Blocking Potentially Unsafe Downloads

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Based on a survey of crashes submitted via the Online Crash Analysis tool in Windows XP, Microsoft concluded that roughly half of reported failures in the Windows operating system during the survey period were directly traceable to what it calls “deceptive software.” As we explain in this section, spyware, adware, and other similarly unsavory types of software represent a major security risk.

How does deceptive software end up on a computer? The simplest route is the most direct: You click a link on a webpage or in an e-mail message that leads directly to an executable file. For example, an advertisement may make extravagant or alarming claims about a free program, perhaps even embedding the link in a pop-up window that looks like a warning dialog box generated by Windows. When an unsophisticated computer user clicks the ad, the program offers to install as an ActiveX control via an Authenticode dialog box, which can easily be mistaken for an official Windows stamp of approval.

In some cases, the setup routine for one program surreptitiously installs additional programs in the background. When we installed one widely used song-swapping program in a previous version of Windows, for instance, we found that it installed four well hidden add-ons along with the main application, resulting in an increase in pop-up advertisements and changes to the way the browser handled search requests and mistyped URLs. The most vicious types of deceptive software typically attempt to exploit security holes to install themselves automatically, without your approval or even your knowledge.

It should come as no surprise that the makers of this sort of software employ all sorts of tricks to mislead, deceive, and cajole you into installing their wares, by extolling the program’s benefi ts and glossing over or omitting any mention of its undesirable behavior. For someone with a basic understanding of computer security issues, the principal security concern when browsing is to ensure (insofar as it is possible) that anything you download is safe and that any potentially undesirable behavior is fully disclosed. If you share a computer or network with unsophisticated computer users who cannot reasonably be expected to consistently reject unsafe software, your goal should be to prevent them from having to make potentially confusing choices in the first place.

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Speed up Windows Vista with a flash drive

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If you've got a spare USB drive laying around, hold onto it till you start running Windows Vista. Using Vista's new ReadyBoost feature, a spare USB 2.0 key with enough space can speed up the OS performance.

Plug in your drive and choose "Speed up my system" from the AutoPlay menu to enable ReadyBoost, which uses some fancy-pants disk-caching to make Windows a bit snappier.

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Create a favicon

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To make a favicon, you first need a gif or jpg from which to work. You can either whip those up yourself at free graphics sites like FlamingText or CoolText, or simply use one of the many bazillions available for free at IconArchive or the Icon Browser.

Creator or save your gif or jpg to your desktop. Remember where you put it. Next, (and here’s the secret goodie!), you go to
Favicon Creator
Dynamic Drive Favicon Creator

You can simply then use their free tools, select that image, and click Generate. This is what creates the image file “favicon.ico” .
Once you have your favicon.ico, you need to upload that to your website.
You’re almost done! On your website html pages, you need to add the following line:
(link rel=”shortcut icon” xhref=”/favicon.ico” mce_href=”/favicon.ico” )(change the parenthesis to brackets, of course)

and you’re done! Take a look at the ico image I just created for this blog (save the page as a favorite) and you’ll see just how effective it can be.

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Vista Keyboard shortcuts

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Ctrl+Shift+Esc -> Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del -> Tasks Screen)
Ctrl+Shift+Enter -> Run an executable with elevated privileges
Windows logo key+1-0 -> Launch the shortcuts on the Quick Launch toolbar
Windows logo key+T -> Cycle through programs on the taskbar
Windows logo key+Tab -> Cycle through programs on the taskbar by using Flip 3-DCtrl+
Windows logo key+Tab -> Use the arrow keys to cycle through programs on the taskbar by using Flip 3-D
Windows logo key+Spacebar -> Bring all gadgets to the front and select Windows Sidebar
Windows logo key+G -> Cycle through Sidebar gadgets
Windows logo key+X -> Open Windows Mobility Center
Open a folder and press & release Alt -> Show Menu Bar (also works in Internet Explorer)

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How much time do you waste dealing with taxes?

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VISTA: Keyboard Accelerators in Folder Windows

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Some keyboard accelerators are especially useful in Explorer and folder windows. You can use these in addition to the various keys described in "Point-and-Click Operations," earlier in this chapter.

Hold the Alt key while double-clicking on a file or folder to view the Properties window for that object.

Hover your mouse cursor over a file or folder to see basic information about the object, such as size, date modified, and so on.

Hold the Shift key while double-clicking on a folder to open an Explorer window (with the tree view) at that location. (Be careful when using this because Shift is also used to select multiple files. The best way is to select the file first.)

Press Backspace in an open folder to go to the parent (containing) folder.

Hold Alt while pressing the left cursor key to navigate to the previously viewed folder. Note that this is not necessarily the parent folder, but rather the last folder opened in Explorer. You can also hold Alt while pressing the right cursor key to move in the opposite direction (i.e., forward); this is similar to the Back and Next buttons in Internet Explorer, respectively. Windows Explorer also has Back and Next buttons.

Hold the Shift key while clicking on the close button (the x in the upper-right corner of the window on the menu bar) to close all open folders that were used to get to that folder. (This, of course, makes sense only in the single-folder view and with the "Open each folder in its own window" option turned on.)

Press Ctrl-A to quickly select all contents of a folder both files and folders.

In Explorer or any single-folder window, press a letter key to quickly jump to the first file or folder starting with that letter. Continue typing to jump further. For example, pressing the N key in your \Windows folder will jump to nap. Press N again to jump to the next object that starts with N. Or, press N and then quickly press O to skip through the Ns and jump to notepad.exe. If there's enough of a delay between the N and the O keys, Explorer will forget about the N, and you'll jump to the first entry that starts with O.

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How To: Determine what Services are running in Windows XP

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When you bring up the Task Manager you'll see an entry for Services and the amount of memory consumed. However this one listing is actually all the Services combined into a single entry. As you can see I have them trimmed down to only the Services needed for this machine.

To view the complete list:
From a command prompt: Start Run (type) cmd (click Ok)
(type) tasklist /svc (press Enter)(XP Pro only)

You will see all the Services running in process.
To save the onscreen info:
Right-click and select: Select All
Right-click again and select: Mark
Open Notepad and Paste the info
File - Save As: tasklist.txtor

(type) "tasklist /svc >tasklist.txt" (no quotes)

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VISTA: Turning Your Favorites into a Web Page

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The Favorites menu and submenus are fine for starters, but sometimes it is a bit of a drag to search repeatedly through all these menus. How about creating a single web page of all your favorites? Or separate web pages for different subsets of favorites?
Internet Explorer includes the Import/Export Wizard, which can export your favorites or cookies. It writes them to your disk in a format that Netscape, Mozilla Firefox, and other browsers can read. You can also use the wizard to import cookies and favorites from other browsers. The wizard writes out your favorites as an HTML file. This makes it easy to look through your favorites with Notepad and edit them if you like. You can also use the HTML file as a page in Internet Explorer, from which you can easily jump to any site on your list.
Choose File➪Import and Export to run the wizard.

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Security and Windows Vista

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It’s been a tough decade for Windows users. As Microsoft’s operating system entered the dominant phase of its existence, hackers began focusing almost solely on Windows, since that’s where all the users are. As a result, various Windows versions have suffered through a seemingly neverending series of electronic attacks, security vulnerabilities, and high-profile malware breakouts.

In 2003, Microsoft halted development of its major operating system and application products and began an internal review of its software development practices. The company went back and re-examined the source code to its then-current projects and developed a new software engineering approach that is security-centric. Now, the software giant will not release any software product that hasn’t undergone a stringent series of security checks. Windows Vista is the first client operating system shipped since that time that’s been developed from the get-go with these principles in mind. It has been architected to be secure from the beginning.

Is Windows Vista impenetrable? Of course not. No software is perfect. But Windows Vista is demonstrably more secure than its predecessors. And although we will no doubt face awesome security threats in the future, Microsoft at least has the lessons it learned from the mistakes of the past to fall back on. There’s little doubt that the security enhancements in Windows Vista will prove to be a major reason many people will upgrade to this version. It’s not a misplaced desire.

Windows Vista’s security features extend all the way through the system, from the highprofile applications, applets, and control panels you will deal with every day to the lowlevel features most Windows users have never heard of. In this chapter, we’ll highlight most of Vista’s new security features, starting with those you will likely have to deal with as soon as you begin using Microsoft’s latest operating system.

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Acquiring Windows Vista with a New PC

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The simplest way to get a completely working copy of Windows Vista is to buy a new PC. Wait, we’re serious: Even though PC makers tend to fill their machines with oodles of useless utilities, add-on programs, and other sludge, the one thing you can always be sure of when you buy a new PC is that Windows Vista is going to work out of the box. That is, all of the hardware that comes as part of your new PC purchase will work without any additional effort on your part. You won’t have to step through the various setup-related issues we discuss later in this chapter. In fact, if you did purchase a PC with Windows Vista preinstalled, most of this chapter won’t apply to you at all (well, except for the deployment discussion at the end of the chapter, assuming you got a Vista DVD with the new PC). You should be able to simply turn your new PC on and get to work.

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IE Protected Mode and Phishing Filter

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Internet Explorer 7.0, when running under Windows Vista (not XP or earlier operating systems), operates by default in Protected Mode. This means that dishonest web sites that a user happens to visit cannot trick IE 7 into changing Windows system files or other crucial configuration details.

A separate feature, but one that can work in concert with Protected Mode to keep users out of trouble, is Microsoft’s new Phishing Filter. IE 7 regularly downloads from a Microsoft server a list of web addresses that appear to be fraudulent. These sites may get on the list because they’re collecting passwords or credit card numbers from gullible consumers, they’re downloading spyware to people’s computers, or for other reasons. In any case, IE 7 doesn’t display known phishing sites, instead warning the user about the identified problems with the site.

The features just described are only two of the several Microsoft has added to Internet Explorer. Others include protection against cross-site scripting attacks (in which one site takes over a window used by another site), ActiveX suspension (which disables the most dangerous ActiveX controls), and Windows Defender, which guards against spyware. It’s too early to say whether the new IE security features will add up to an adequate level of safety for Windows users, or whether third-party security products must still be added to Windows. It’s likely that Microsoft’s own programs will play second fiddle to third-party developers, who concentrate specifically on antiphishing and antispyware research. Read the comparative reviews of security add-ons in respected computer magazines to learn which products provide the best security—and then invest a few bucks in any independent downloads that are top rated.

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Malware Fundamentals

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Intruders, hackers, or attackers who access networks and systems without authorization and with malicious motives can plant various types of programs to cause damage to the network, your system, and your data. These programs—often lumped together under the general term viruses—perform many different functions and are classified under different categories. In this section, we will look at how granular the term malware can actually be. It’s important to have a general understanding of the different classifications of malware, and it’s equally important to understand their general behavior.

Malware is any software product or program that has been created with an intent to cause damage or harm. The word malice is a legal term used to define the intention of one party to harm or cause injury to another party. When applied to computer technology, the word holds equal meaning. A malicious party creates software to cause havoc on any host that downloads and installs it, whether knowingly or unknowingly. When discussing malware, it’s important to classify it. The term malware is generally used to describe a broad spectrum of different types of software, such as computer viruses, Trojans, worms, adware, and spyware. Just about any form of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code can be classified as malware.

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There once was a computer consultant
He didn't know his butt from a fountain
He studied hard all day
And even tried to pray
But alas nothing will make him competent

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Please tell me all your Computer Repair and Consulting Service horror stories.

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Vista Q&A

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Q: How can I determine whether upgrading to Windows Vista is right for me?

A: First, you need to make sure your computer has the recommended hardware to run Vista; if it doesn’t, you will need to upgrade your computer or purchase a new computer. If your computer runs fine on its current OS, you could find it difficult to justify switching to Vista. It may be a good idea to wait until some of the bugs are worked out of Vista before considering an upgrade.

Q: Do I need to upgrade my computer to the specifications that Microsoft has published, or will Vista crash on me?

A: You should always go by the hardware requirements put forward by the vendor. This will ensure that the software will operate correctly when installed on the computer.

Q: I really don’t like Internet Explorer 7.Will Firefox run on Vista?

A: Yes, it will, and we have been using it on our test box with no problems so far.

Q: Is it better for me to go with a 64-bit or a 32-bit version of Vista?

A: We recommend the 32-bit version for now because there are still many programs and hardware devices that are not supported on 64-bit Windows. If you have researched what programs and hardware devices are supported and feel comfortable going with the 64-bit version, then the 64-bit version may be right for you.

Q: Can I expect any glitches when upgrading from XP to Vista?

A: We experienced only a few when we upgraded to Vista in our lab. When we did a fresh install, we had no problems.

Q: I was told that Vista is a memory hog and that it would crash computers with less than 1 GB of RAM. Is this true?

A: We ran Vista on a machine with only 600 MB of RAM and it ran okay, but remember, when you add more programs, you need more RAM.

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What Is Windows Vista Sidebar?

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Back when Microsoft shipped Windows 98, it added a debatably useful feature called Active Desktop that provided an HTML layer on top of the traditional desktop. Active Desktop was an attempt to capitalize on the then-emerging trend of users wanting to combine live data from the Web with their PC operating system. The term for this, at the time, was push technology. The idea was that although you could use a Web browser to manually find, or pull down, data from the Web, a push technology client like Active Desktop could push data to the user automatically with no interaction required. Ultimately, most users found Active Desktop to be confusing and undesirable, and although the feature was never really removed from Windows, it was deemphasized in subsequent Windows versions, such as Windows XP. It’s still possible to add web content to your XP desktop via Active Desktop if you really want to.

Active Desktop may have failed, but the underlying benefits of push technology are still valid today. You can see that newer versions of this functionality exist in such technologies as RSS (Really Simple Syndication), which in fact, attempts to solve essentially the same problem as Active Desktop: Rather than force users to manually search for the content they want, that content is delivered automatically to them using a unique kind of client (in this case, an RSS client). One such RSS client is included in Windows Vista as part of Internet Explorer 7.

In Windows Vista, Active Desktop is finally gone forever. But integrated push technology lives on with a brand-new feature called Windows Sidebar. Like Active Desktop, Windows Sidebar is available by default and is running when you start up your PC, unless you configure it not to do so. But Windows Sidebar solves one of the major problems with Active Desktop by moving the main user interface to the side of the screen where it won’t typically be hidden under your open applications and other windows.

Put simply, Windows Sidebar is a panel that sits at the edge of your screen and houses small gadgets, or mini-applications, each of which can provide specific functionality. Gadgets typically connect to data somewhere, be it on your PC or on the Internet. Windows Vista ships with a variety of these gadgets, but you can download many more online, and if you’re familiar with Web technologies like HTML (HyperText Markup Language), DHTML (Dynamic HTML), and JavaScript, you can even build your own gadgets.

Because Windows Sidebar does take up a small portion of vertical real estate on your screen, this feature is more useful for those with widescreen displays. That said, Windows Sidebar appears under other windows by default so that users with normal square-shaped screens can use it as well.

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Make XP Desktop Icon Labels See-Through

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THE ANNOYANCE: The captions under my desktop icons have ugly blocks of solid color behind them, obscuring my pretty, pretty wallpaper.

THE FIX: I know what you mean; you've just got to see as much as possible of that kitten playing with the ball of yarn. The color Windows uses for the blocks behind icon captions is the default desktop color what you'd see if you had no wallpaper. You can change this color by right-clicking an empty area of the desktop and selecting Properties. Choose the Appearance tab, then click the Advanced button. Choose Desktop from the Item menu, and open the color picker under "Color 1" to change it. Pick a color that closely matches the background in your desktop wallpaper, and click OK and Apply to see the results.

An even better option is to open the System control panel, click the Advanced tab, and in the Performance section, click the Settings button. Scroll down and check the "Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop" box, and click OK. The caption backgrounds will vanish, and the text will have shadows so you can distinguish the captions from your desktop wallpaper.

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Show XP Desktop Without Closing Windows

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THE ANNOYANCE: I usually have a lot of application windows open, and it's a pain to have to shove windows out of the way to get to a file on the desktop.

THE FIX: There are a bunch of ways to get to your desktop in a flash. First, hold the Windows logo key (which we'll call Winkey, just to be cute) and press D to quickly minimize all open windows. Press Winkey-D again to restore them. Do this many times to give yourself a headache.

But what if your keyboard havey no Winkey? No problemo; just click the Show Desktop button on the Quick Launch toolbar (the little row of tiny buttons on the far left of your Taskbar). Give the button another click to restore the windows.

Want to free up some Taskbar real estate? Eliminate the Quick Launch toolbar buttons you don't use by right-clicking each one and selecting Delete. To really save space, you can banish all the buttons except Show Desktop, and place the shrunken Quick Launch toolbar next to the Windows System Tray on the far right.

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Office 2007 New Technologies

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Office 2007 includes an option for saving files in XML Paper Specification (XPS), a format developed by Microsoft that offers XML-based, paginated device-independent files, enabling you to share formatted and finalized documents in a secure way with others who may or may not be working with the same software you use.

XPS Fact Sheet

■ An XPS document is a platform-independent file that preserves page by page the final presentation of a document as it will appear when printed.
■ XPS is developed by Microsoft and is similar to PDF (developed by Adobe Systems), but is XML-based.
■ The XPS format is available as an option in Office Word 2007, Office Excel 2007, Office PowerPoint 2007, Office Access 2007, Microsoft® Office Publisher® 2007, and Microsoft® Office Visio® 2007.
■ The XPS format is secure, and the content is fixed—no macros or scripts are preserved in the format.
■ XPS includes support for digital signatures and is compatible with Windows Rights Management for additional protection.
■ The XPS format preserves live links within documents, making files saved in this format fully functional as live online documents.
■ Users of the Microsoft Office system applications with XPS support can create XPS documents using the familiar Save As procedure available in the File menu.
■ The XPS Document Viewer comes with Microsoft Windows Vista and also is available for Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Server 2003.

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