Windows XP

Malware Silently Alters Router Settings – Change Your Router Passwords

October 31, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

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Not your password for Windows — you may or may not change that, based on your personal preference (or if at work, based on the requirements of your employer’s network).

I’m talking about changing your passwords on your wireless routers and wired routers.

Whether you use a Linksys router, a DLink router, a Belkin route, or one of the many other brands of routers , whether you use wireless or regular Ethernet connnections with your router, change the password from the default password — now!

In my security articles on routers, I have long recommended that you change the router’s password. Sure, it can’t be accessed from the Internet side of the router, but if you manage to pick up some automated malware or a trojan that gives remote control of your computer to someone else, you may find your router subverted. It may run all of your requests through their system, so they can log and analyze your actions, passwords, etc.

Well, the automated malware that I’ve long predicted has now been found in the wild.

Continue reading Malware Silently Alters Router Settings – Change Your Router Passwords

Filed Under: Anti-spam, Anti-spyware, Anti-Trojan, Anti-virus, Networking, Patches, Security Fixes, Security Issues, Terry's Computer Tips, Vista, Windows XP

Improving Your Wireless Security

October 16, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

If you’ve read some of my other articles about having an open, unsecured wireless network versus securing your wireless network so that others can not get into it, you know that I believe in security.

I recommend that everyone secure their wireless network to the extent possible. It’s impossible to completely secure a wireless system, but you can block out most users. You can make it difficult for others to use your network.

The point is to make the process hard enough that the visitor — the unauthorized person who is trying to use your network for normal Internet usage or illegal and/or immoral actions — decides to use someone else’s network.

Continue reading Improving Your Wireless Security

Filed Under: Communications, Networking, Security, Software, System, Terry's Computer Tips, Vista, Windows Updates, Windows XP

Windows XP Screen Freezing

October 13, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

Reader Steve Sturgill wrote to ask about screen freeze problems he was having:

Mr. Stockdale, My OS is XP, my ISP is MSN and I connect through broadband. My problem is, any time I right click, as in attempting to access dropdown menus, my screen freezes. Also I am unable to click on any of the tools in the top, left corner of my screen – i.e. File, Edit, View, etc. This has been going on for several weeks! I have looked extensively for a solution online – to no avail. Several sites suggest using a program called ShellExView, which I downloaded and tried, several times, in vain. Nothing seems to work. Can you please advise me? Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much, in advance, Steve

I wrote back to Steve to suggest some actions to try to resolve his problems.

I’ve seen some strange effects like that before – not those exactly (except the apparent freezing on right-clicking for a context menu).

Continue reading Windows XP Screen Freezing

Filed Under: Backups, Bug Fixes, File system repair, Hard Drive Recovery, Hard Drives, Other, System, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows XP

More Windows XP SP3 Woes

October 7, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

Reader Tom Linton wrote about is problems that occurred when he installed Windows XP Service Pack 3 shortly after it was released:

Terry,

I made the mistake of not being patient. SP3 had been out about a week and I hadn’t seen very much in the various email newsletters I subscribe to. A few friends had told me they installed SP3 and had no troubles. One even commented that his PC ran noticeably faster after the upgrade. So, I went ahead and upgraded 2 of my 3 PCs. Bad timing!

My primary PC (a Gateway GM5045H) did not appreciate the medicine, my secondary PC (my hand me down to my wife, a DELL Dimension 8200) upgraded with no know problems, and my third PC is to old to run XP.

My Gateway refused to run I.E.7, crashed my Media Center, would not let me connect to the Internet, and generally ran very slow. There may have been other problems I didn’t wait around to find out about. I did research (which I should have done before the SP3 upgrade, but I trusted MS to get this right since it was so long coming) with my wifes PC. The consensus was to uninstall SP3. I did this. My Media Center worked again but I.E.7 refused. I uninstalled I.E.7 back to I.E.6. It seemed to work OK. I upgraded to I.E.7 and it crashed again. Back to I.E.6. I only use I.E. for those pages that will not run properly in Firefox.

My real problem is my personal LAN. All the other PCs can see my main PC but my main PC cannot see them. Network Magic could not resolve the problem. I have searched the Internet and tried several suggestions on various forums. None have restored my ability to see my other PC’s on my LAN. I cannot PING the other PC’s. It is like the SP3 upgrade changed some settings to tighten up LAN security, but I cannot find how to undo them.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Tom,

Tom said that he could not ping the the other computers from his computer. — by name – or by ip address? If you can’t by IP address, then something is blocking them. If you can ping by IP address but not by name, you would know that it’s Windows name resolution that is causing the problem.

I suggested …

Continue reading More Windows XP SP3 Woes

Filed Under: Bug Fixes, Microsoft Updates, Operating System, Patches, Security Fixes, Software, System, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows Updates, Windows XP

Windows XP Service Pack 3 Woes

October 5, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

So far, I’ve still avoided installing the new Windows XP Service Pack 3. I know that a lot of people have installed it without any problems.

However, when there is a problem, it is not trivial! Recently, two subscribers wrote to tell me of their horror stories and ask for suggestions on solving them.

Delmer Tergarden wrote to say that he had installed Windows Service Pack SP3 and the drivers for both the CD and DVD drives stopped working. Even though he restored the system to its state just before back up, his CD and DVD drives still were not recognized by Windows. He wanted to know how to get the drives working again.

I wrote back to say:

I haven’t installed XP SP3 yet, to avoid running into any of the early-adapter problems like you did. That’s why I think Microsoft made a blunder in its choice to push SP3 as a high-importance update as its initial release. It really abuses our trust of the update system.

Anyway, …

Continue reading Windows XP Service Pack 3 Woes

Filed Under: Operating System, Security, Security Fixes, Software, System, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows Updates, Windows XP

Sunbelt VIPRE Review | VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware Review

August 23, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

When I began my evaluation period of Sunbelt Software’s new VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware program, I was promptly shocked.

I had read several reviews about VIPRE and had read phrases like “high performance” and “low resources.” I had even read comments that where the writer said that VIPRE was virtually unnoticeable on their computer and that their computer suddenly had more speed that it had in a long time.

Naturally, I discounted those comments and claims, thinking that they were advertising exaggeration and hyperbole. They usually compare the computer’s performance to when it had been running one of the big-name suites, so that wasn’t too surprising any way.

I was shocked when I installed VIPRE on my notebook computer. I saw for myself that VIPRE didn’t interfere with my activities. My computer really was faster with VIPRE, even faster than the speedy combination of CounterSpy and NOD32.

Get more information on VIPRE

Continue reading my Sunbelt VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware Review

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Filed Under: Anti-adware, Anti-spyware, Anti-virus, Software, Terry's Computer Tips, Vista, Windows XP Tagged With: Antimalware, Antispyware, Antivirus, Firewall, GFI, GFI Sunbelt, Sunbelt GFI, Sunbelt Software, Sunbelt VIPRE Review, VIPRE, VIPRE Antivirus Premium

WinClear Internet History Eraser the Review

July 4, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

Product: WinClear
Class: Utility — Privacy — temp file and Windows/Internet history deletion
License: Commercial product.
Version Reviewed: v2.0

WinClear is a computer history cleaner program designed to delete or erase the history of your activity on your computer. Obviously, it can’t dig into the guts of every program to find and delete the history each might retain (and you probably would not want that).

WinClear targets general Windows items, recent document lists in many programs, chat history, and all sorts of data that Internet Explorer records on your use of IE.

I wrote in my email newsletter that I had been trying out WinClear. I was impressed with it from the start.

On my notebook, after I had deleted my temporary files (I thought) and the Temporary Internet Files, I was surprised that WinClear found over 800 MB of temporary files for me. Since I was down to only 2 GB free on my notebook, getting 800 MB more was a significant find.

Continue reading WinClear — Internet History Eraser — the Review

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Filed Under: Software, System, Terry's Computer Tips, Usability, Windows XP

HOWTO: Identifying and Changing Default File Type / Program Associations

May 12, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

If you need to identify which program opens a particular file type, you can do that, and a lot more, using the Folder Options functions in Windows Explorer.

To find Folder Options, open Windows Explorer (right-click on Start, select Explore). Then, on its menu bar, select Tools and then Folder Options…

At this point, we need to select the File Types tab.

On the File Types tab, we see a large, scrollable box that lists file types. As we scroll down the list, we see various file extensions (such as JPG and DOC) along with a text description of the file type.

Continue reading HOWTO: Identifying and Changing Default File Type / Program Associations

Filed Under: File system repair, Performance Tweaks, Software, System, Terry's Computer Tips, Usability, Vista, Windows XP

HOWTO: Using Excel – How To Use Absolute Addressing

April 21, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

Microsoft Excel, like most spreadsheets, has a really convenient feature. When you copy any given cell into another cell, Excel will automatically adjust the formula references to other cells so refer to cells in the same relative position.

First, a look at Relative Addressing

In the example below, I copied thte formula in cell C2 into cells C3 through C8.

Excel automatically adjusted the formulas so that each formula referenced cells in the corresponding locations (columns a and b — it changed the row numbers) to the cells referenced by the cell that I was copying.

Continue reading HOWTO: Using Excel – How To Use Absolute Addressing

Filed Under: Office, Software, Terry's Computer Tips, Vista, Windows XP

Adware Ties into Internet Explorer

March 28, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

This week, I received a query from a reader about a warning message he was receiving:

Hi Terry , I was wondering if perhaps you can help me , I have this very annoying adware that occurs EVERYTIME at startup …. not-a-virus:Adware.Win32.BHO.cr Now althugh this doesn’t appeato be causing any problem on my PC and I get delete it , it is still annoying to do this everytime . Is there anything you can suggest to REMOVE this adware from startup . Pls note : I am not computer savvy and my experience is limited , so I would need exact steps If you could help me , it would be greatly appreciated Regards

I’m not familiar with this particular message, but a little quick searching via Google showed that a number of people had posted similar questions on forums — and they all seemed to use

Continue reading Adware Ties into Internet Explorer

Filed Under: Anti-adware, Anti-spyware, Anti-Trojan, Anti-virus, Security, Security Fixes, System, Terry's Computer Tips, Vista, Windows XP