Section: Computer
The latest routers, security suites, and software patches can help protect your PC against today’s ever-more-sophisticated Internet attacks.
These security tools are easy to install, easy to maintain, and provide the average PC user with basic protection against viruses, botnets, Trojans, rootkits, and other types of malware.
Keeping your PC secure goes far beyond convenience it can protect you against significant financial loss. That’s not hyperbole: according to the Internet Crime Complaint Center’s 2009 annual report (available from the IC3 site), Internet crime losses more than doubled through 2009 to more than U.S. $559 million!
But it’s not hard to provide a reasonable level of basic security for any PC. For average PC users, the basic rule for keeping PCs secure has not changed keep it simple, keep it up-to-date.
The WS Security Baseline summarizes the latest reviews from trusted computer test labs. The current status of these reviews will be periodically updated on the Security Baseline page at Pctipsbox.com. Read More»
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According to Microsoft, a total of two computers are more than sufficient to qualify a customer for Volume Licensing, Software Assurance and the adjacent benefits. Eric Ligman, Global Partner Experience lead Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group, revealed that, despite the common belief for some that a minimum of five PCs was necessary for Volume Licensing, the fact of the matter was that two machines were more than enough.
The misconception comes from the fact that Microsoft sets a minimum number of five licenses that need to be purchased by business customers as a part of their Volume Licensing agreement. However, the Redmond company doesn’t specify in what manner users will deploy the software they licensed.
“Both the Open License and Open Value licensing programs require a minimum order of five (5); however, it is not 5 computers, it is 5 Licenses (for Open License) or 5 Licenses+Software Assurance or Software Assurance alone (for Open Value),” Ligman stated, offering “an example of how a two computer company could easily qualify for Open License.” According to Ligman, a customer could install Windows and Office on a PC and Windows and Office plus Streets and Trips on a second machine in order to qualify for a Volume License agreement. Read More»
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When it comes to user management in windows, either it is for a domain administrator or local system administrator, they might feel helpless with the default user management interface, as it does not provide options for all user accounts to list their status, enable or disable them in easy way.
Chilly User Management is a free to use utility which allows managing user accounts within the Domain. Apart from managing and providing information about local user accounts, the software also allows the administrator to reset the local user password and enable or disable account status.
This freeware supports administrator in taking complete control of the local useraccounts of their domain users.
As shown in the application snapshot above, you can easily change the username or password for any user on any PC on your network with this utility. It is a enterprise levelsoftware for Active Directory that eliminates the need to manage user accounts locally. Read More»
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February 28, 2010 by
Jason
There are several ways to launch apps quickly, using either mouse or keyboard.
Direct method: You can assign keystrokes to launch any shortcut. Right-click the shortcut and choose Properties. On the Shortcut tab, click in the Shortcut key box and then press the keys you want to use to launch the shortcut. Click OK.
A word of warning: Be careful not to reassign other useful keyboard shortcuts you may have already assigned. Also, you can assign keyboard shortcuts only to icon shortcuts — not the actual icon of a document or application.
Search method: In Vista and Win 7, press the Windows key to open the Start menu. Then type a few letters until the search tool finds the program you want to launch; press Enter. The catch — if you have several programs starting with the same characters, you end up taking more time typing than if you simply mouse-clicked the application’s icon.
Menu method: For me, the “classic” Start menu provides a better solution. If you organize shortcuts into a hierarchy of menus, each starting with a unique character, you can navigate the menus quickly and launch most programs with only 3 or 4 keystrokes. Read More»
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February 25, 2010 by
Jason A computer on which Windows 7 has been deployed via a clean install can stop responding completely after the second restart. This issue also affects Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft informed, and is related to the 1394 bus driver.
According to the Redmond company, machines running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 can also stop responding when customers enable or install a 1394 device. The IEEE 1394 is a serial bus interface standard most known by the following brands FireWire (Apple), i.LINK (Sony), and Lynx (Texas Instruments).
Microsoft even offered an example of the hardware configuration on which users have been experiencing this problem. The software giant notes that the issue affects PCs with nVidia MCP7A-GeForce 9300 rev B1 motherboard that also feature an LSI Logic FW533 or an FW643 1394 Host controller. Disabling and then enabling, as well as uninstalling and then installing the 1394 host controller will render the machine unresponsive, as will restarting the computer, or putting it to sleep and then waking it.
“This issue occurs because the 1394 bus driver in Windows 7 does not issue an Open Host Controller Interface (OHCI) Soft Reset command to the 1394 host controller when the computer enters a low power (D3) state. When the 1394 host controller later enters a high power (D0) state, it may generate an incorrect PCI-Express packet. In this situation, the motherboard chipset stops responding,” Microsoft explained.
Ahead of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, the 1394 bus driver in Windows platforms generated an Open Host Controller Interface (OHCI) Soft Reset command to the 1394 host controller concomitantly with the moment when the PC was entering a low power state. Microsoft doesn’t offer users an update to fix the issue.
However, the company does have a hotfix available for download via Microsoft Support. “If the 1394 host controller is an add-on card, remove the card from the system before you install Windows 7. After setup is complete, apply this hotfix, and then re-enable the 1394 host controller,” the company advised affected users.
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February 04, 2010 by
Jason Want to know what your Windows EULA looks like? Windows XP’s EULA is stored in a file located here:
C:\Windows\System32\eula.txt
XP also has a help file associated with the EULA. The help file is located at:
C:\Windows\Help\license.chm
In Vista and Windows 7, one version of the EULA is stored in the following location:
C:\Windows\System32\license.rtf
But Vista and Win7 also store other EULAs on the system. For example, Win7’s license library for the US-English version of the software is at this location:
C:\Windows\System32\en-US\Licenses
In fact, my test PC has 54 separate Win7 EULAs in that folder! Read More»
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January 09, 2010 by
Jason Microsoft Network Monitor
Microsoft Network Monitor is a network protocol analyzer that lets you capture, view, and analyze network traffic. Version 3.3 of Network Monitor is available in 32- and 64-bit versions. Download it now.
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer
The Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) is an easy-to-use tool designed to help administrators of small and medium-sized businesses ensure that their Windows-based computers are secure. You can use MBSA to determine the security state of your computers in accordance with Microsoft security recommendations. MBSA also offers specific remedia¬tion guidance for security problems it detects, such as misconfigurations and missing security updates.
At the time of writing this, the current version was MBSA 2.1. This version is available in 32- and 64-bit versions, but it does not install on Windows 7. A new version that supports Windows 7 is due to be released sometime in the future. You can download the current version and get information regarding the a version for Windows 7 at microsoft.com/mbsa/.
Read More»
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