Step I: Disable System Restore
---------------------------------

Windows XP:

Steps to turn off System Restore
1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. In the System Properties dialog box, click the System Restore tab.
3. Click to select the Turn off System Restore check box. Or, click to select the Turn off System Restore on all drives check box.
4. Click OK.
5. When you receive the following message, click Yes to confirm that you want to turn off System Restore:
You have chosen to turn off System Restore. If you continue, all existing restore points will be deleted, and you will not be able to track or undo changes to your computer.

Steps to turn on System Restore
1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. In the System Properties dialog box, click the System Restore tab.
3. Click to clear the Turn off System Restore check box. Or, click the Turn off System Restore on all drives check box.
4. Click OK.

Windows Vista:
1) Type system into the start menu search box, and pick the 4th item down, just labeled "System". (You could also right-click the computer icon and choose properties)
2)Now click the System protection link
3)Once you uncheck the drive, click the "Turn System Restore Off" button
4)To enable repeat the steps and then check the drive box that you had unchecked before

Step2:Backup Your Stuffs using Safe Mode/Live CD
--------------------------------------------------------
After getting into Safe-Mode or Linux just backup ur data to Pendrive or burn the data to DVDs using linux.

Here's a link that shows how to get into safe Mode

http://www.pchell.com/support/safemode.shtml

Backup using live CD

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/

Just use google to know more about live CD and safe mode.



Step3:Remove the Spyware/Virus:
----------------------------------

If you can start Windows and can get to desktop install and run this FREEWARE:

Hijackthis,
SuperAntiSpyware,
Spybot Search and Destroy,
Ad Aware 2008,
McAfee Stinger,
Spyware Terminator,
and Malwarebytes Antispyware.

Also some good other freeware programs you should get; CCleaner, Glary Utilities and Advance WindowsCare Personal. Run one program at a time, or if your computer is fast run two at same time.

Some freeware kits are also available try getting them using google search

http://www.freebyte.com/anti-spyware/

Try reading these articles:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000888.html
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35

Step4:Research on the spyware/virus -{search n Destroy}
---------------------------------------------------------------
After u run Hijackthis ...open the log file

Boot to safe mode(with networking) or boot to a linux os if u have n connect to internet (or if u can't goto some other pc with internet with ur log file in pendrive)

Goto:

http://hijackthis.de/

That site will tell you what to delete using Hijackthis. When you’re going to delete something that gets picked up as nasty or virus. Make sure you go into google and look up that .exe files, it could be graphics driver or printer driver. Hijackthis picks up my Lexmark driver as a possible bad file but its not. So be sure you know what your deleting cuz Hijackthis deletes them and it wont bring them back if you make errors. If you’re unsure about your log save it and go to Helpdesk section and post it.


Manual Method:
Try even googling about the processes running in background(usually shown in taskmanager)in normal windows mode.Search for these files in safemode and delete them.Or using a live cd-mount ur drive-delete the suspicious files.But be careful using manual methods.Don't delete any system files.Try googling first abt the files u doubt-then get ot know abt it-then proceed.This method is not recommende for newbies of windows.


Step5:Try Some Online Scanner
---------------------------------
Once you think you have cleaned your PC, restart normally if things seem fine then go to this links they are free online virus scanners!! Run one by one till you know you’re clean for sure. If one of them comes with virus result, write down its directory and name of it.Then try googlingabt the virus n procedure to remove it.

For FULL computer scan:

Trend Micro Online Scanner 
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ 
 
Panda Security Online Scanner 
http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/solutions/activescan/ 
 
Kaspersky Online Scanner 
http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner 
 
McAFee Online Scanner 
http://us.mcafee.com/root/mfs/default.asp 
 
BitDefender Online Scanner 
http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html 
 
Windows Live OneCare Scanner and Spyware remover 
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm 
 
F-Secure Scanner and Spyware remover 
http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml 
 
ESET Online Scanner 
http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/ 
 
EWIDO Online Scanner 
http://www.ewido.net/en/onlinescan/

For SINGLE file scan:

www.virustotal.com 
 
http://virusscan.jotti.org/ 
 
http://www.viruschief.com/

Step6:Try finding any residues
----------------------------------
Install CCleaner if you haven’t already and use it to delete temporary files. It can also scan and delete obsolete registry keys. After you have done install Glary Utilities and run it. That program is pretty good and will even scan for spyware too. It will get rid of your junk and speed up your computer. You can also run Advanced WindowsCare Personal which is similar to Glary Utilities in case some junk is left behind.

They are useful programs like CCleaner I use it to remove 1 or 2GB's weekly. Imagine if you never run it? You probably can gain more space!!! Using the other two programs that delete registry keys that are obsoletes can be risky sometimes so before you decide to just go along with what the program says is junk make a back up of your Registry!!

To make back up of registry go to RUN, type REGEDIT and then click File and then Export. Make sure you save it someplace where you can recover it. Then go ahead and scan with those utility programs they really do make a difference and will help you gain performance back.


Step7:Have a Proper Defense
----------------------------------
As you know there are lots of free AntiVirus,AntiSpyware and Firewalls available.
If Your are frequent Internet user-I recommend a combination of

Firewall+Antivirus+Antispyware/Malware.

Eg:Comodo Firewall+AVG8 FREE,etc

whatever matches ur performace and likings.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2090808,00.asp

I also recommend Sysinternal suite-To monitor system activity:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/

[by: gopi_vbboy]

Finding the Windows installation date is very simple.

1) Press Windows Key+R to open RUN.

2) Type "cmd" or "command" to open DOS.

3) Now type "systeminfo"  (everything without quotes)

4) Scroll up and you can find the field Original Install Date, which gives the date and time when Windows was installed.

[Original Post by mayurjango]

Check out the video section for more...

It’s very easy to use your computers internal hard disk drive as an External hard disk drive. Such drives come very useful while taking backups as they are much cheaper as compared to the real External Hard Disk Drives.

In this tutorial we will be focusing on PATA IDE (Desktop) 3.5″ Hard disk drive.

Requirements:

1) Internal Hard Disk Drive (any size)

2)  External USB 2.0  Case (buy one HERE)

3) Lots of data to store

The HOW TO?

Follow the steps to easy setup:

1) Unpack the External USB 2.0 Enclosure for IDE drives which you have brought.

2) Open the Enclosure from top and you will find connectors for IDE cable and a power cable.

3)Connect both the things (IDE cable and power cable) to IDE HDD slots.

4) Now put the enclosure cover back

5) All done. Now power on the HDD and

connect it to your system and let the fun begin.

Note: Always read m

anufacturer's instructions before doing anything above.

NOTE: This Trick is only for power users and only for Troubleshooting. TechFreakiez.com will never encourage miss-use of this code.     

STEP’s:

1)      Open Notepad

2)      Now type the below code (without quotes):

“@color 02

@SET STARTIN=%CD%

@cd "%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\My Documents"

@echo =================================================

@echo         Command Prompt- TechFreakiez.com

@echo =================================================

@echo Use SET command for more path definitions.

@"%STARTIN%\command.bat"”

3)  Save this file as “starter.bat”

4)  Open a Notepad again.

5)  Now type the below code (without quotes):

“  @SET /P COMMAND="%CD%>"

   @%COMMAND%

   @"%STARTIN%\command.bat"   ”

6)  Save this file as “command.bat”

7)  Remember to place both the files in the same directory.

8)  Now open “Starter.bat” and your Command Prompt will openup.

But what if you wish to customize your Windows Vista according to your own wish?

In this tutorial you will learn how to edit the Vista Visual Style according to your wish…

Requirements:

Ø Resource Hacker

Ø Replacer

Ø TakeControl

Ø VistaGlazz

Ø LogonStudio Vista

Vista System files Editing:

Basics:

In Windows Vista (all versions), the files which hold the normal GUI data have been replaced from .dll to .dll.mui. If you try to open a specific .dll of any application, you will only be able to edit the BITMAP section only. So if you wish to edit the GUI of any application, you will have to search for a .dll.mui file mostly.

Opening explorer.exe file

Opening explorer.exe.mui file

Ø Open Resource Hacker and navigate to “%windir%\System32\en-US\” or “%windir%\en-US\”.

Ø Change the Files of type: to All Files (*.*) .

Ø Now you will be able to see lots of *.dll.mui files. These are the files which you need to open and edit in your resource hacker.

Note: The important files which can be edited are:

Ø Sysdm.cpl.mui – “%windir%\System32\en-US\”

(System Properties dialog box)

Ø Shell32.dll.mui - “%windir%\System32\en-US\”

(Changing basic things like run dialog box, menu items etc.)

Ø Authui.dll.mui – “%windir%\System32\en-US\”

(Shutdown dialog box and more)

Ø Explorer.exe.mui – “%windir%\en-US\”

(Windows Explorer menu and style)

Ø Netshell.dll.mui – “%windir%\System32\en-US\”

(Internet connection icon and style appearing in system tray)

Ø Stobject.dll.mui – “%windir%\System32\en-US\”

(System tray icons and style)

Ø Comdlg32.dll.mui – “%windir%\System32\en-US\”

(Basic dialog box such as color change, open\save etc.)

Ø Winlogon.exe.mui – “%windir%\System32\en-US\”

(Text and style of basic logon screen)

But you can always try editing other files which are not mentioned here as they might be also useful for you.

→While trying to save your file you will be prompted with an error.

In order to overcome this problem, use TakeControl or Replacer.

TakeControl: This program is still in its Beta2 state. It easily gives you full read\write access of any System File but fails for the files which are currently being used. After you have taken control of a file, you can use Replacer to replace it.

Replacer: It is one of the most powerful shell script which can replace any file in what so ever condition it is. However Replacer has few drawbacks in Vista Environment.

1. Drag-Drop is not available.

1. After replacing a file, it creates a “.ReplacerTemp” named folder in the same directory from which it was executed. This folder needs to be deleted everytime to make it replace other file or else it gives and error.

Vista Themes:

Installing a 3^rd party theme in Vista requires you to patch System and Msstyle files. Inorder to patch these files, you will have to download VistaGlazz utility.

Ø VistaGlazz:

If you wish to apply a downloaded 3^rd party theme, you will have to save the Contents of the downloaded theme to “%windir%\resources\themes\”.

Ø In the downloaded package, you will have 1 folder and 1 .theme files. Copy both of them to “%windir%\resources\themes\”.

Ø Now right click on desktop>Personalize>themes.

Ø Select the name of your downloaded theme and click Apply & Ok.

Vista Logon Screen: I read in an article on a blog that Vista does not provides any support for changing the look and feel of Logon Screen but recently Stardock Corporation launched LogonStudio Vista using which you can easily create and change your own Vista Logon Screen.

Stardock LogonStudio Vista interface

To create a logon screen:

Ø Click on Create.

Ø Write the name of your theme and your nick.

Ø Click Browse and select wallpaper. Try to use a JPEG file with highest possible resolution or use HD Wallpapers to avoid mosaic in your logon screen.

Ø Click on Save. This will bring the Logon Screen on the Preview Panel but will not save it to hard disk and nor apply it.

Ø Click Apply to apply the logon screen over your current logon screen or click Save to save the logon screen to hard disk.

• Windows Vista Home Basic: This is the most basic version of Vista available in market. Its GUI is as follows:

a) Vista Basic Look (non aero)
b) No Vista Flip 3D
c) No Vista Glass
d) No Vista Live Taskbar

• Windows Vista Home Premium\Business\Ultimate: They all nearly have the same GUI interface as follow:

a) Vista Aero Look
b) Vista Flip 3D
c) Vista Glass
d) Vista Live Taskbar

Now coming to the main topic,
HOW TO BRING THESE COOL FEATURE KNOWN AS VISTA AERO TO WINDOWS VISTA HOME BASIC?

WARNING: The below mentioned tweaks and\orSoftware might effect your system performance negatively and\or crash your system completely. Create a back of your file before altering them. I will not be responsible for any kind of loss of data or anything after using this tutorial.

Vista Standard look: Vista Basic comes with Vista Basic look, which look like this:




This the is Vista Basic look without any glow effect on any button. If you wish to activate the Vista Standard Look on your Home Basic Machine, follow the instructions:

NOTE: The Vista Standard look is much different from the Vista Aero look as no glass effect and flip3D is provided with it.

REQUIREMENTS: The Hardware requirements for Vista Standrad look are:
l Your Graphics Card must support DirectX 9.
l Your Graphics Card must support Pixel Shader 2.0 but most of the new graphics cards do support.
l Your Grahics Card must support WDDM (windows vista display driver model).
l The graphics settings should be set to 32bit.
l Your Graphic card should have 60MB of Graphics memory (128MB for Aero).
l You should also have a memory of atleast 512MB (RAM).
If you do not have Pixel Shader 2.0 support in your Graphic Card, then also i'd suggest you to try the tweak.

STEPS:
1) Open Registry Editor by Pressing the Win Key + R and typing “Regedit.exe” (without quots). Press continue on UAC.
2) Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft >Windows > DWM.
3) On the right hand side, open the Composition key and change it to 1. Now open CompositionPolicy and set its value to 2.
4) Now create a DWORD value named Glass and give it a value of 1 and another DWORD valuse named ForceSoftwareD3D and give it a value of 0.

5) Now click the Start Button and type services.msc in the search box and press enter.
6) Now search for Desktop Windows Manager Session Manager and click on the restart button. Restart your Windows and now you will be able to see the Vista Standard option in the Windows Color and Appereance.




When you Apply the Standard Look, your Windows will look some what like this:









Vista Glass: My favorite GUI feature of Windows Vista is the Glass Effect. When you apply the Glass Effect, your Desktop look sumthing like this:



This screen shot is taken from VISTAVG theme by Vishal Gupta.

Glass Effect requires a lot of Graphic Card and Memory (RAM), so i'd suggest you to have atleast 70MB of Graphics Card and 480MB of Memory (RAM).
In the first tweak you created a DWORD value Glass but this Registry Hack rarely enable Glass on Vista Home Basic, so i'd suggest you to Download VistaGlazz. It is a utility which enable user to apply 3rd party Visual Themes and somehow enables Vista Glass Effect on Maximised Windows.
NOTE: It is not possible to enable full Vista Glass Effect on Windows Vista Home Basic by any means.

Also try this Registry Tweak to enable Glass Effect on unsupported Graphics Cards:
STEPS:
1) Open Registry Editor by pressing the Start button + R and typing Regedit.exe.
2) Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software > Windows > DWM.
3) Create a DWORD value named EnableMachineCheck and assingn it a value of 0. Also create another DWORD value named Glass and give it a value of 1.
4) Restart your Windows
After you patch the files using Vista Glazz, it will enable Glass Effect on your Home Basic machine on Maximised Windows.


As you can see, that the Glass Effect is enabled but only on the Maximised Windows. You will also notice that the taskbar will also show Glass Effect when you maximise any window.


Vista Flip 3D: In Vista Home Premium\Ultimate\Business, there is a cool new feature known as Flip 3D. Flip 3D is the alternate to the standard alt+tab function. In Vista Home Basic, Flip 3D is not available and it can not even be enable through any kind of Registry Tweak.



The coolest alternate to Vista Flip 3D GUI feature is TopDesk 1.5. Unfortunately it is a Paid Software. Though there are many free alternates to Flip 3D but they are very Memory Consuming and hence not fit for Vista Home Basic.
When You Install TopDesk 1.5, you can configure it through TopDesk Option.



Here in the ScreenShot you can see the Tile All Windows is set to Tab+Win but pressing Win+Tab will also do the same. It even has option for only Application Windows.
The Drawback with this software are:

• It is Paid.
• It does not shows Desktop as an option while fliping.

Specs:

·         Processor: 1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L7100 (800Mhz FSB, 4MB Cache)

·         RAM: 2GB (up to 4GB)

·         HDD: 64GB SSD

·         Screen: 13.3-inch WXGA+ (1440 x 900, 300 nit) LED backlit display

·         Battery: 6-cell Li-Ion extended life battery

·         Drive: Ultra-thin DVD Burner

·         Graphics: Intel X3100

·         Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP or Microsoft Windows Vista

·         Warranty: 1 Year (extendable)

Toshiba Portege R500:

Specs:

·         Processor: 1 Intel Core 2 Duo U7600 1.20GHz, 2MB L2, 533MHz FSB with 64-bit

·         RAM: 1 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM

·         HDD: 120GB (5400 RPM) SATA

·         Screen: 12.1-inch diagonal widescreen high brightness display

·         Drive: 8x DVD-SuperMulti (+/-R Single Layer) drive supporting 9 formats

·         Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with 64MB

·         Operating System: Microsoft Genuine Windows Vista Business (32-bit version)

·         Warranty: 1 Year (extendable)

ASUS U6S-A1:

Specs:

·         Processor: 1 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500

·         RAM: 2GB 667MHz DDR2

·         HDD: 160GB (5,400rpm)

·         Screen: 13 12.1 inches

·         Drive: Thin DVD Burner

·         Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 8400M G

·         Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium

·         Warranty: 1 Year (extendable)

Toshiba Satellite M55-S325:

Specs:

·         Processor:  Intel Pentium M 740 1.73 Ghz

·         RAM: 512 MB

·         HDD: 100 GB

·         Screen: 14-inch

·         Drive: DVD Burner

·         Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 GM

·         Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP

·         Warranty: 1 Year (extendable)

Dell XPS M1330:

Specs:

·         Processor: 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7300 processor

·         RAM: 2GB DDR2-667 SDRAM (up to 4GB)

·         HDD: 160GB 5400 RPM SATA HDD

·         Screen: 13.3-inch WXGA screen with LED backlight

·         Battery: 9-cell Li-Ion extended life battery

·         Drive: Slot-loading dual-layer DVD±RW drive

·         Graphics: 128MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS

·         Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium

·         Warranty: 1 Year (extendable)

·         Other: Integrated VGA webcam, Media Center remote

Compaq V3424au:

Specs:

·         Processor: AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology MK-38 (2.2 GHz)

·         RAM: 512 MB DDR2 RAM

·         HDD: 120 GB Hard disc drive

·         Screen: 14.1-inch widescreen display

·         Battery: 6-cell Li-Ion extended life battery

·         Drive: Dual layer DVD writer

·         Graphics: 128MB Shared NVIDIA Graphics

·         Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Baisc

·         Warranty: 1 Year (extendable)

·         Other: Touch Media Buttons

Compaq Presario V2000z:

Specs:

·         Processor: Intel Pentium M 710 1.6 GHz

·         RAM: 768 MB SDRAM (1x256)

·         HDD: 40 GB (4200 rpm)

·         Screen: 14.0" WXGA Widescreen (not the BrightView)

·         Battery: 6-cell Li-Ion battery

·         Drive: DVD/CD-RW combo drive

·         Warranty: 1 Year (extendable)

·         Other: Touch Media Buttons

HP Compaq tc4200:

Specs:

·         Processor: Intel Pentium M 740 (1.73GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 533MHz FSB)

·         RAM: 512MB DDR2 SDRAM

·         HDD: 40GB (5400 rpm) Hard Drive

·         Screen: 12.1" (1024 x 768) display

·         Battery: 6-cell Li-Ion extended life battery

·         Drive: none

·         Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator -- up to 128MB Dynamically Shared

·         Operating System: Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005

·         Warranty: 3 Year (extendable)

·         Other: Shock Mounted Hard Drive, Pointing Stick w/ 4 mouse buttons and touchpad

Gateway P-171XL FX:

Specs:

·         Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo X7900 (2.80GHz/ 800MHz Front Side Bus/ 4MB L2 cache)

·         RAM: 3GB DDR2-667 dual-channel RAM

·         HDD: 400GB Total HD space in RAID 0 configuration (200GB Hitachi 7k200 x 2)

·         Screen: 17.0" WUXGA (1920x1200)

·         Drive: HD DVD-ROM/DVD Super Multi (dual layer)

·         Graphics: 128MB Nvidia GeForce 8800M-GTS graphics card with 512MB dedicated memory

·         Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit

·         Warranty: 1 Year (extendable)

·         Other: Built-in 1.3 megapixel webcam and microphone

Dell XPS M1730:

Specs:

·         Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900 (2.8GHz/4MB L2/ 800MHz FSB)

·         RAM: 2GB DDR2-667 RAM in dual-channel

·         HDD: Dual 200GB 7200RPM Hitachi drives in RAID 0 (striped data)

·         Screen: 17-inch WUXGA display

·         Battery: 9-cell Li-Ion extended life battery

·         Drive: 8X DVD Burner

·         Graphics: Dual Nvidia GeForce 8700M-GT in SLI (256MB each)

·         Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium

·         Warranty: 1 Year (extendable)

·         Other: Very Good looks and Glossy finish

HP Pavilion HDX:

Specs:

·         Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 (2.4GHz)

·         RAM: 4GB DDR2 system memory

·         HDD: Dual 100GB 7200RPM Hard Drives (200GB total)

·         Screen: 20.1” WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050 pixels) HP Ultra Brightview display

·         Battery: 9-cell Li-Ion extended life battery

·         Drive: HD DVD-ROM w/ Super Multi DVD+/-RW w/Double Layer

·         Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT (256MB)

·         Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit)

·         Warranty: 1 Year (extendable)

·         Other: Integrated HP HDTV Tuner w/4 Altec Lansing speakers + 1 subwoofer, HP Imprint "Dragon" finish + Fingerprint reader + webcam

ASUS G2 Series G2S-B2:

Specs:

·         Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7700 (2.4GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, FSB 800MHz)

·         RAM: 3GB (2GB +1GB) DDR2-667 + 1GB Intel Turbo Memory(upto 4GB)

·         HDD: 200GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive

·         Screen: 17" WUXGA (1920x1200) Color Shine Glossy LCD w/ Asus Splendid Video Intelligent Technology

·         Battery: 8-cell Li-Ion extended life battery

·         Drive: HD 8X Super-Multi DVD RW (Dual Layer)

·         Graphics: nVidia GeForce 8600M GT Graphics Controller w/ 256MB GDDR3 Memory

·         Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Premium

·         Warranty: 1 Year (extendable)

·         Other: Built-in 1.3M Pixels Video Camera

This Article deals with the basics buying (and upgrading) a Laptop.

The WHO, WHAT and WHY?

The most difficult thing which people find while deciding to buy a Laptop is what actually there needs are? Here we will briefly discuss the requirements and/or configuration of the Laptop against the necessities of the buyers.

There are basically 5 types of buyers:

·         Home or Light users

·         Students and Learners

·         Travelers and On-The-Way users

·         Business and Power user

·         Designers and Gamers (Multimedia)

Home or Light users: The people, who are just enthusiastic about a Laptop and/or want mobility from Power, Room and that old bulky Box, then this is the place for them. If you just need a Laptop for basic works like Surfing Internet, checking your E-mails, Basic Multimedia experience and normal Office work like Word Processing etc, then check for this configuration:

ü  Processor: AMD Turion 64, AMD Turion 64 X2

ü  Memory/Ram: 512MB to 1 GB at 667Mhz

ü  Hard Disk Drive: Atleast 80 GB

ü  LCD Screen: Atleast 14.1-inch or 35.814 cm

ü  CD/DVD Drive: A Combo Drive with 8X

ü  Networking: Wired and wireless networking

ü  Graphics: OnBoard Graphics will do fine

ü  Operating System: Linux (free), Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic or Premium (paid) or Apple Mac OS X (paid)

Recommended Laptops: Lenovo ThinkPad X300, Toshiba Portege R500-S5001X, ASUS U6S-A1

Students and Learners: If you are a Student or a little tight on your budget, then this configuration is for you. These types of Laptops are basically designed to give you the best performance from the least money. They are mostly light and a bit tough also.

ü  Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo/Dual Core, AMD Turion 64, AMD Turion 64 X2

ü  Memory/Ram: Atleast 1 GB at 667Mhz

ü  Hard Disk Drive: Atleast 120 GB

ü  LCD Screen: Atleast 14.1-inch or 35.814 cm

ü  CD/DVD Drive: Dual Layer DVD Writer with minimum 8X

ü  Networking: Wired and wireless networking

ü  Graphics: OnBoard Graphics will do fine else 128 MB Shared

ü  Operating System: Linux (free), Microsoft Windows XP service Pack-3 (paid), Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium service pack-1 (paid) or Apple Mac OS X (paid)

Recommended Laptops: Toshiba Satellite M55-S325, Dell XPS M1330, Sony VAIO S470P/S, Compaq V3424au, Acer TravelMate 2355LCi

Travelers and On-The-Way users: If you Travel a lot, then this type of laptops are for you. Here, the weight and dimensions of the Laptop are primary points to take care of. The ultraportable Laptops weigh less and very slim too. The basic configuration for your purpose would be:

ü  Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo/Dual Core, AMD Turion 64 X2

ü  Memory/Ram: Atleast 1 GB at 667Mhz

ü  Hard Disk Drive: Atleast 160 GB + External HDD for Backups   

ü  LCD Screen: 15-inch or 38.1 cm Wide Screen

ü  CD/DVD Drive: Dual Layer DVD Writer with minimum 8X

ü  Networking: Wired and wireless networking

ü  Graphics: 128 MB - 256 MB shared

ü  Operating System: Linux (free), Microsoft Windows XP service Pack-3 (paid), Microsoft Windows Vista Business service pack-1 (paid) or Apple Mac OS X (paid)

ü  Battery: 3-5 Hours of batter Life (under balanced Performance)

Recommended Laptops: Apple PowerBook, Compaq Presario V2000Z,Acer TravelMate 8104WLMi-XPP, Acer TravelMate 2355LCi, HP Compaq tc4200

Business and Power user: If you are looking for a complete desktop replacement and/or reply completely on your Laptop, then this is something for you. This configuration is for a Power User and gives the best performance out of the box.

ü  Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7400/T7500 or AMD Turion 64 X2

ü  Memory/Ram: 1 GB to 4 GB (dual channel) at 667Mhz (minimum) or 800Mhz

ü  Hard Disk Drive: 160 GB to 250 GB + External HDD for Backups  

ü  LCD Screen: Atleast 15-inch or 38.1 cm Wide Screen

ü  CD/DVD Drive: Dual Layer DVD Writer with 16X

ü  Networking: Wired and wireless networking

ü  Graphics: Atleast 128 MB dedicated

ü  Operating System: Linux (free), Microsoft Windows XP service Pack-3 (paid), Microsoft Windows Vista Business service pack-1 (paid), Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate service pack-1 (paid)  or Apple Mac OS X (paid)

Recommended Laptops: Gateway P-171XL FX, HP Pavilion HDX, Apple MacBook Pro, Dell XPS M1730, Panasonic Toughbook series

Designers and Gamers (Multimedia): Now here comes some thing really exciting. This type of configuration is for people who are ready to spend a lot of money and want a true High End Laptop for an On-To-The-Peak performance. A must have configuration:

ü  Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7400/T7500 or AMD Turion 64 X2

ü  Memory/Ram: 2 GB to 4 GB (dual channel) at  800Mhz

ü  Hard Disk Drive: 250 GB to 1 TB + External HDD  

ü  LCD Screen: 17-inch to 21-inch Wide Screen

ü  CD/DVD Drive: Dual Layer DVD Writer with 16X (minimum) or Blu-Ray Drive

ü  Networking: Wired and wireless networking

ü  Graphics: 256 MB to 512 MB Dedicated

ü  Operating System: Linux Ubuntu (free), Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate service pack-1 (paid)  or Apple Mac OS X (paid)

ü  Multimedia connectors: S-Video, HDMI, FireWire and S/PDIF

Recommended Laptops: HP Pavilion HDX with Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 (A Must have), Black Sony VAIO TZ Series, ASUS G2 Series G2S-B2, Dell Latitude D505   

An important chart from cnet.com

Points to keep in mind:

1)      If you are a traveler, always keep an Extra Batter with yourself.

2)      A USB mouse is must, but if you are a Gamer or a Designer, a USB Keyboard is also important.

3)      A good protective Laptop bag is very important.

You must have read my article on Windows Registry which provides beginners details on the Windows Registry. Now I am going to briefly describe how to edit the registry through the Registry files and DOS.

Editing and .reg files

 Windows Registry can be edited easily by the registry explorer provided by the Microsoft but the best way to edit registry is by making the registry files or .reg files as they are very helpful when you need to edit registry on some remote system.

 SYNTAX:

                          RegistryEditorVersion (version 6 in Vista and 5 in XP sp2)

                          [Path of the registry root\key]

                         “Name of the key (data holder)”=DATATYPE: VALUE

The Header of the file is the Windows Registry Editor version. This is a very important part of a .reg files as it defines the executable limits related to the various Windows version. For example if you have written RegistryEditorVersion6 , then the registry file will not run on Windows XP and other earlier versions of Windows whereas if you write RegistryEditorVersion5 , then the registry file will run smoothly of all the versions of Windows except Windows 95 & 98.

The second line is to specify the path of the root\key. It’s very important to keep in mind that the registry path of different versions of Windows differ from each other and hence you should keep in mind the registry path structure while making the registry file.

The third line holds the name of the key or the data holder inside the “” and the DATAVALUE (binary, string, Dword etc.) followed by the value which is to be assigned to the key. When you are assigning a string value, then it’s not important to specify the data type and directly writing the value inside the “” will do the job. Put a “-“or hyphen after the = to delete the key.

Using the above syntax you can easily create a .reg file. I would suggest you to start playing with them as it would help you to understand editing of registry through registry files and you might learn something new!!!!

Editing and the Command Prompt:

 All the windows versions are provided with Command Prompt. Windows Vista and Windows XP, both are provided with 2 command prompts, CMD.EXE and COMMAND.COM. Both are a little bit different from each other (especially version) but both can edit the Windows Registry smoothly.

The best way to learn editing registry through Command prompt is through HELP command.

Open Command Prompt and type:

 Reg/?

And you will be presented with the following:

 REG Operation [Parameter List]

   Operation    [ QUERY  | ADD  | Delete  | Copy |

                          SAVE    | LAOD | UNLOAD| RESTORE|

                          COMPARE | EXPORT | IMPORT  | FLAGS  ]

Return Code: (Except for REG COMPARE)

     0 - Successful

     1 – Failed

For help on a specific operation type:

    REG OPERATION /?

Examples:

REG ADD
REG COMPARE
REG COPY
REG DELETE
REG EXPORT
REG IMPORT
REG LOAD
REG QUERY
REG RESTORE
REG SAVE
REG UNLOAD

RED FLAGS

While using Command Prompt, you can even edit the registry of a remote system. In this case you will have to include the computer name before the path of the root\key.

SYNTAX:  REG QUERY \\computername\pathtosubkey

Editing Registry through Command prompt is a lot difficult and complex and editing through .reg files. The only benefit is that you can use it for troubleshooting your registry or when you have no other means of editing the registry.

According to MICROSOFT, the above registry editing techniques apply to the following windows version:

Microsoft Windows Server 2003, 64-Bit Datacenter Edition

Microsoft Windows Server 2003, 64-Bit Enterprise Edition

Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition (32-bit x86)

Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition

Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (32-bit x86)

Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Web Edition

Microsoft Windows XP Professional for Itanium-based systems

Microsoft Windows XP Professional for Itanium-based systems

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

Microsoft Windows XP Professional

Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2002

Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server

Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server

Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition

Microsoft Windows 2000 Server

Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition

Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition

Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition

Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition

Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 Premium Edition

Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 Standard Edition

Microsoft Windows Vista all version’s

Windows XP has millions of feature but the main problem is that people don’t even know this. When I stated using Windows XP, at that time I too didn’t knew much about the feature which it provided but once, while just chatting to my EX-Computer Teacher I came to know that he owned a whole BOOK about Windows XP, a shock to me that why would an Operating system have a whole book of its own?

 People who use Windows XP on there system mostly do not care much about it and the one who care, do not sometime have a idea of the right path to begin with, so I thought to write down my own newbie guide on :

                                     WINDOWS XP: THE LOCKUP

Whaz Running: With Windows XP it’s very easy to track down each and every program running on your system. To start with:

1)      Always keep an eye on the system tray of your Task Bar.

2)      Move your Cursor over any of these programs and you should get Pop-up giving details about that program. Right click on the icon to get the menu and terminate if the program is not required.

3)      If you find a gap between any two programs then open the Task Manager (ctrl+alt+del) and look at both Application and Processes tab for any suspicious program running and if found, terminate it.

4)      You might even sometimes find a few File sharing programs running automatically. Terminate them if not required.

The Termination: It’s a good habit to regularly keep an eye on the ADD OR REMOVE PROGRAM option provided in the Control Panel.

 Have a look at all the programs installed with all their details such as file size, Usage information, installed location etc. and if any suspicious program is found, uninstall it.

REMEMBER: Try to get as much information about the program you are about to uninstall so as to avoid any kind of misunderstanding.

The Users: All the accounts on your XP machine should have a good and strong password. By good and strong password I mean:

a)      Alphanumeric

b)      Atleast 6 characters long.

c)      Contain both upper and lower case letters.

The Firewall: A good firewall is really important. I would suggest you to use Armor2net firewall as it’s really good. But what if you can’t buy yourself a good firewall software or you don’t want to use a third party firewall, then you can easily configure the default firewall provided by Windows XP. To configure:

1)      Click on START menu and open control panel and then open Internet and Network connection. Right Click on the Internet adapter and select properties from the drop down menu.

2)      Click on the Advance tab to find an option “Internet connection firewall”. Check this box if it’s unchecked. This enables Firewall on that adapter.

3)      For more Advance setting, click the Settings button placed right at the bottom to open another dialog box. The services tab there allows you to select which service to allow through the firewall. Configure as per you requirement.

4)      The Security Logging tab allows a lot of logging options. Select “Log Dropped packets” or “Log successful connection” or both to enable logging. By logging the packet you can find information about packet type, date of sending and receiving and most important, the IP address of sender and receiver.

5)      The ICMP tab blocks the ICMP (the protocol which handles PING) message by default. It can be sometimes used by hackers to gather information about your system and hence I recommend you to keep them unchecked.

 STAY AWAKE: Most of the people think that installing the latest security software or software package will do their work for the rest of their life but that’s completely wrong. It is really very important to have an Updated security bundle or atleast updated antivirus software. Its is also very important to download and install the Windows Update as they help to patch the bugs and hole in the operating system.

To configure update:

1)      Right click the My Computer icon and select Properties from the drop down menu.

2)      Click on the “Automatic Update” tab

3)      Check the “Keep my computer up to date…”

All the other Microsoft software installed (such as MS office bundle) do not update themselves on their own and hence to will have to manually turn on the updates or download the updates from the Microsoft website.

REMEMBER: Never follow update download received via E-mail or PM.

Recommended setting to avoid malicious codes:

a)      Automatically scan E-mails if you are using Outlook etc.

b)      Scan your computer once a week.

c)      Automatically scan Downloads.

d)      Automatically update the virus definition.

e)      Do not click on any link send via e-mail rather manually type the address.

f)       Disable JavaScript for checking e-mails as JavaScript in e-mails might be dangerous.

g)      Try to download all you mail and check them offline.

The Browser: The browsers which are available these days are really very good but I would still recommend you to take a security test at:

 http://bcheck.scanit.be/bcheck/

Conclusion: The above mentioned stuffs will help you to either avoid or completely stop the attack of virus etc and will make your Windows XP secure.

  Please pardon any kind of stupidity or mistake which I might have committed while compiling or posting the above information. Thanks.

Microsoft Windows XP has been the most successful of the Windows Range of Operating Systems by Microsoft.

When I got my very first Computer assemble I had no knowledge about operating system, so the computer shopee guy installed Windows XP sp-2 on to my machine.

Since then this little piece of clicks and tricks has fascinated me a lot.

When I got internet connection on my system 3 years back, XP turned out to be a nightmare. I always had an updated AVG but still due  to all my downloads I had enough virus’s  which forced me to Reinstall the whole OS once in 2 weeks and that was when I started looking on the security features Provided by Windows XP.

Moving inside the box:

There are 2 security holes I found in Windows XP sp-2:

1)      REPARING: When repairing the Windows XP, if we press Ctrl+F10 then the DOS prompt is popped up and you have the access (not administrator privilege) to the box.

2)      RECOVERY CONSOLE: I’ve used a lot of third party software to protect my system but the best way I found was to physically block access to my PC…lol…

I started googling around for getting administrator access to XP box without a third party program but it turned out to be either very time consuming or not working for sp-2 and so I started looking for the answer on my own, when I ended up with a Windows 2000 bootable cd from a friend.

The game:

Most of you might have used the recovery console of Windows XP which asks the Administrators Password before letting you use itself, but what if we boot a XP sp-2 machine with Windows 2000 cd and start the recovery console present in it???

         VOLA!!!! THE PASSWORD IS NOT REQUIRED

This is the most irritating fact the the machine with with XP’s latest service pack can easily be fooled.

The Steps:

a)      Restart the system and pop in Windows 2000 bootable CD. (Check if the CD\DVD drive is set to primary boot over HDD in the bios system)

b)      On the blue screen press R or F10 (f 9 worked fine on my lappy…) and the Press C to enter the recovery console.

c)      Select the XP parathion from the menu and that’s it!

The access and stuff possible:

a)      File and Folder: The XP recovery console does not allows even the Administrator to access all the drives but when using Windows 2000 recovery console the access is made easy and to all the drives.

b)      Copy-ing: The XP recovery console does not allows coping of files and folders to a removal media (only floppy at this instance) but by editing the registry it is possible but when using Windows 2000 recovery console, coping files and folders is not a big task, its simple and no “Access Denied” error is given. This feature also allows you to make new file and folder and change its attribute also.

c)      The Net User: The XP recovery console does not provides the “net user username password” command but when using Windows 2000 recovery console this command worked successful for me on a friends FAT-32 XP partition

Conclusion:

I tested this security hole (recovery console) on my brothers HP Laptop provide by the reliance company for his office work which has a lot of security features but in that case also I could get access to 60% of the resource and even had the power to format a parathion.

The method i described above is using Windows 2000 recovery console but using any Linux Distro will also allow you to have access to a lot of Resources. I would recommend Geexbox Distro for the same purpose.

After this finding of mine I strongly conclude that Windows XP is not a very secure operating system.

Windows Registry has been one of the most fascinating part. Each Operating system has its own way of storing important data related to User accounts, System Configuration and information related to the Software’s installed. In the old times when DOS was one of the main Operating system, it used to store its important data in file named CONFIG.SYS.

With the beginning of the Windows era, a stronger method was required to store the System related Data. Windows had a configuration file named SYSTEM.INI (initialization files) and WIN.INI and mostly every application had its own INI file.

The drawback of INI files was that they had a limited file size of 64KB only and each program could have only one INI file, making it a lot difficult to store settings for different users and hence Microsoft introduced Windows Registry in Windows 95 and since then Windows have always had its backbone, it Registry. Here I’ve described the basics of the Windows registry.

                                      THE WINDOWS REGISTRY- beginning

The Structure: Windows Registry can be viewed and edited through the Registry Editor provided with the windows. To open the editor:

1)      win key+r or start>run

2)      type “regedit.exe” or “regedit” (without quotes)

Apart from the Windows Registry Editor there are a lot of third party editors but I prefer the Windows Registry Editor.

When you open the Windows Registry Editor, it shows you the Windows Registry in a Tree form, which is very similar to folder and sub-folder structure. The registry is divided into 6 hives or branches or Root keys and each Root key holds information of a special class.

Important: Microsoft assigned a maximum size of 1MB of any object stored in a key in registry and if the data has to more than 1MB than it is stored in a separate file and a pointer is made in the registry which points to that file. This is what makes the registry small in size (mine is 131kb in size). But in Windows XP, both system and application software’s store data into the same registry and hence making the size of registry larger and as the size increases, the time required to find data in registry increases and hence the speed of system decreases.

The Root Keys: As I told there are 6 Root keys in Windows Registry and they are:

3)      HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT: This branch hold information related to the file types and the actions which can be performed on them and installed software components. I read is a book:

   “it is a mirror of the corresponding sub-branch of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE which is made accessible by itself as a root key for compatibility reasons”

      “n Windows XP, it is a compilation of the information present in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes”-Fast Track to Windows Registry.

  2) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE: It holds information related to the System i.e. information related to installed drivers, software, configuration table of software’s etc.

I read in a book:

 “Also stored here is information about software components installed in the computer. Windows supports an object-based architecture that allows software components to be used by any application. This technology has evolved since it was introduced in Windows 3 and has been known as Object Linking and Embedding (OLE), ActiveX and Component Object Model (COM). Components installed on the computer are registered in the Registry so that other programs know they are there and are able to make use of them. An example of this is Internet Explorer, whose browser component can be used by any program that needs to display web pages or other HTML-formatted data.”

  3) HKEY_CURRENT_USER: This branch holds the information about the currently logged in user which includes desktop settings and other personalised information about the users settings.

4)      HKEY_USER: It contains the user configuration data which realted the system users but mostly, all the applications access the users settings throught HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Each user is identified via SID i.e security identifier (SIDs differ even when two users have\had the same name)

5)      HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG: It holds all the information collected at system boot and hence this key is regenerated every time the system boots ot reboots.

6)      HKEY_DYN_DATA: This branch is not found in Windows XP and Windows Vista® Home Basic and most probably other versions also(I have not yet got my hands on other Vista version’s). It holds the information related to performance and status information of different components of system. The data shown here is not stored in any file and keeps on refreshing and updated mostly by Windows Kernel or software driver. For example: when you open task manager, you can find the CPU usage, memory usage (RAM usage), Network Adapter etc and all this is fetched from this Key and displayed in Graphical form by the Task Manager. It also holds the information related to plug-n-play devices. For Windows XP and Windows Vista®, the plug-n-play data is directely merged in the main registry.

Value Types: Each Root Key in Windows Registry has sub-keys and these sub-keys have data stored in them. The Data which is stored in these keys and sub-keys is different than the normal type of Data. The data in these keys and sub-keys is stored in Binary, String and DWORD form.

1)      DWORD (32 bit): It is a Four Byte to Eight Byte(16 bit to 32 bit) ranging data type generally used for BOOLEAN VALUE. Each service or component has its own default DWORD value set but mostly ‘0’ means to STOP or DISABLE and ‘1’ means to CONTINUE or START or ENABLE.

2)      QWORD (64 bit): It is nothing but the DWORD value with 16 byte(64 bit) data type and was first introduced in Windows 2000.

3)      STRING: It is used to store normal text.

4)      BINARY: It is used to store the Binary data and used mostly for hardware components. If you have used a HEX EDITOR then you will easily understand how the data is stored in Binary form here.

5)      MULTI-STRING VALUE: It is used to store a list of data seperated by ‘\0’ or null character. If you have used array in C++ or other programing language, you can understand the concept behind it. It is mostly used to store list of similar data which have to be fetched from a single place.

6)      EXPANDABLE STRING VALUSE: It is used to stored data variable which can be replaced by their value as assigned by the application using it.

Introduction: HTA applications are one of the most dangerous (atleast I think so) part of Web Designing. HTA’s are basically a cross between the Web-Pages and Executable files. With the help of HTA, it is now possible to make a complex application to work on the web without making an .exe of it!

Security: HTA’s are no doubt useful but it also has a darker side. The HTA applications are big threat to system security as they provide full access to the system resources without any warning or checking any security settings of the browser. IN SHORT, IT WORKS AS A TRUSTED APPLICATION.

The Good part of HTA is that it does not open as a Webpage on the web but asks the user to either RUN or SAVE it.

Few Programs: (only ie4 and above support HTA)

Making folder:

<html>

<head>

<HTA:APPLICATION ID="htapp">

</head>

<body>

<object id=wsh classid=clsid:F935DC22-1CF0-11D0-ADB9-00C04FD58A0B></object>

<script language=vbscript>

set wshshell=createobject ("wscript.shell")

a=wshshell.run("cmd.exe /c md abhishek",0)

</script>

Folder made!

</body>

</html>

When you save the above code as name.hta and execute it, a window will open with FOLDER MADE! written on it and a new folder will be created at the same location where the HTA file is kept.

Now remove <HTA:APPLICATION ID=”htapp”> from the above code and save it as name.html and now run it. Now you will be able to see the difference between HTA and HTML Applications.

Web Browser:

<html>

<head>

<title>Abhi Internet Browser</title>

<HTA:APPLICATION APPLICATIONNAME="Abhi Internet Browser" Windowstate="normal" sysmenu="yes">

</head>

<body>

<span id=abar style="overflow none">

<span id=AText><b>URL:</b></span>

<input type=text value="" id=URL width="60" style="width:expression(document.body.clientWidth-AText.offsetWidth - AGo.offsetWidth -85)">

<input type=button value="Go" id=AGo onclick="navigate()"><br>

<span>

<br>

<iframe src="techabhi.wordpress.com" id=data style="width:100%;height:85%"></iframe>

<script language=jscript>

function navigate()

{

document.all.data.src=URL.value;

}

function clickshortcut()

{

if (window.event.keycode==13){ navigate() }

}

URL.onkeypress=clickshortcut;

</script>

</body>

</html>

Now save this code as name.hta and run it. You can see a small web browser has been made and it can even access you HDD when you type x:\ and press GO button.

Now save this file as name.html and run it. You can still see the address bar and the GO button but you will not be able to surf the web nor access your HDD until you allow the scripts and active-X to run through your browser.

 This means that you can very well view the non-scripted part of the HTA on web browsers but not the scripted part.

Conclusion: I request everyone, who have read this article, not to misuse the above provided code as I have tried to explain my point with these code and they are meant only for educational purpose.

I came across many people (including me) who got infected by the Funny UST Scandal.avi virus. This tutorial guides you through the manual process of removing this Virus from Windows Vista and Windows XP systems.

Details:

1)      This will block your Task Manager, Registry Editor and Command Prompt.

2)      It hacks in your Yahoo Messenger and sends stupid and senseless messages to them and even a copy of itself. (ask gigacore if you don’t believe me!!!:P)

3)      It will log your all key strokes and send them to an unknown email address through IM.

4)      It slows down your system badly and reinstalling the OS will do no good.

5)      It will disable the search and viewing of hidden files.

It’s built using AutoIt V3 virus programming software.--(source= some blog)

Windows XP:

 This virus was made mainly to infect XP and Windows NT systems. In XP and NT systems, it makes the following files:

       a) Killer.exe (4084 kb) in c:\windows\
      b) lsass.exe (3920kb) in c:\documents and settings\all users\start             menu\programs\startup
      c) xmss.exe (4088kb) in all partitioned drives and in c:\windows
      d) autorun.inf (1kb) in all partitioned drives with a script.

e) Funny UST Scandal.avi.exe in all partitions and Funny UST Scandal.exe in c:\Windows.

 This Virus makes the following registry entries:

a)      HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

      shell(killer.exe or xmss.exe)
b) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\windows\Currentversion\Run

      Runonce(c:\windows\xmss.exe)

If the virus has completely installed itself, then you can find all these files in your system.

To remove this virus:

a)      In order to removes the files, you’ll first have to stop the execution of this virus. To do so, download this file and run it.

b)      Now open cmd.exe and go the above mentioned locations and unhide the files by typing:   attrib –h –s Funny UST Scandal.exe for C:\windows and so on for all the other files in different locations. You might get an error while unhiding Funny UST Scandal.avi.exe which is placed in all partitions. If you get that error, just leave that file.

c)      After unhiding all these files, delete them from your hard disk.

d)     Download REPLACER and open it.

e)      In the REPLACER type: c:\Funny UST Scandal.avi.exe and press enter. It will now ask you for another file. Create a text file named a.txt in C:\ and then type: c:\ a.txt and press enter. Press Y and press enter. Go to C: drive and there you’ll find 3 files named Funny UST Scandal.backup, Funny UST Scandal.exe and a Temp file. Delete them.

f)       Repeat Step e) for all you partitions.

Windows Vista:

 Files included:

      a) xmss.exe (4088kb) in all partitioned drives and in c:\windows
      b) autorun.inf (1kb) in all partitioned drives with a script.

c) Funny UST Scandal.avi.exe in all partitions and Funny UST Scandal.exe in c:\Windows.

Registry Entries:

a) HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

      shell(killer.exe or xmss.exe)
b) HKCU\Software\Microsoft\windows\Currentversion\Run

      Runonce(c:\windows\xmss.exe)

The second key might no be present.

Removing the Virus:

To remove this virus:

a)      In order to removes the files, you’ll first have to stop the execution of this virus. To do so, download this file and run it.

b)      Now open cmd.exe and go the above mentioned locations and unhide the files by typing:   attrib –h –s Funny UST Scandal.exe for C:\windows and so on for all the other files in different locations. You might get an error while unhiding Funny UST Scandal.avi.exe which is placed in all partitions. If you get that error, just leave that file.

c)      After unhiding all these files, delete them from your hard disk.

d)     Download REPLACER and open it.

e)      In the REPLACER type: c:\Funny UST Scandal.avi.exe and press enter. It will now ask you for another file. Create a text file named a.txt in C:\ and then type: c:\ a.txt and press enter. Press Y and press enter. Go to C: drive and there you’ll find 3 files named Funny UST Scandal.backup, Funny UST Scandal.exe and a Temp file. Delete them.

f)       Repeat Step e) for all you partitions.

 As you can see that the procedure for both the OS is same just the files are different. I have tested the steps myself on Windows XP sp2 (my desktop), Windows Vista Home Basic (my lappy), Windows Vista Home Premium (my friends lappy) and Windows Vista Ultimate (my desktop).

 Hope this guide is useful. Happy Removing…

Batch files are really important when it comes to execute a set of DOS commands everytime. Basically batch file programming is nothing but the Windows version of Unix Shell Programming. In the article we’ll try to learn the basics of the batch file coding.

The Basic:

 Batch file is basically a executable file which executes the definite set of commands in one go. It is important not to name a batch file after the name of any DOS command as if done so, the batch file will not execute.

The First Batch Code:

 To create a batch file you do not need any separate kind of editor, Notepad will do just fine but if you wish to code a batch file in DOS mode then type EDIT on command prompt. This will open a blue screen very similar to the Notepad.

Now, open Notepad and type:

Echo This is my first batch file

And save this as name.bat . Remember to name the file as .bat as this marks the file as batch file.

When we execute this file the DOS prompt will open up and close immediately.

Well the file executed just fine but the DOS prompt will not wait for you to view the output.

Now let’s move into different batch file commands which are really useful:

ECHO: This is the printing command of DOS. The basic function of this command is to give some printed output on the screen. The main use of the echo command comes in use when we do not wish to view any output. When we execute a Batch file, it displays all the commands which are being executed preceding the path of the directory where they are being executed but if we wish we can add is little command to avoid the display of the path of the directory:

Echo off

Let’s see one more example of a simple batch file:

Cd abhishek

Del *.txt

 When we execute this batch file, the output comes like this:

C:\Windows\cd abhishek

C:\Windows\abhishek\del*.txt

Files deleted

Now if we add the ECHO OFF command:

Echo off

Cd abhishek

Del *.txt

 The output of this code will be:

C:\Windows\Echo off

Files deleted

This code will remove all the commands being executed and just show the errors and notification but still show the initial ECHO OFF command on the top. If you wish to hide this ECHO OFF command from showing then add @ECHO OFF. When you add this command, it will not even show the ECHO OFF command on the DOS prompt.

If you have used the ECHO OFF command in the beginning of the code the all the other echo commands after ECHO OFF will not work and you will get a message:

 ECHO is off

You can turn on ECHO by typing ECHO ON. This will give you a message:

 ECHO is on

PAUSE: This is one of the most important command when it comes to interact with the user and stop the DOS screen to view the output. Let’s see a code:

ECHO hello

Pause

When you execute this code, the result would be like this:

C:\windows\ECHO hello

Hello

Press any key to continue…

Now you must have clearly understood the use this command and how this halts the DOS screen. Now as you can see that the code is asking you to continue or not and if you do not wish to continue, press Ctrl+C or Ctrl+break. Pressing this key will give you a message:

Terminate batch job (Y/N) _

If you enter Y then the code terminates and if you enter N, the code proceeds to the next command.

IF command: The IF conditioning command is also available in batch file coding. The batch file programming gets a bit complicated here as at this stage we start using the parameters but as we are not familiar with the parameters at the moment, we will only check a few examples of IF conditioning:

a)      File existence: This is my favourite as it lets you check whether a file exists or not and take appropriate action for the state. SYNTAX: IF EXIST path command & IF NOT EXIST path command. It is also possible to check the existence of more than one file by using the IF statement again in the same line like IF EXIST path IF EXIST path command. In order to check the existence of a Directory by the following Syntax: IF [NOT] EXIST path\nul (example C:\abhi\nul) command. To check the existence of a Drive we use the following syntax:  IF [NOT] EXIST drivename\io.sys command , this syntax is a bit old and I have only checked it on a Windows 2000 server but not on XP or Vista.

b)      Compare strings: I’ll not be explaining this syntax as we need to understand the parameter before we understand this syntax. SYNTAX: IF [NOT]stringX==stringy command.

Note:

 Its really sometimes get very time taking and annoying to always migrate to the directory where you have saved your batch file and then execute it. So, inorder to avoid this migration you can create a separate directory where you can save all your batch files and add this directory in the PATH statement of the AUTOEXEC.bat file which is present in the root directory of your system. Just open the AUTOEXEC.bat in notepad and look for a line which starts with PATH and then add the path of the folder in that statement. This way you can execute the batch file from any directory by typing in the name of the batch file.

Avoiding Batch file Viruses: When you double click on a batch file, it automatically executes and this can be very dangerous sometimes. To avoid this do the following:

Open the Registry and go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\batfile. Open the EditFlags binary value and change its value to 00 00 00 00. Now open Explorer and open folder option from the view menu and select File Types Tab, scroll down to the ‘MS-DOS Batch File’ item, highlight it and click Edit.

Now when you double click on any batch file, it will open it on the default text editor and hence you are safe from the batch file viruses.

Modify then the entry of the chain “InitialKeyboardIndicators”
the value “0” leaves the unbolted keyboard
the value “2” locks it

Once you install the extension, you'll need to add the button to the toolbar. Right-click where the buttons are, choose Customize, and then add the icon you can see here.

This icon will let you open the sidebar, where you can open multiple conversations in separate tabs. Just keep in mind that if you close the sidebar, it will close the client as well.

This extension is also extremely useful for sending somebody a quick email. Just click on their name in the list or search for them via the search box, and then you'll see an email button.

Clicking this button will open up a message window already addressed to that contact. This is typically what I use the sidebar for - rather than just chatting, it's the quickest way to send an email.

Note that you can also use the keyboard shortcut Alt+G to open the sidebar.

Install gTalk Sidebar from Mozilla Add-ons

Opera

Opera was the first browser to support the Bittorrent protocol. Their BT support is quite solid, but not very advanced and doesn’t support some well-known BT extensions. In short: nice for new users, but not for regular downloaders.

Pros: Nicely integrated, multi-platform.
Cons: No advanced features (missing DHT, peer exchange, encrypted transfers), not open source.

BitFox

BitFox is a quite new extension for Firefox, made by the student Joshua Hendo. The backend of the extension is based on Rasterbar’s libtorrent, so it supports quite some advanced BT features. The project is in a VERY early stage of development, and can only be obtained from SVN, so I haven’t tested it yet.

Pros: Open source, using libtorrent, so a quite solid backend (including DHT).
Cons: Not usable yet, early stage of development, seems to run only on Windows & Linux.

FireStorm

FireStorm is quite similar to BitFox, it’s an extension for Firefox and still in pre-alpha development stage. They use the Mainline client as a basis, so they will probably support most BT extensions/features.

Pros: Open source, using the Mainline reference client as a backend.
Cons: In pre-alpha development stage, not usable yet, interface is quite ugly.
FoxTorrent

FoxTorrent is a project of the company Red Swoosh/Akamai, these guys have the funding and expertise to build a nice Firefox extension. This extension isn’t that well integrated in Firefox, clicking a torrent basically opens a webpage to the webinterface of an external application. The advantage is that closing your browser doesn’t stop the torrents from downloading.

Pros: Open source, torrent streaming/progressive downloading support, continue downloading even when browser is closed.
Cons: Not very well integrated in Firefox, no advanced features (missing port mapping, DHT, peer exchange, encrypted transfers).

While in thumbnails view in explorer of Win XP, we can see video's starting frame but only for some of the predefined video file's extensions like mpg, mpeg, avi but not for extensions like rmvb(Real media files) and 3gp & 3g2(Mobile video files)
Here we will just copy the settings of one extension to another through registry editor and we will be able to view their first frame in thumbnail just like as we are able with pre-defined files.
Note: Registry should be handled with care, I would recommend taking a backup before you do any changes in the registry. I don't take responsibility of any damage or loss incurred by users while implementing this tweak.
Steps For Doing It:

1> Open Registry Editor (By typing regedit at the Run prompt)
2> Select HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and find .avi (any of the mpg,mpeg will do)
3> Export its registry settings (will be saved as *.reg)
4> Right click on *.reg file and select Edit
5> Now if you want *.divx files to be treated in the same way as *.avi files then just replace avi by divx in the file. Save it and execute it.
6> Repeat Step5 for various files of whom you want to change the behaviour.

Note:This doesnt work for *.vob files.