Posts Tagged ‘Vista’

ROBOCOPY in Detail

Posted: December 24, 2013 in Backup, System Information, Windows 7, Windows XP
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Robust File and Folder Copy.

By default Robocopy will only copy a file if the source and destination have different time stamps or different file sizes.

 

Syntax

ROBOCOPY Source_folder Destination_folder [files_to_copy] [options]

 

Key

file(s)_to_copy : A list of files or a wildcard.

(defaults to copying *.*)

 

  Source options

/S : Copy Subfolders.

/E : Copy Subfolders, including Empty Subfolders.

/COPY:copyflag[s] : What to COPY (default is /COPY:DAT)

(copyflags : D=Data, A=Attributes, T=Timestamps

S=Security=NTFS ACLs, O=Owner info, U=aUditing info).

/SEC : Copy files with SECurity (equivalent to /COPY:DATS).

/DCOPY:T : Copy Directory Timestamps. ##

/COPYALL : Copy ALL file info (equivalent to /COPY:DATSOU).

/NOCOPY : Copy NO file info (useful with /PURGE).

 

/A : Copy only files with the Archive attribute set.

/M : like /A, but remove Archive attribute from source files.

/LEV:n : Only copy the top n LEVels of the source tree.

 

/MAXAGE:n : MAXimum file AGE – exclude files older than n days/date.

/MINAGE:n : MINimum file AGE – exclude files newer than n days/date.

(If n < 1900 then n = no of days, else n = YYYYMMDD date).

 

/FFT : Assume FAT File Times (2-second date/time granularity).

/256 : Turn off very long path (> 256 characters) support.

 

Copy options

/L : List only – don’t copy, timestamp or delete any files.

/MOV : MOVe files (delete from source after copying).

/MOVE : Move files and dirs (delete from source after copying).

 

/Z : Copy files in restartable mode (survive network glitch).

/B : Copy files in Backup mode.

/ZB : Use restartable mode; if access denied use Backup mode.

/IPG:n : Inter-Packet Gap (ms), to free bandwidth on slow lines.

 

/R:n : Number of Retries on failed copies – default is 1 million.

/W:n : Wait time between retries – default is 30 seconds.

/REG : Save /R:n and /W:n in the Registry as default settings.

/TBD : Wait for sharenames To Be Defined (retry error 67).

 

Destination options

 

/A+:[RASHCNET] : Set file Attribute(s) on destination files + add.

/A-:[RASHCNET] : UnSet file Attribute(s) on destination files – remove.

/FAT: Create destination files using 8.3 FAT file names only.

 

/CREATE: CREATE directory tree structure + zero-length files only.

/DST: Compensate for one-hour DST time differences ##

/PURGE: Delete dest files/folders that no longer exist in source.

/MIR: MIRror a directory tree – equivalent to /PURGE plus all subfolders (/E)

 

Logging options

/L: List only – don’t copy, timestamp or delete any files.

/NP: No Progress – don’t display % copied.

/LOG:file : Output status to LOG file (overwrite existing log).

/UNILOG:file : Output status to Unicode Log file (overwrite) ##

/LOG+:file : Output status to LOG file (append to existing log).

/UNILOG+:file : Output status to Unicode Log file (append) ##

/TS : Include Source file Time Stamps in the output.

/FP : Include Full Pathname of files in the output.

/NS : No Size – don’t log file sizes.

/NC : No Class – don’t log file classes.

/NFL : No File List – don’t log file names.

/NDL : No Directory List – don’t log directory names.

/TEE : Output to console window, as well as the log file.

/NJH : No Job Header.

/NJS : No Job Summary.

 

 Repeated Copy Options

/MON:n : MONitor source; run again when more than n changes seen.

/MOT:m : MOnitor source; run again in m minutes Time, if changed.

 

/RH:hhmm-hhmm : Run Hours – times when new copies may be started.

/PF : Check run hours on a Per File (not per pass) basis.

 

 Job Options

/JOB:jobname : Take parameters from the named JOB file.

/SAVE:jobname : SAVE parameters to the named job file

/QUIT : QUIT after processing command line (to view parameters).

/NOSD : NO Source Directory is specified.

/NODD : NO Destination Directory is specified.

/IF : Include the following Files.

 

Advanced options you’ll probably never use

/EFSRAW : Copy any encrypted files using EFS RAW mode. ##

/MT[:n] : Multithreaded copying, n = no. of threads to use (1-128) ###

default = 8 threads, not compatible with /IPG and /EFSRAW

The use of /LOG is recommended for better performance.

 

/SECFIX : FIX file SECurity on all files, even skipped files.

/TIMFIX : FIX file TIMes on all files, even skipped files.

 

/XO : eXclude Older – if destination file exists and is the same date or newer than the source – don’t bother to overwrite it.

/XC | /XN : eXclude Changed | Newer files

/XL : eXclude “Lonely” files and dirs (present in source but not destination)

This will prevent any new files being added to the destination.

/XX : eXclude “eXtra” files and dirs (present in destination but not source)

This will prevent any deletions from the destination. (this is the default)

 

/XF file [file]… : eXclude Files matching given names/paths/wildcards.

/XD dirs [dirs]… : eXclude Directories matching given names/paths.

XF and XD can be used in combination  e.g.

ROBOCOPY c:\source d:\dest /XF *.doc *.xls /XD c:\unwanted /S

 

/IA:[RASHCNETO] : Include files with any of the given Attributes

/XA:[RASHCNETO] : eXclude files with any of the given Attributes

/IS : Include Same, overwrite files even if they are already the same.

/IT : Include Tweaked files.

/XJ : eXclude Junction points. (normally included by default).

 

/MAX:n : MAXimum file size – exclude files bigger than n bytes.

/MIN:n : MINimum file size – exclude files smaller than n bytes.

/MAXLAD:n : MAXimum Last Access Date – exclude files unused since n.

/MINLAD:n : MINimum Last Access Date – exclude files used since n.

(If n < 1900 then n = n days, else n = YYYYMMDD date).

 

/BYTES : Print sizes as bytes.

/X : Report all eXtra files, not just those selected & copied.

/V : Produce Verbose output log, showing skipped files.

/ETA : Show Estimated Time of Arrival of copied files.

## = New Option in Vista (XP027) all other options are valid for the XP version of Robocopy (XP010)

### = New Option in Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2

 

Robocopy EXIT CODES

 

File Attributes [RASHCNETO]

 

R – Read only

A – Archive

S – System

H – Hidden

C – Compressed

N – Not content indexed

E – Encrypted

T – Temporary

O – Offline

If either the source or desination are a “quoted long foldername” do not include a trailing backslash as this will be treated as an escape character, i.e. “C:\some path\” will fail but “C:\some path\\” or “C:\some path\.” or “C:\some path” will work.

 

By copying only the files that have changed, robocopy can be used to backup very large volumes.

 

ROBOCOPY will accept UNC pathnames including UNC pathnames over 256 characters long.

 

/REG Writes to the registry at HKCU\Software\Microsoft\ResKit\Robocopy

 

/XX (exclude extra) If used in conjunction with /Purge or /Mir, this switch will take precedence and prevent any files being deleted from the destination.

 

To limit the network bandwidth used by robocopy, specify the Inter-Packet Gap parameter /IPG:n

This will send packets of 64 KB each followed by a delay of n Milliseconds.

 

Open Files

 

Robocopy will fail to copy files that are locked by other users or applications, so limiting the number of retries with /R:0 will speed up copying by skipping any in-use files. The Windows Volume Shadow Copy service is the only Windows subsystem that can copy open files. Robocopy does not use the Volume Shadow Copy service, but it can backup a volume shadow that has already been created with VSHADOW or DISKSHADOW.

 

Permissions

 

All versions of Robocopy will copy security information (ACLs) for directories, version XP010 will not copy file security changes unless the file itself has also changed, this greatly improves performance.

 

/B (backup mode) will allow Robocopy to override file and folder permission settings (ACLs).

 

ERROR 5 (0x00000005) Changing File Attributes … Access is denied

This error usually means that File/Folder permissions or Share permissions on either the source or the destination are preventing the copy, either change the permissions or run the command in backup mode with /B.

 

To run ROBOCOPY under a non-administrator account will require backup files privilege, to copy security information auditing privilege is also required, plus of course you need at least read access to the files and folders.

 

Availability

 

Robocopy is a standard command in Windows 7 and above. The Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools include Robocopy XP010, which can be run on NT 4/ Windows 2000. Robocopy does not run on Windows 95, or NT 3.5. (RoboCopy is a Unicode application).

 

Robocopy ‘Jobs’ and the ‘MOnitor source’ option provide an alternative to setting up a Scheduled Task to run a batchfile with a RoboCopy command.

 

Examples:

 

Copy files from one server to another including subfolders (/S)

If this command is run repeatedly it will skip any files already in the destination, however it is not a true mirror as any files deleted from the source will remain in the destination.

 

ROBOCOPY \\Server1\reports \\Server2\backup *.doc /S

List files over 32 MBytes in size:

 

ROBOCOPY C:\work /MAX:33554432 /L

Move files over 14 days old: (note the MOVE option will fail if any files are open and locked.)

 

ROBOCOPY C:\work C:\destination /move /minage:14

Backup a Server:

The script below copies data from FileServ1 to FileServ2, the destination holds a full mirror along with file security info. When run regularly to synchronize the source and destination, robocopy will only copy those files that have changed (change in time stamp or size.)

 

@ECHO OFF

SETLOCAL

 

SET _source=\\FileServ1\e$\users

 

SET _dest=\\FileServ2\e$\BackupUsers

 

SET _what=/COPYALL /B /SEC /MIR

:: /COPYALL :: COPY ALL file info

:: /B :: copy files in Backup mode.

:: /SEC :: copy files with SECurity

:: /MIR :: MIRror a directory tree

 

SET _options=/R:0 /W:0 /LOG:MyLogfile.txt /NFL /NDL

:: /R:n :: number of Retries

:: /W:n :: Wait time between retries

:: /LOG :: Output log file

:: /NFL :: No file logging

:: /NDL :: No dir logging

 

ROBOCOPY %_source% %_dest% %_what% %_options%

 

Run two robocopy jobs at the same time with START /Min

 

Start /Min “Job one” Robocopy \\FileServA\C$\Database1 \\FileServeBackupA\c$\Backups

Start /Min “Job two” Robocopy \\FileServB\C$\Database2 \\FileServeBackupB\c$\Backups

 

 

Related Posts:

Robocopy Error 5

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Education First, Bangalore [EF]

Posted: April 12, 2011 in EF, Uncategorized
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EF stands for “Education First”. Founded in 1965 by entrepreneur Bertil Hult, EF is a privately-held company with 16 divisions that offer a range of educational programs from language training, educational travel, and academic degrees to cultural exchanges. With a mission to break down barriers in language, culture and geography, EF has helped people of all ages and nationalities become citizens of the world.

From Berlin to Beijing, Moscow to Mexico City, Dubai to Denver, EF operates 400 schools and offices in over 50 countries. EF’s global network includes 9,000 staff and 25,000 teachers and guides. To date, EF has helped over 15 million people to learn a new language, discover the world, or earn an academic degree.

“Education First” is more than our company name. It is our corporate passion.

EF’s mission is to break down the barriers of language, culture and geography that divide us.

The Official Website

 

About EF Bangalore

It all started with the idea that rather than outsourcing our systems development and maintenance, we could do it smarter and better ourselves – with our own people!

Just over a year and a half ago, a team of people therefore came to Bangalore, the Santa Barbara of India, interviewing hundreds and hundreds of people to find the most remarkable talent the market could offer. We started small, hiring only the best of the best, and began the journey from a very tiny temporary office.

 

As the number of highly skilled people grew, we also initiated the hunt for a bigger and more suitable workplace. After months of negotiations with landlords and architects, innumerous approval stamps, vanished construction workers and delayed furniture, we finally got everything in place and moved in to our new EF office on Cambridge Road on February 1st.

The office was built on the notion that you should feel at home, even when you are in the office; it should be a place where creativity and ideas spire, where you can feel the energy and power to achieve the impossible, and where your friends and colleagues inspire you to walk the extra mile.

We in Bangalore are very proud of our new office and would love for you to come and visit, maybe have a chai in our coffee lounge or enjoy the views from our roof terrace. And, we would of course take the opportunity to show you what we can and will achieve with technology!

Get IT right! Own IT!

Steps to enable BitLocker on your computer

Posted: September 19, 2010 in Active Directory, System Information, Vista
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Steps to enable BitLocker on your computer:

  1. Click Start Control Panel Security BitLocker Drive Encryption.
  2. If the User Account Control dialog box appears, verify that the proposed action is what you requested, and then click Continue.
  3. From the BitLocker Drive Encryption screen, click Turn On BitLocker on the Windows OS volume. If your TPM is not initialized, you will see the Initialize TPM Security Hardware Wizard. Follow the directions to switch on the TPM and reboot your computer. Once the TPM is initialized, click Turn On BitLocker on the system volume again.
  4. In the Save the recovery password dialog box, you will see the following options:
  • Save the password on a USB drive. Saves the password to a removable drive.
  • Save the password in a folder. Saves the password to a network drive or other location.
  • Print the password. Prints the password.
  1. Choose any of these options to preserve the recovery password.
  2. From the “Encrypt the selected disk volume” dialog box, confirm the Run BitLocker System check box is checked and click Continue.
  3. Confirm you want to reboot the computer by clicking Restart Now. The computer reboots and BitLocker ensures that the computer is BitLocker-compatible and ready for encryption. If it is not, you will see an error message alerting you to the problem before encryption starts.
  4. If it is ready for encryption, the Encryption in Progress status bar is displayed. You can monitor the ongoing completion status of the disk volume encryption by dragging your mouse cursor over the BitLocker Drive Encryption icon in the toolbar at the bottom of your screen.

BitLocker Components

Posted: September 19, 2010 in Active Directory, System Information, Vista
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BitLocker contains four main components: a single Microsoft TPM driver, an API called TPM Base Services (TBS), BitLocker Drive Encryption, and a WMI provider.

Like most hardware, a TPM chip needs a driver to expose its functionality to the operating system and, ultimately, to applications. By including the Microsoft TPM driver within Windows Vista, we gain increased stability and can more easily leverage the TPM’s security features. To use a TPM with BitLocker, you must allow Vista to use the Microsoft driver. The Microsoft driver works with TPM chips that are at version 1.2 or newer.

TPM Base Services (TBS) is an application programming interface (API) that allows applications to access the services provided by a TPM. In this aspect, even though it is part of the Windows operating system, BitLocker is an “application” that uses TBS. The advantage of this architecture is that other applications could also make use of the TPM. After Vista is in the marketplace for a while, I believe we will see other security applications that call on TBS. TBS also allows the TPM to be managed within Windows Vista from the TPM Management Console, instead of forcing users to navigate through endless BIOS screens.

BitLocker Drive Encryption, itself, is the OS component that encrypts and decrypts data on the volume, and uses the TPM to validate the pre-OS boot components. BitLocker has a number of options that can change its default behaviour, many of which are exposed through Group Policy settings.

BitLocker is also totally scriptable and manageable. In addition to Group Policy options, BitLocker and TBS both include Windows Management Interface (WMI) providers. WMI is the Windows implementation of Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM), so any WBEM console can also be used with BitLocker. More usefully, though, this WMI interface allows BitLocker to be scripted, and Vista includes a scripted utility called manage-bde.wsf, which allows you to configure and control BitLocker from the command line or a batch file, either locally or remotely.

It is also worth noting here, even though we talk about it in more detail later in the chapter, BitLocker integrates with Active Directory Domain Services to store TPM and BitLocker information that can be used for recovery.

Enabling automatic logon in Vista

Posted: June 9, 2010 in Hack, Registry, System Information, Vista
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If you are the primary user of your computer and you do not have any other users, or if everyone in your household uses the same username, you are the perfect candidate for enabling automatic logon. Automatic logon is a great technique that will save you time that is often wasted when your computer is waiting for you to type your password. Even if you do not have a password assigned to your account, you are still required by the logon welcome screen to click your name to sign in. Having to do these tasks yourself is unnecessary and a waste of time if you are a candidate for automatic logon.

Caution Automatic logon can be a great feature but it can also create a security problem for your computer. If you use your computer for business, if you have data you prefer to keep safe from others, or both, I strongly recommend that you do not enable this feature. If you happen to step out of your office or if your laptop is stolen, you have left the door to your computer wide open. By enabling automatic logon, you are trading convenience for physical access security. However, you are not changing your network security, so your data is still safe from network attackers. The risk of someone remotely connecting to your computer is the same as if you did not have automatic logon enabled.

Enabling automatic logon is a quick and easy Registry hack. Follow these steps to speed up your sign-on with automatic logon:

  1. Click the Start button, type regedit in the Search box, and then press Enter.
  2. After Registry Editor has started, navigate through HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon.
  3. Locate the AutoAdminLogon entry. If the key does not exist, create it by right-clicking the Winlogon folder and selecting New and then Registry String.
  4. Right-click the AutoAdminLogon entry and select Modify. Set the Value to 1. Then press OK to save the new value.
  5. Locate the DefaultUserName entry or create it if it does not exist.
  6. Right-click DefaultUserName and select Modify. Set the value to the username that you primarily use to sign in to Windows. Press OK.
  7. Locate the DefaultPassword entry or create it if it does not exist.
  8. Right-click the DefaultPassword entry and set the Value to your password.
  9. Close Registry Editor and restart your computer.

After you reboot your computer, Windows Vista should automatically sign on to your account. You will notice that your computer will now get to the desktop much quicker than before. If you ever want to disable automatic logon, just go back into Registry Editor and set the AutoAdminLogon entry to 0.

Registry Keys Intended for Power Management

Posted: May 22, 2010 in Registry, Server 2003, Server 2008, System Information, Vista, Windows 7, Windows XP
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In this section, we’ll discuss the registry keys that are used for power management. You may edit any of them using one of the registry editors.

Note Changing registry entries responsible for power management won’t have an immediate effect. Windows only reads settings from the registry when you log on, when you click OK in Control Panel, or when a Powerprof.dll function is called on to read the registry.

The registry keys used for power management are listed below.

  • HKCU\AppEvents\EventLabels\LowBatteryAlarm – descriptive name of a low battery-power-alarm event
  • HKCU\AppEvents\EventLabels\CriticalBatteryAlarm – descriptive name of a critical battery-power-alarm event
  • HKCU\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\PowerCfg\LowBatteryAlarm\.Current, HKCU\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\PowerCfg\LowBatteryAlarm\.Default, HKCU\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\PowerCfg\CriticalBatteryAlarm\.Current, HKCU\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\PowerCfg\CriticalBatteryAlarm\.Default – filenames of the WAV files that will play as a low and critical power-alarm events
  • HKCU\Control Panel\PowerCfg\CurrentPowerPolicy – index of current user and machine power policy
  • HKCU\Control Panel\PowerCfg\GlobalPowerPolicy\Policies – the user global power policy (binary encoded data)
  • HKCU\Control Panel\PowerCfg\PowerPolicies\n\Name – name of power scheme n, where n = 0, 1, 2, etc.
  • HKCU\Control Panel\PowerCfg\PowerPolicies\n\Description – descriptive string for power scheme n, where n = 0, 1, 2, etc.
  • HKCU\Control Panel\PowerCfg\PowerPolicies\n\Policies – user power policy n, where n = 0, 1, 2, etc. (binary encoded data)
  • HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Controls Folder\PowerCfg\LastID – index of the last power policy in the lists of user and machine power policies (for example, if there are six user power policies and six machine power policies in the registry, the value of this key is 5)
  • HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Controls Folder\PowerCfg\DiskSpinDownMax – the maximum disk spin-down time that Control Panel will allow the user to set
  • HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Controls Folder\PowerCfg\DiskSpinDownMin – the minimum disk spin-down time that Control Panel will allow the user to set
  • HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Controls Folder\PowerCfg\GlobalPowerPolicy\Policies – the machine global power policy (binary encoded data)
  • HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Controls Folder\PowerCfg\PowerPolicies\n\Policies – machine power policy n, where n = 0, 1, 2, etc. (binary encoded data)

Power Schemes Configuration in Registry

Posted: May 22, 2010 in Registry, Server 2003, System Information, Windows 7, Windows XP
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Power management configuration in Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 is based on the concept of power schemes. A power scheme is a group of preset power options that are passed to the Power Policy Manager component of the operating system to control the machine’s power-management behavior.

Each power scheme consists of a global power-policy structure and a power-policy structure.

  • Global power-policy structures contain preset power options that are global across all power schemes.
  • Non-global power-policy structures contain power options that are unique to a particular power scheme.

These power-policy structures are further divided into machine structures and user structures.

  • Values in machine structures are stored in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE registry key, and none of these values are exposed in the user interface. For example, you can’t set any of these values using the Power Options applet in the Control Panel.
  • Values in user structures are stored in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry key and some of these values are displayed in the user interface. Some of these parameters can be set using the Power Options applet in Control Panel.

The data structures defining power management policy are listed below:

  • GLOBAL_POWER_POLICY – used to manage global power policies. This structure contains the data common to all power schemes. This structure is a container for a GLOBAL_USER_POWER_POLICY structure and a GLOBAL_MACHINE_POWER_POLICY structure, which contains elements that are read from and written to the registry.
  • GLOBAL_MACHINE_POWER_POLICY – this structure is a part of the GLOBAL_POWER_POLICY structure. It contains the data common to all power schemes and users. The elements in this structure are read from and written to the HKLM key in the registry.
  • GLOBAL_USER_POWER_POLICY – this structure is a part of the GLOBAL_POWER_POLICY structure. It contains the data common to all power schemes for the user. The elements in this structure are read from and written to the HKCU key in the registry.
  • POWER_POLICY – used to manage non-global power policies. This structure contains the data unique for all power schemes. This structure is a container for the USER_POWER_POLICY and MACHINE_POWER_POLICY structures that contain the elements to be read from and written to the registry. There is one POWER_POLICY structure for each power scheme on a machine.
  • MACHINE_POWER_POLICY – this structure is a part of the POWER_POLICY structure. It contains the data unique to each power scheme, but common to all users. The elements in this structure are read from and written to the HKLM key in the registry.
  • USER_POWER_POLICY – this structure is a part of the POWER_POLICY structure. It contains the data unique to each user and power scheme. The elements in this structure are read from and written to the HKCU key in the registry.

Secure Your Vista In 10 Steps

Posted: November 12, 2009 in Security, System Basics, System Information, System Modifications, Tweaking, Vista
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While Windows Vista may be Microsoft Corp’s most secure operating system ever, it’s far from completely secure. In its fresh-from-the-box configuration, Vista still leaves a chance for your personal data to leak out to the Web through Windows Firewall or for some wicked bot to tweak your browser settings without your knowledge.

But by making a few judicious changes using the security tools within Windows Vista — and in some cases by adding a few pieces of free software –you can lock down your operating system like a pro.

1. Use Windows Security Centre as a starting point

For a quick overview of your security settings, the Windows Security Center is where you’ll find the status of your system firewall, auto update, malware protection and other security settings. Click Start, Control Panel, SecurityCenter, or you can simply click the shield icon in the task tray. If you see any red or yellow, you are not fully protected.

For example, if you have not yet installed an antivirus product on your machine, or if your current antivirus product is out of date, the malware section of the Security Center should be yellow. Windows does not offer a built-in antivirus utility, so you’ll want to install your own. For free antivirus,

I recommend Avast 4.8 Home Edition.

2. Use Windows Defender as a diagnostic tool

The malware section of Windows Vista also protects against spyware using Windows Defender. The antispyware protection in your antivirus program usually trumps the protection Microsoft provides, but there are several good reasons to keep Windows Defender enabled. One is that every antispyware program uses a different definition of what is and is not spyware, so redundant protection can actually offer some benefit.

Another reason to keep Windows Defender enabled: diagnostics. Click Tools, and choose Software Explorer from the resulting pane. You can display lists of applications from several categories such as Currently Running Programs, Network Connected Programs and Winsock Service Providers, but Start-u

p Programs is perhaps the most useful. Click on any name in the left window, and full details will appear in the right pane. By highlighting, you can remove, disable or enable any of the programs listed.

3. Disable the start-up menu

Windows Vista keeps track of all the documents and programs you launch in the start-up menu. This can be convenient for some users, but it can also compromise your privacy if you share a computer within an office or household. Fortunately, Windows Vista provides an easy way to tweak this setting

. To protect your privacy, follow these steps:

* Right-click on the task bar and select “Properties.”

* Click on the Start Menu tab.

* Uncheck “Store and display a list of recently opened files.”

* Uncheck “Store and display a list of recently opened programs.”

* Click “OK.”

4. Get two-way firewall protection

No desktop should be without a personal firewall, but even if the Security Center says you’re protected, you may not be. The Windows Firewall within Vista blocks all incoming traffic that might be malicious or suspicious — and that’s good. But outbound protection is not enabled by default. That’s a dangerous situation if some new malicious software finds its way onto your PC.

Microsoft did include the tools for Windows Vista to have a true two-way firewall, but finding the setting is a little complicated. (Hint: Don’t go looking the Windows Firewall settings dialog box.

To get two-way firewall protection in Windows Vista, do the following:

* Click on the Start button; in the search space, type “wf.msc” and press Enter.

* Click on the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security icon. This management interface displays the inbound and outbound rules.

* Click on Windows Firewalls Properties. You should now see a dialog box with several tabs.

* For each profile — Domain, Private and Public — change the setting to

Block, and then click OK.

Even if you do this tweak, I recommend adding a more robust third-party firewall. I suggest either Comodo Firewall Pro or ZoneAlarm, both of which are free and fare very well in independent firewall testing.

5. Lock out unwanted guests

If you share your computer with others — and even if you don’t – Windows Vista includes a neat way to keep unwanted guests from guessing your systems administrator password. When you set up users and declare one user as administrator with full privileges, Windows Vista allows an outsider unlimited guesses at the password you chose. Here’s how to limit the guesses.

* Click Start, then type “Local Security Policy.”

* Click Account Lockout Policy.

* Choose Account Lockout Threshold.

* At the prompt, enter the number of invalid log-ins you’ll accept (say, three).

* Click OK and close.

6. Now audit your attackers

With the Account Lockout policy in place, you can now enable auditing to see any account attacks. To turn on auditing for failed log-on events, do the following:

* Click the Start button, type “secpol.msc,” and click the secpol icon.

* Click on Local Policies and then Audit Policy.

* Right-click on “Audit account log-on events policy,” and select Properties.

* Check the Failure box, and click OK.

* Right-click on “Audit log-on events policy” and select Properties.

* Check the Failure box and click OK.

* Close the Local Security Policy window.

You can then use the Event Viewer (by running eventvwr.msc) to view the logs under Windows Logs and Security.

7. Secure your Internet Explorer settings

The Windows Security Center will also report whether your Internet Explorer 7(or IE 8) security settings are at their recommended levels. If the screen shows this section as red, you can adjust the settings within the browser itself.

* Within Internet Explorer, click Tools in the menu bar.

* From the drop-down menu, click Internet Options.

* Choose the Security tab.

* Within the Security tab, click Custom Level.

Here you’ll see a window with all the security options for the browser. If any are below the recommended level (if, say, some malware reconfigured your browser settings), these options will be highlighted in red.

To change an individual setting, click the appropriate radio button. To reset them all, use the button near the bottom of the tab. You can also change the overall security setting for Internet Explorer from the default Medium-High setting to the recommended High or Medium, if you wish. Click OK to save and close.

8. Use OpenDNS Domain Name System (DNS) servers act as a phone book. When you type “pcworld.com” in the address bar, for instance, your browser sends that common

-name request to your Internet service provider’s DNS servers to be converted into a series of numbers, or an IP address.

Lately, DNS servers have come under attack, with criminals seeking to redirect common DNS preferences to servers that they control. One way to stop such abuse is to use OpenDNS.

Go to Start, Control Panel, Network and Internet, and then click Network and Sharing Center. Under the tasks listed on the left, click Manage Network Connections. In the Manage Network Connections window, do the following:

* Right-click on the icon representing your network card.

* Click Properties.

* Click Internet Protocol Version 4.

* Click the Properties button.

* Select the Use the following DNS server addresses radio button.

* Type in a primary address of 208.67.222.222.

* Type in a secondary address of 208.67.220.220.

* Click OK.

9. Live with User Account Control

One area where some people might want to see the Windows Security Center turn red is User Account Control (UAC), perhaps the most controversial security feature within Windows Vista. Designed to keep rogue remote software from automatically installing (among other things), UAC has a tendency to thwart legitimate software installations by interrupting the process several times with useless messages.

In Windows 7, you’ll be able to set UAC to the level you want. Until then, you do have some options. One is to disable UAC. I would caution against that, since UAC is meant to warn you of potential danger.

Instead, install TweakUAC, a free utility that enables you to turn UAC on or off as well as provides an intermediate “quiet” mode that keeps UAC on but suppresses administration-elevation prompts. With TweakUAC in quiet mode, UAC will appear to be off to those running as administrator accounts, while people with standard user accounts will still be prompted.

10. Check your work

Now that you’ve tweaked Windows Vista, you can keep tabs on your system’s security with the System Health Report. This diagnostic tool takes input from the Performance and Reliability Monitor and turns it into an information-packed report that can spotlight potential security problems.

* Open Control Panel.

* Click System.

* In the Tasks list, click Performance (near the bottom).

* In the resulting Tasks list, click Advanced tools (near the top).

* Click the last item on the resulting list — “Generate a system health report.”

The report will list any missing drivers that might be causing error codes, tell you whether your antivirus protection is installed and declare whether UAC is turned on. You may want to run this report once a month just to make sure everything is still good.

Steps to Reset Vista Password

Posted: November 12, 2009 in Bios, Registry, Tricks, Vista
Tags: ,
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1. Reboot the Windows Vista and boot up with Windows Vista installation DVD.

2. While the Windows Vista installation interface pops up, click the Repair You Computer link at the bottom-left corner.

3. Next, the System Recovery Options dialog box appears. There are few

options that related to repairing Windows Vista, looks like Recovery Console in Windows XP:

Startup Repair options are used to automatically fix problems that are preventing Windows Vista from starting.

System Restore to restore Windows Vista setting to an earlier point in time.

Windows Complete PC Restore to restore Windows Vista from a full system backup.

Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool could be the first Microsoft memory

tester toolkit that bundled with Windows setup media.

Command Prompt is the target option of this Vista hacking guide. Click

on this option now.

4. In the Vista Command Prompt, type mmc.exe and press ENTER key to

bring up the Microsoft Management Console.

5. Click on the File menu, select Add / Remove Snap-in option, locate and

select the Local Users and Groups on the left panel, and click Add button to

add it to the right panel.

6. Now, the Choose Target Machine dialog box pop up. Keep the default setting by clicking the Finish button – that means using the Local Users an

d Groups snap-in to manage this local computer, and not another computer in network.

7. Click OK button and return to MMC windows. Under the Root Console in

left panel, double-click Local Users and Group that was added earlier. Click on User folder, locate and right-click the target Vista logon account that found in the right panel.

Guess you should know what to do now. Select the Set Password from the right-click menu to set a new password / reset old password.

How to Avoid Malware

Posted: October 13, 2009 in Internet, System Basics, System Information
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Here are some tips to ensure malware is not given access to your computer:

• Keep your computer up to date.

• Keep your browser up to date.

• Install good antimalware.

• Download free software only from sites you know and trust.

• Avoid clicking links inside pop-up windows.

• If you are offered antimalware programs while browsing, don’t install them. Stick with the software I outline in this handbook.

By following these rules, you’ll protect yourself and decrease the chances of getting malware on your system. The rest of this handbook will show you how to apply the first three tips listed above.

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