Tag: firewall
October 28, 2009 by
Jason
The first part of this article are here.
6. Prepare for distributed security.
During your initial strategy meeting, set aside time to discuss how you want to handle the many distributed security features in Windows 7. You’ll want to determine a course of action early in the project because those decisions will have a substantial impact on your test matrix.
First, consider whether you want turn on the desktop firewall. When OS-based desktop firewalls were first introduced in XP SP1, many organizations turned them off with a Group Policy and that was that. The firewall in Windows 7 is much more flexible and warrants reconsideration. You can turn off the firewall while the machine is connected to the domain and turn it on when the machine is connected to a home/work network or to the Internet. You can define granular exclusions, too. Try a mix of options with the first wave of pilot users; take their feedback, along with input from your security team, to make a final decision on firewall settings. They’re completely configurable by Group Policy.
Second, do you want to use AppLocker to restrict applications permitted to run on your desktops? AppLocker allows you to put together a whitelist of approved executables that you can select individually by file hash, in groups by location or in groups by publisher (that is, signed by the publisher’s certificate). Once configured, these rules are downloaded by Windows 7 clients running the Application Identity service. From that point forward, only the whitelisted apps can execute. All other executables are forced to sit on the sidelines, kind of like me during my high-school athletic career.
Because AppLocker permissions are applied via Group Policy, you can tightly target the rules to computers based on OU, group membership or WMI filters.
Sifting through a mountain of applications trying to determine which should be on an AppLocker whitelist doesn’t sound like much fun, but the situation shouldn’t come to that. Most line-of-business machines have a fixed and limited suite of apps. Start there. After all, if you can keep the night crews from plugging flash drives into your factory kiosk machines to run games rather than build widgets, you’ve solved quite a few operational problems. Deal with the back-office machines later. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | 1 Comment »
October 08, 2009 by
Jason For most PC users, the migration to Microsoft’s new version of Windows will go smoothly with a little preparation.
Spending a few minutes getting your system ready before you insert that Windows 7 installation disc may save you hours of troubleshooting and repair afterward.
- “If any of your products have a limit on the number of times they can be installed with the same serial number, you might be denied permission to install them as part of a fresh install of Windows 7. Most of the time, there’s nothing you can do about this. You just have to try the installation and hope that you’re under the limit.
“However, some software companies allow you to deactivate the serial number from your old computer and reactivate it when you reinstall. This keeps you under the limit. Adobe in particular does this. For example, in Adobe Acrobat Standard or Professional, you can go to Help, Activation and click Deactivate. By doing this, you’ll stay under the limit and you’ll be able to reinstall the product.”
A reader who goes by the name Alrock discovered a couple of quirks when he used Microsoft’s Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor: Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
The process of installing Windows 7 involves a stage in which end users need to Set a Network Location. The SNL dialog window can be revisited after deployment, and the settings altered. In this context, location is key. In order to simplify the network configuration, Windows 7, just as Windows Vista before it, allows users to set up a network connection in accordance to location. The SNL dialog offers three different network locations: Public, Work and Home. What it does is that when the computer detects a network connection, options are provided for the user to help define and apply appropriate network settings automatically.
User interaction is only necessary when choosing among Home, Work or Public locations, as Windows 7 does all the heavy lifting. But you can’t even tell there’s any heavy lifting involved as the configuration process is extremely fast, and I for example, have yet to see it fail even once, after countless installs of the platform in pre-Beta, Beta, RC and pre-RTM stages.
In all fairness, the Windows 7 client comes with an additional option for network location, namely Domain. However, Domain is reserved for enterprise environments and is out of the reach of end users. The option is controlled entirely by a network administrator, users cannot opt to take advantage of Domain by themselves or alter the configuration. Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
Symantec Security Response encourages all users and administrators to adhere to the following basic security “best practices” to prevent the virus attack to your computer:
1. Use a firewall to block all incoming connections from the Internet to services that should not be publicly available. By default, you should deny all incoming connections and only allow services you explicitly want to offer to the outside world.
2. Enforce a password policy. Complex passwords make it difficult to crack password files on compromised computers. This helps to prevent or limit damage when a computer is compromised.
3. Ensure that programs and users of the computer use the lowest level of privileges necessary to complete a task. When prompted for a root or UAC password, ensure that the program asking for administration-level access is a legitimate application. Read More»
Posted in Computer, Software | No Comments »
February 25, 2009 by
Jason
1. Find bottlenecks
From what we’ve seen so far Windows 7 is already performing better than Vista, but if your PC seems sluggish then it’s now much easier to uncover the bottleneck. Click Start, type RESMON and press [Enter] to launch the Resource Monitor, then click the CPU, Memory, Disk or Network tabs. Windows 7 will immediately show which processes are hogging the most system resources.
The CPU view is particularly useful, and provides something like a more powerful version of Task Manager. If a program has locked up, for example, then right-click its name in the list and select Analyze Process. Windows will then try to tell you why it’s hanging – the program might be waiting for another process, perhaps – which could give you the information you need to fix the problem.
2. Keyboard shortcuts
Windows 7 supports several useful new keyboard shortcuts.
Read More»
Posted in Windows 7 | No Comments »
February 03, 2009 by
Jason 1. Upgrade Your RAM
Yeah, the most obvious tip but people hardly upgrade it. RAM these days is very cheap, especially if you buy it through Amazon or eBay. When I checked Amazon, the price of 1 GB RAM was around $20-$30.
2. Get Rid of Unneeded Software
Most PCs come shipped with unneeded software. Uninstall all of them. I’m sure there are better alternatives to those software. For example, my PC came shipped from hp with lots of bloatware such as HP Image Zone, Norton AntiVirus 2004, Record Now! CD & DVD Burning software etc. I uninstalled all of them and replaced them with better software like Picasa and Nero.
3. Keep Only One Browser
This is part of the getting rid of unneeded applications but I decided to separate it because so many people have 3, or even 4 browsers installed on their computer. I used to do this; I used to have Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and Safari. Now I only have Mozilla Firefox. Yes, I even removed Internet Explorer! Read More»
Posted in Computer | 1 Comment »
February 02, 2009 by
Jason 1. Your computer isn’t turning on? “Oh, no!” You think, “I’d better get a new one!” STOP right there. Before you get too frustrated, be sure you have checked that the power cord is actually plugged into your wall socket properly. You may think it sounds silly, but believe me, it’s more common than you think even for the computer savvy. If your computer is connected through a power board, you should try plugging it directly into the wall (note for the safety conscious: by plugging the power cable directly into the wall, you lessen the chance of power failure and damage to your machine). Another reason that your PC may not start is if you have made any repairs or modification to your machine. You may have unwittingly pulled out a connect plug; check all connections.
2. If your computer is starting but is spitting error messages at you, then you might need to take out any memory modules such as RAM and then reset them by plugging them back into different RAM slots.If you get an error such as ‘Unexpected Interrupt in Protected Mode,’ then there is a problem with the settings you have entered in BIOS. To fix it go into BIOS and set it to default settings. If the problem still won’t go away, then you must remove the CMOS chip on your motherboard then put it back in to clean BIOS completely. Read More»
Posted in Computer | No Comments »
January 05, 2009 by
Jason Just ahead of the public Beta of Windows 7, Microsoft has started recommending security solutions that can be integrated with the next iteration of its Windows client even at this early stage in the platform’s development. The first products designed to protect users running Windows 7 Beta come from Kaspersky and AVG, according to the Redmond company, which have promised to work with ISVs in order to produce security software compatible with Windows Vista’s successor since 2008. In this context, when it comes down to bulletproofing Windows 7, AVG and Kaspersky are ahead of the rest of the security industry with AVG Internet Security 8.0, AVG Anti-Virus 8.0, and the Technical Preview of Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Windows 7, respectively.
“Before you install antivirus software, check to make sure you don’t already have an antivirus product on your computer. If you do, be sure to remove the product you don’t want before you install the new one. It can cause problems on your computer to have two different antivirus products installed at the same time,” a message from Microsoft explains. Read More»
Posted in Software, Windows 7 | No Comments »
December 23, 2008 by
Jason You’ve read the reviews and digested the key feature enhancements and operational changes. Now it’s time to delve a bit deeper and uncover some of Windows XP’s secrets.
1. It boasts how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina. Go to the Command Prompt in the Accessories menu from the All Programs start button option, and then type ’systeminfo’. The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime. If you want to keep these, type ’systeminfo > info.txt’. This creates a file called info.txt you can look at later with Notepad. (Professional Edition only).
2. You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run… and type ‘gpedit.msc’; then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care some may stop your computer behaving as you wish. (Professional Edition only). Read More»
Posted in Windows XP | 3 Comments »
December 09, 2008 by
Jason
These days use of torrent has increased tremendously and it is qiute easy also even I prefer torrent to any other site but the problem is that it is slower than other websites. But where there is a problem there is a solution. Following are the 5 ways in which you can speed up your Torrent. Try it!
1. Cap your upload (most important)
Limit your upload speed to approximately 80 percent of your maximum upload rate. You can check your upload speed over here (never trust your isp). Once you know your maximum upload speed, change the max upload (to 80%) speed in your torrent client’s preferences.
Don’t get me wrong, everyone should share as much as possible, but if your upload rate reached it’s max, your download rate suffers significantly.
2. Hack the max TCP connections
If you’re on XP sp2, your TCP connections are limited to a maximum of 10. This seriously hurts your downloading speed because it wont let you connect to a high amount of ip numbers. It is supposed to slow down viruses because their spreading strategy is to connect to a high amount of ip numbers, but it also cripples your torrent downloads. Read More»
Posted in Internet | No Comments »
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