miles apart. FTP is a general protocol that works on UNIX systems as well as a variety of other (non-UNIX) systems.

For the purposes of this Web page, the local machine refers to the machine you are initially logged into, the one on which you type the ftp command. The remote machine is the other one, the one that is the argument of the ftp command.

A user interface for the standard File Transfer Protocol for ARPANET, FTP acts as an interpreter on the remote machine. The user may type a number of UNIX-like commands under this interpreter to perform desired actions on the remote machine.

Most operating systems and communication programs now include some form of an FTP utility program, but the commands differ slightly between them. The following explanations and alphabetical list of commands refers to the common FTP utility program as provided on a UNIX machine. Check the documentation for your own machine to determine the comparable commands.

Most computers today include a windows-based type FTP program that is more PC-oriented and does not require full knowledge of these commands. You can also perform FTP through a browser. For example, bring up Internet Explorer and type in ftp://yourLoginName@IPaddress instead of a normal web page URL.

Getting StartedTo connect your local machine to the remote machine,

type ftp machinename

where machinename is the full machine name of the remote machine, e.g., purcell.cs.colostate.edu.

If the name of the machine is unknown, you may type

ftp machinennumber

where machinennumber is the net address of the remote machine, e.g., 129.82.45.181.

In either case, this command is similar to logging onto the remote machine. If the remote machine has been reached successfully, FTP responds by asking for a loginname and password.

When you enter your own loginname and password for the remote machine, it returns the prompt

ftp>

and permits you access to your own home directory on the remote machine. You should be able to move around in your own directory and to copy files to and from your local machine using the FTP interface commands given on the following page.

Anonymous FTPAt times you may wish to copy files from a remote machine on which you do not have a loginname. This can be done using anonymous FTP.

When the remote machine asks for your loginname, you should type in the word anonymous. Instead of a password, you should enter your own electronic mail address. This allows the remote site to keep records of the anonymous FTP requests.

Once you have been logged in, you are in the anonymous directory for the remote machine. This usually contains a number of public files and directories. Again you should be able to move around in these directories. However, you are only able to copy the files from the remote machine to your own local machine; you are not able to write on the remote machine or to delete any files there.

Common FTP Commands

?

to request help or information about the FTP commands

ascii

to set the mode of file transfer to ASCII (this is the default and transmits seven bits per character)

binary
to set the mode of file transfer to binary (the binary mode transmits all eight bits per byte and thus provides less chance of a transmission error and must be used to transmit files other than ASCII files)

bye
to exit the FTP environment (same as quit)

cd
to change directory on the remote machine

close
to terminate a connection with another computer

close brubeck
closes the current FTP connection with brubeck, but still leaves you within the FTP environment.

delete
to delete (remove) a file in the current remote directory (same as rm in UNIX)

get
to copy one file from the remote machine to the local machine

get ABC DEF
copies file ABC in the current remote directory to (or on top of) a file named DEF in your current local directory

get ABC
copies file ABC in the current remote directory to (or on top of) a file with the same name, ABC, in your current local directory.

help
to request a list of all available FTP commands

lcd
to change directory on your local machine (same as UNIX cd)

ls
to list the names of the files in the current remote directory /TD]

mkdir
to make a new directory within the current remote directory

mget
to copy multiple files from the remote machine to the local machine; you are prompted for a y/n answer before transferring each file

mget *
copies all the files in the current remote directory to your current local directory, using the same filenames. Notice the use of the wild card character, *.

mput
to copy multiple files from the local machine to the remote machine; you are prompted for a y/n answer before transferring each file

open
to open a connection with another computer

open brubeck
opens a new FTP connection with brubeck; you must enter a username and password for a brubeck account (unless it is to be an anonymous connection).

put
to copy one file from the local machine to the remote machine

pwd
to find out the pathname of the current directory on the remote machine

quit
to exit the FTP environment (same as bye)

rmdir
to to remove (delete) a directory in the current remote directory

Access Stored User Names and Passwords With Rundll32.exe

The Stored User Names and Passwords applet lets you assign user names and passwords to use when needing to authenticate yourself to services in domains other than the one you are currently logged into. The normal way of running this applet can be difficult to find quickly, so here is a way to launch it using a desktop shortcut using the rundll32.exe program:

Click on START - RUN and type the following (follwed by ENTER):

rundll32.exe keymgr.dll,KRShowKeyMgr

Untold Secrets About Windows Operating System

This time I have a collection of Tips and Tricks which no body normally knows, the secrets which Microsoft is afraid to tell the people, the information which you will seldom find all gathered up and arranged in a single file. To fully reap this Manual you need to have a basic understanding of the Windows Registry, as almost all the Tricks and Tips involve this file.

Important Note: Before you read on, you need to keep one thing in mind. Whenever you make changes to the Windows Registry you need to Refresh it before the changes take place. Simply press F5 to refresh the registry and enable the changes. If this does not work Restart your system

Exiting Windows the Cool and Quick Way Normally it takes a hell lot of time just Shutting down Windows, you have to move your mouse to the Start Button, click on it, move it again over Shut Down, click, then move it over the necessary option and click, then move the cursor over the OK button and once again (you guessed it) click.This whole process can be shortened by creating shortcuts on the Desktop which will shut down Windows at the click of a button. Start by creating a new shortcut( right click and select New> Shortcut). Then in the command line box, type (without the quotes.)

'C:\windows\rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindowsexec'

This Shortcut on clicking will restart Windows immediately without any Warning. To create a Shortcut to Restarting Windows, type the following in the Command Line box:

'c:\windows\rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindows'

This Shortcut on clicking will shut down Windows immediately without any Warning.

Ban Shutdowns : A trick to Play on Lamers

This is a neat trick you can play on that lamer that has a huge ego, in this section I teach you, how to disable the Shut Down option in the Shut Down Dialog Box. This trick involves editing the registry, so please make backups. Launch regedit.exe and go to :

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

In the right pane look for the NoClose Key. If it is not already there then create it by right clicking in the right pane and selecting New > String Value.(Name it NoCloseKey ) Now once you see the NoCloseKey in the right pane, right click on it and select Modify. Then Type 1 in the Value Data Box.

Doing the above on a Win98 system disables the Shut Down option in the Shut Down Dialog Box. But on a Win95 machine if the value of NoCloseKey is set to 1 then click on the Start > Shut Down button displays the following error message:

This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator.

You can enable the shut down option by changing the value of NoCloseKey to 0 or simply deleting the particular entry i.e. deleting NoCloseKey.

Instead of performing the above difficult to remember process, simply save the following with an extension of .reg and add it's contents to the registry by double clicking on it.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoClose"="1"

Disabling Display of Drives in My Computer

This is yet another trick you can play on your geek friend. To disable the display of local or networked drives when you click My Computer go to :

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Now in the right pane create a new DWORD item and name it NoDrives. Now modify it's value and set it to 3FFFFFF (Hexadecimal) Now press F5 to refresh. When you click on My Computer, no drives will be shown. To enable display of drives in My Computer, simply delete this DWORD item. It's .reg file is as follows:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

"NoDrives"=dword:03ffffff

Take Over the Screen Saver To activate and deactivate the screen saver whenever you want, goto the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ScreenSavers

Now add a new string value and name it Mouse Corners. Edit this new value to -Y-N. Press F5 to refresh the registry. Voila! Now you can activate your screensaver by simply placing the mouse cursor at the top right corner of the screen and if you take the mouse to the bottom left corner of the screen, the screensaver will deactivate.

Pop a banner each time Windows Boots

To pop a banner which can contain any message you want to display just before a user is going to log on, go to the key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WinLogon

Now create a new string Value in the right pane named LegalNoticeCaption and enter the value that you want to see in the Menu Bar. Now create yet another new string value and name it: LegalNoticeText. Modify it and insert the message you want to display each time Windows boots. This can be effectively used to display the company's private policy each time the user logs on to his NT box. It's .reg file would be:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]

"LegalNoticeCaption"="Caption here." Delete the Tips of the Day to save 5KB

Windows 95 had these tips of the day which appeared on a system running a newly installed Windows OS. These tips of the day are stored in the Windows Registry and consume 5K of space. For those of you who are really concerned about how much free space your hard disk has, I have the perfect trick.

To save 5K go to the following key in Regedit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Tips

Now simply delete these tricks by selecting and pressing the DEL key. Change the Default Locations To change the default drive or path where Windows will look for it's installation files, go to the key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\SourcePath

Now you can edit as you wish. Secure your Desktop Icons and Settings You can save your desktop settings and secure it from your nerdy friend by playing with the registry. Simply launch the Registry Editor go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

In the right pane create a new DWORD Value named NoSaveSettings and modify it's value to 1. Refresh and restart for the settings to get saved.

CLSID Folders Explained

Don't you just hate those stubborn stupid icons that refuse to leave the desktop, like the Network Neighborhood icon. I am sure you want to know how you can delete them. You may say, that is really simple, simply right click on the concerned icon and select Delete. Well not exactly, you see when you right click on these special folders( see entire list below)neither the rename nor the delete option does not appear. To delete these folders, there are two methods, the first one is using the System Policy Editor(Poledit in the Windows installation CD)and the second is using the Registry.

Before we go on, you need to understand what CLSID values are. These folders, like the Control Panel, Inbox, The Microsoft Network, Dial Up Networking etc are system folders. Each system folder has a unique CLSID key or the Class ID which is a 16-byte value which identifies an individual object that points to a corresponding key in the registry.

To delete these system Folders from the desktop simply go to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\Namespace{----}

To delete an icon simply delete the 16 byte CLSID value within "NameSpace". The following are the CLSID values of the most commonly used icons:

My Briefcase:{85BBD920-42AO-1069-A2E4-08002B30309D}

Desktop: {00021400-0000-0000-C000-0000000000046}

Control Panel:{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

Dial-Up-Networking:{992CFFA0-F557-101A-88EC-00DD01CCC48}

Fonts: {BD84B380-8CA2-1069-AB1D-08000948534}

Inbox :{00020D76-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}

My Computer :{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

Network Neighborhood:{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-O8002B30309D}

Printers :{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-O8002B30309D}

Recycle Bin :{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

The Microsoft Network:{00028B00-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}

History: {FF393560-C2A7-11CF-BFF4-444553540000}

Winzip :{E0D79300-84BE-11CE-9641-444553540000}

For example, to delete the Recycle Bin, first note down it's CLSID value, which is: 645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E. Now go to the Namespace key in the registry and delete the corresponding key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

Similarly to delete the History folder, delete the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{FBF23B42-E3F0-101B-8488-00AA003E56F8}

Sometimes, you may need to play a trick on your brother or friend, well this one teaches you how to hide all icons from the Desktop. Go to the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

In the right pane create a new DWORD value by the name: NoDesktop and set its value to: 1. Reboot and you will find no icons on the desktop.

Till now you simply learnt how to delete the special system folders by deleting a registry key, but the h@*k would have been better if there was a way of adding the DELETE and RENAME option to the right click context menus of these special folders. You can actually change the right click context menu of any system folder and add any of the following options: RENAME, DELETE, CUT, COPY, PASTE and lots more. This h@*k too requires you to know the CLSID value of the system folder whose menu you want to customize.

In this section, I have taken up Recycle Bin as the folder whose context menu I am going to edit. Firstly launch the registry editor and open the following registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\ShellFolder.

In Case you want to edit some other folder like say the FONTS folder, then you will open the following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{CLSID VALUE HERE}\ShellFolder.

In the right pane there will be a DWORD value names attributes. Now consider the following options:

To add the Rename option to the menu, change the value of Attributes to 50 01 00 20

To add the Delete option to the menu, change the value of Attributes to 60 01 00 20

To add both the Rename & Delete options to the menu, change the value of Attributes to 70,01,00,20

Add Copy to the menu, change Attributes to 41 01 00 20

Add Cut to the menu, change Attributes to 42 01 00 20

Add Copy & Cut to the menu, change Attributes to 43 01 00 20

Add Paste to the menu, change Attributes to 44 01 00 20

Add Copy & Paste to the menu, change Attributes to 45 01 00 20

Add Cut & Paste to the menu, change Attributes to 46 01 00 20

Add all Cut, Copy & Paste to the menu, change Attributes to 47 01 00 20

We want to add only the Rename option to the right click context menu of the Recycle Bin, so change the value of attributes to: 50 01 00 20. Press F5 to refresh and then after rebooting you will find that when you right click on the Recycle Bin a RENAME option pops up too.

To reset the default Windows options change the value of Attributes back to 40 01 00 20 The Registry File which one can create for the above process would be something like the below:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\Shell-Folder] "Attributes"=hex:50,01,00,20

To access say the Modem Properties in the Control Panel Folder, the normal procedure is: Click on Start, Click on Settings> Control Panel and then wait for the Control Panel window to pop up and then ultimately click on the Modems icon. Wouldn't it be lovely if you could shorten the process to:

Click on Start> Control Panel>Modems. Yes you can add the Control Panel and also all other Special System Folders directly to the first level Start Menu. Firstly collect the CLSID value of the folder you want to add to the start menu. I want to add Control Panel hence the CLSID value is: 21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D

Now right click on the Start Button and select Open. Now create a new folder and name it: Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

NOTE: Do not forget the period after the 'l' in Panel. Similarly all system folders can be added to the Start Menu.(accept My Briefcase, I think)

Deleting System Options from the Start menu You can actually remove the Find and Run options from the start menu by performing a simple registry h@*k. Again like always Launch the registry editor and scroll down to the below key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Right-click on the right pane and select New, DWORD Value. Name it NoFind.(To remove the RUN option name it NoRun). Double-click the newly create DWORD to edit it's value and enter 1 as its value. This will disable the FIND option of the Start Menu and will also disable the default Shortcut key(F3 for Find.)

To restore the Run or find command modify the value of the DWORD to 0 or simply Delete the DWORD value.

Fed Up of the boring Old Yellow Folder Icons?[Drive Icons Included]

NOTE: This trick hasn't been tried on Win98. You can easily change the boring yellow folder icons to your own personalized icons. Simply create a text file and copy the following lines into it:

[.ShellClassInfo]

ICONFILE=Drive:\Path\Icon_name.extension

Save this text file by the name, desktop.ini in the folder, whose icon you want to change. Now to prevent this file from getting deleted change it's attributes to Hidden and Read Only by using the ATTRIB command. To change the icon of a drive, create a text file containing the following lines:

[Autorun]

ICON=Drive:\Path\Icon_name.extension

Save this file in the root of the drive whose icon you want to change and name it autorun.inf For Example, if you want to change the icon of a floppy, SAVE THE icon in a:\icon_name.ico One can also create a kewl icon for the Hard Disk and create a text file [autorun.inf] and store it in "c:\".

Securing NT

By default, NT 4.0 displays the last person who logged onto the system. This can be considered to be a security threat, especially in the case of those who choose their password to be same as their Username. To disable this bug which actually is a feature, go to the following key in the registry editor:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Click and select the ReportBookOK item and create a new string value called

DontDisplayLastUserName. Modify it and set it's value to 1.

As a system administrator, you can ensure that the passwords chosen by the users are not too lame or too easy to guess. NT has this lovely utility called the User Manager which allows the administrator to set the age limit of the password which forces the users to change the password after a certain number of days. You can also set the minimum length of passwords and prevent users to use passwords which already have been used earlier and also enable account lockouts which will deactivate an account after a specified number of failed login attempts.

When you log on to Win NT, you should disable Password Caching, this ensures Single NT Domain login and also prevents secondary Windows Logon screen.

Simply copy the following lines to a plain text ASCII editor like: Notepad and save it with an extension, .reg

----------------DISABLE.reg-----------------

REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Network] "DisablePwdCaching"=dword:00000001

----------------DISABLE.reg-----------------

To Enable Password Caching use the following .reg file:

--------------Enable.reg-----------------

REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Network] "DisablePwdCaching"=dword:00000000

--------------Enable.reg-----------------

Cleaning Recent Docs Menu and the RUN MRU The Recent Docs menu can be easily disabled by editing the Registry. To do this go to the following Key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Now in the right pane, create a new DWORD value by the name: NoRecentDocsMenu and set it's value to 1. Restart Explorer to save the changes. You can also clear the RUN MRU history.

All the listings are stored in the key:

HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU

You can delete individual listings or the entire listing. To delete History of Find listings go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Doc Find Spec MRU and delete.

Customizing the Right Click Context Menu of the Start Menu

When you right click on the start menu, only 3 options pop up: Open, Explore, and Find. You can add your own programs to this pop up menu( which comes up when we right click on it.) Open Regedit and go to the following registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Shell

Right click on the shell and create a new Sub Key (You can create a new SubKey by right clicking on the Shell Key and selecting New > Key.). Type in the name of the application you want to add to the start menu. I want to add Notepad to the Start Menu and hence I name this new sub key, Notepad. Now right click on the new registry key that you just created and create yet another new key named Command. Enter the ful path of the application, in this case Notepad in the default value of Command in the right pane. So I Modify the value of the default string value and enter the ful pathname of Notepad:

c:\wndows\notepad.exe.

Now press F5 to refresh. Now if you right click on the Start Button you will find a new addition to the Pop Up Menu called Notepad. Clicking on it will launch Notepad. We can not only add but also remove the existing options in this pop up box.

To delete the Find option, go to the following registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Shell\Find Delete Find.

DO NOT delete Open else you will not be able to open any folders in the Start Menu like Programs, Accessories etc. BMP Thumbnail As Icon You can actually change the default BMP icon to a thumbnail version of the actual BMP file. To do this simply go to

HKCU\Paint.Picture\Default.

In the right pane change the value of default to %1. Please note however that this will slow down the display rate in explorer if there are too many BMP thumbnails to display. You can use other icons too, simply enter the pathname.To restore back to the normal change the vale of default back to: C:\Progra~1\Access~1\MSPAINT.EXE,1.

Customizing The Shortcut Arrow

All shortcuts have a tiny black arrow attached to it's icon to distinguish from normal files. This arrow can sometimes be pretty annoying and as a Hacker should know how to change each and everything, here goes another trick. Launch the Registry Editor and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Shell Icons.

Now, on the right pane is a list of icons ( we found out that on some systems, Windows 98 especially, the right pane is blank. Don't worry, just add the value as required ). Find the value 29. If it isn't there, just add it. The value of this string should be

C:\Windows\system\shell32.dll, 29 ( which means the 30th icon in shell32.dll - the first one begins with 0 ). Now, we need blank icon to do this. Just create one with white as the whole icon. Go here to learn how to create an icon. Once done just change the value to C:\.ico, 0 where "" is the ful path of the icon file and "0" is the icon in it.

Now for some fun. If the blank icon is a bit boring, change it again. You will find that under shell32.dll there is a gear icon, a shared folder ( the hand ) and much more. Experiment for yourself!

Use Perl to Get List or Services Running on your NT box

Use the following Perl Script to get a list of Services running on your NT system

--------------script.pl-----------------

#!c:\per\bin\perl.exe

use Win32::Service;

my ($key, %service, %status, $part);

Win32::Service::GetServices(' ',\%services);

foreach $key (sort keys %services) { print "Print Name\t: $key, $services{$key}\n"; Win32::Service::GetStatus( ' ',$services{$key};

\%status);

foreach $part (keys %status) { print "\t$part : $status{$part}\n" if($part eq "CurrentState"); } }

-------------script.pl-------------------

Internet Explorer Tricks and Tips

Resizable ful Screen Toolbar

The ful Screen option increases the viewable area and makes surfing more enjoyable but sometimes we need the Toolbar but also need to have extra viewing area. Now this h@*k teaches you how to change the size of the Internet Explorer toolbar. This registry h@*k is a bit complicated as it involves Binary values, so to make it simple, I have included the following registry file which will enable the resizable option of the Internet Explorer toolbar which was present in the beta version of IE.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar] "Theater"=hex:0c,00,00,00,4c,00,00,00,74,00,00,00,18,00,00,00,1b,00,00,00,5c,\ 00,00,00,01,00,00,00,e0,00,00,00,a0,0f,00,00,05,00,00,00,22,00,00,00,26,00,\ 00,00,02,00,00,00,21,00,00,00,a0,0f,00,00,04,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,a0,0f,00,\

00,03,00,00,00,08,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

h@*king TRUTH: Internet Explorer 5 displays the friendly version of HTTP errors like NOT FOUND etc . They are aimed at making things easier for newbies. If you would rather prefer to see the proper error pages for the web server you're using, go to Tools, Internet Options and select the Advanced tab. Then scroll down and uncheck the Show friendly http errors box.

Making the Internet Explorer & the Explorer Toolbars Fancy The Internet Explorer toolbar looks pretty simple. Want to make it fancy and kewl? Why not add a background image to it. To do this kewl h@*k launch the Windows Registry Editor and go to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\Toolbar\.

Now in the right pane create a new String Value and name it BackBitmap and modify it's value to the path of the Bitmap you want to dress it up with by rightclicking on it and choosing Modify. When you reboot the Internet Explorer and the Windows Explorer toolbars will have a new look.

Change Internet Explorer's Caption Don't like the caption of Internet Explorer caption? Want to change it? Open the registry editor and go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main.

In the right pane create a new String Value names Window Title (Note the space between Window and Title). Right click on this newly created String Value and select Modify. Type in the new caption you want to be displayed. Restart for the settings to take place.

Now let's move on to some Outlook Express Tricks.

Colorful Background Don't like the boring background colors of Outlook Express? To change it launch the Windows Registry Editor and scroll down to the

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Mail And News key.

On the left pane, click on ColorCycle or select Edit and Modify in the menu. Now change the value to 1. Close and restart. Now, launch Outlook Express and whenever you open up a New Message, hold down ctrl-shift and tap the z key to scroll to change the background color. Repeat the keystroke to cycle through the colors.

Internet Explorer 5 Hidden Features

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 has several hidden features which can be controlled using the Windows Registry. Open your registry and scroll down to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions

Create a new DWORD value named x(See complete list of values of x below) and modify it's value to 1 to enable it and to 0 to disable it.

NoBrowserClose : Disable the option of closing Internet Explorer.

NoBrowserContextMenu : Disable right-click context menu.

NoBrowserOptions : Disable the Tools / Internet Options menu.

NoBrowserSaveAs : Disable the ability to Save As.

NoFavorites : Disable the Favorites.

NoFileNew : Disable the File / New command.

NoFileOpen : Disable the File / Open command.

NoFindFiles : Disable the Find Files command.

NoSelectDownloadDir : Disable the option of selecting a download directory.

NoTheaterMode : Disable the ful Screen view option.

h@*king Secrets

Almost all system administrators make certain changes and make the system restricted. System Administrators can hide the RUN option, the FIND command, the entire Control Panel, drives in My Computer like D: A: etc. They can even restrict activities of a hacker my disabling or hiding, even the tiniest options or tools.

Most commonly these restrictions are imposed locally and are controlled by the Windows Registry. But sometimes the smart system administrators control the activities of the hacker by imposing restrictions remotely through the main server.

Poledit or Policy Editor is a small kewl tool which is being commonly used by system administrators to alter the settings of a system. This utility is not installed by default by Windows. You need to install in manually from the Windows 98 Installation Kit from the Resource Kit folder. user.dat file that we saw earlier.

The Policy Editor tool imposes restrictions on the user's system by editing the user.dat file which in turn means that it edits the Windows Registry to change the settings. It can be used to control or restrict access to each and every folder and option you could ever think of. It has the power to even restrict access to individual folders, files, the Control Panel, MS DOS, the drives available etc. Sometimes this software does make life really hard for a Hacker. So how can we remove the restrictions imposed by the Policy Editor? Well read ahead to learn more.

You see the Policy Editor is not the only way to restrict a user's activities. As we already know that the Policy Editor edits the Windows Registry(user.dat) file to impose such restrictions. So this in turn would mean that we can directly make changes to the Windows Registry using a .reg file or directly to remove or add restrictions.

Launch Regedit and go to the following Registry Key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/CurrentVersion/Policies

Under this key, there will definitely be a key named explorer. Now under this explorer key we can create new DWORD values and modify it's value to 1 in order to impose the restriction. If you want to remove the Restriction, then you can simply delete the respective DWORD values or instead change their values to 0. The following is a list of DWORD values that can be created under the Explorer Key-:

NoDeletePrinter: Disables Deletion of already installed Printers

NoAddPrinter: Disables Addition of new Printers

NoRun : Disables or hides the Run Command

NoSetFolders: Removes Folders from the Settings option on Start Menu (Control Panel, Printers, Taskbar)

NoSetTaskbar: Removes Taskbar system folder from the Settings option on Start Menu NoFind: Removes the Find Tool (Start >Find)

NoDrives: Hides and does not display any Drives in My Computer

NoNetHood: Hides or removes the Network Neighborhood icon from the desktop

NoDesktop: Hides all items including, file, folders and system folders from the Desktop

NoClose: Disables Shutdown and prevents the user from normally shutting down Windows. NoSaveSettings: Means to say, 'Don't save settings on exit'

DisableRegistryTools: Disable Registry Editing Tools (If you disable this option, the Windows Registry Editor(regedit.exe) too will not work.)

NoRecentDocsHistory: Removes Recent Document system folder from the Start Menu (IE 4 and above)

ClearRecentDocsOnExit: Clears the Recent Documents system folder on Exit.

Nolnternetlcon: Removes the Internet (system folder) icon from the Desktop

Under the same key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/CurrentVersion/Policies

you can create new subkeys other than the already existing Explorer key. Now create a new key and name it System. Under this new key, system we can create the following new DWORD values(1 for enabling the particular option and 0 for disabling the particular option):

NODispCPL: Hides Control Panel

NoDispBackgroundPage: Hides Background page.

NoDispScrsavPage: Hides Screen Saver Page

NoDispAppearancePage: Hides Appearance Page

NoDispSettingsPage: Hides Settings Page

NoSecCPL: Disables Password Control Panel

NoPwdPage: Hides Password Change Page

NoAdminPaqe: Hides Remote Administration Page

NoProfilePage: Hides User Profiles Page

NoDevMgrPage: Hides Device Manager Page

NoConfigPage: Hides Hardware Profiles Page

NoFileSysPage: Hides File System Button

NoVirtMemPage: Hides Virtual Memory Button

Similarly, if we create a new subkey named Network, we can add the following DWORD values under it(1 for enabling the particular option and 0 for disabling the particular option):

NoNetSetupSecurityPage: Hides Network Security Page

NoNelSetup: Hides or disables the Network option in the Control Panel

NoNetSetupIDPage: Hides the Identification Page

NoNetSetupSecurityPage: Hides the Access Control Page

NoFileSharingControl: Disables File Sharing Controls

NoPrintSharing: Disables Print Sharing Controls

Similarly, if we create a new subkey named WinOldApp, we can add the following DWORD values under it(1 for enabling the particular option and 0 for disabling the particular option):

Disabled: Disable MS-DOS Prompt

NoRealMode: Disable Single-Mode MS-DOS.

So you see if you have access to the Windows Registry, then you can easily create new DWORD values and set heir value to 1 for enabling the particular option and 0 for disabling the particular option. But Sometimes, access to the Windows Registry is blocked. So what do you do? Go to the Windows Directory and delete either user.dat or system.dat (These 2 files constitute the Windows Registry.) and reboot. As soon as Windows logs in, it will display a Warning Message informing you about an error in the Windows Registry. Simply ignore this Warning Message and Press CTRL+DEL+ALT to get out of this warning message.(Do not press OK) You will find that all restrictions have been removed.

The most kind of restriction found quite commonly is the Specific Folder Restriction, in which users are not allowed access to specific folders, the most common being the Windows folder, or sometimes even access to My Computer is blocked. In effect, you simply cannot seem to access the important kewl files which are needed by you to do remove restrictions. What do you? Well use the RUN command. (START >RUN). But unfortunately a system administrator who is intelligent enough to block access to specific folder, would definitely have blocked access to the RUN command. Again we are stuck.

Windows is supposed to be the most User Friendly Operating System on earth. (At least Microsoft Says so.)

It gives the User an option to do the same thing in various ways. You see the RUN command is only the most convenient option of launching applications, but not the only way. In Windows you can create shortcuts to almost anything from a file, folder to a Web URL. So say your system administrator has blocked access to the c:\windows\system folder and you need to access it. What do you do? Simply create a Shortcut to it. To do this right click anywhere on the desktop and select New > Shortcut. A new window titled Create Shortcut pops up. Type in the path of the restricted folder you wish to access, in this case c:\windows\system. Click Next, Enter the friendly name of the Shortcut and then click Finish. Now you can access the restricted folder by simply double clicking on the shortcut icon. Well that shows how protected and secure *ahem Windows *ahem is.

h@*king TRUTH:

Sometimes when you try to delete a file or a folder, Windows displays an error message saying that the file is protected. This simply means that the file is write protected, or in other words the R option is +. Get it? Anyway, you can stop Windows from displaying this error message and straightaway delete this file by changing its attributes to Non Read Only. This can be done by Right Clicking on the file, selecting Properties and then unselecting the Read Only Option.

There is yet another way of accessing restricted folders. Use see, DOS has a lovely command known as START. Its general syntax is:

START application_path

It does do what it seems to do, start applications. So in you have access to DOS then you can type in the START command to get access to the restricted folder. Now mostly access to DOS too would be blocked. So again you can use the shortcut trick to launch, c:\command.com or c:\windows\command.com. (Command.com is the file which launches MS DOS).

Accessing Restricted Drives.

The problem with most system administrators is that they think that the users or Hackers too are stupid. Almost all system administrators use the Registry Trick (Explained Earlier) to hide all drives in My Computer. So in order to unhide or display all drives, simply delete that particular key.(Refer to beginning of Untold Secrets Section.)

Some systems have the floppy disk disabled through the BIOS. On those systems if the BIOS is protected, you may need to cr@ck the BIOS password. (For that Refer to the Windows h@*king Chapter). Sometimes making drives readable (Removing R +) and then creating Shortcuts to them also helps us to get access to them.

Further Changing your Operating System's Looks by editing .htt files

If you have installed Windows Desktop Update and have the view as Web Page option enabled, you can customise the way the folder looks by selecting View > Customise this folder. Here you can change the background and other things about that particular folder. Well that is pretty lame, right? We hackers already know things as lame as that. Read on for some kewl stuff.

Well, you could also change the default that is stored in a Hidden HTML Template file (I think so..) which is nothing but a HTML document with a .htt extension. This .htt file is found at: %systemroot%\web\folder.htt.

The %systemroot% stands for the drive in which Windows is Installed, which is normally C:

You can edit these .htt files almost just like you edit normal .HTM or .HTML files. Simply open them in an ASCII editor like Notepad. The following is a list of .htt files on your system which control various folders and which can be edited to customise the way various folders look.

controlp.htt Control Panel

printers.htt Printers

mycomp.htt My Computer

safemode.htt Safe Mode

All these files are found in the web folder in %systemfolder%. The folder.htt file has a line:

'Here's a good place to add a few lines of your own" which is the place where you can add your own A HREF links. These links would then appear in the folder whose folder.htt file you edited. All this might sound really easy and simple, but you see these .htt files do not contain normal HTML code, instead they contain a mixture of HTML and web bots. Hence they can be difficult for newbies to understand.