Tarun

This may also be of some help to you: http://wiki.lunarsoft.net/wiki/Freeware

Windows 95, 98 and Me are no longer supported. Your safest bet would be upgrading your OS. You'll get so much more security and stability. Even if you need to upgrade your hardware. You can still get Windows XP and it would be a small price to pay in the long run and be a very wise investment.

The "RAM optimization" type programs do more harm than good. "RAM Optimizers have no effect, and at worst, they seriously degrade performance. Although gaining more available memory might seem beneficial, it isn't. As RAM Optimizers force the available-memory counter up, they force other processes' data and code out of memory. Say that you're running Word, for example. As the optimizer forces the available-memory counter up, the text of open documents and the program code that was part of Word's working set before the optimization (and was therefore present in physical memory) must be reread from disk as you continue to edit your document. The act of allocating, then freeing a large amount of virtual memory might, as a conceivable side effect, lead to blocks of contiguous available memory. However, because virtual memory masks the layout of physical memory from processes, processes can't directly benefit from having virtual memory backed by contiguous physical memory. As processes execute and undergo working-set trimming and growth, their virtual-memory-to-physical-memory mappings will become fragmented despite the availability of contiguous memory." Sources: Page 1 and Page 2. Mark Russinovich is definitely the best and most reliable source for Windows Internals.

Welcome to the forums. You could disable Windows Automatic Updates and then disable the notification. If you need to update you can take a CD-RW and use the c't Offline Updater. I'm not entirely sure, but if you apply the updates then the notifications may go away.

Avast works extremely well, actually. The source of the problem as far as memory management goes, is Windows 9x/Me.

Except reinstalling your OS is not fixing the problem, it's avoiding it.

Check and see what version firmware the router has. Linksys WRT54G's are good, but the best are WRT54GL's or the WRT54G1-4. If it fits one of those, load Tomato Firmware on it and you'll most likely never have any problems with it again.

You can download either Tweak UI or Dial-a-fix and fix your icon cache. In Dial-a-fix this can be done under Tools > Flush Icon Cache. In Tweak UI go to Repair > Select Rebuild Icons and click Repair.

Have a look at this thread where your question was asked several years ago: http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=104113

I agree with the decision made 100%. It was closed for a reason and a very valid one. You stated that you're doing a University paper (which is academic material) and asking others for their experiences would count as aiding your research. No matter how you may paraphrase it, you were asking for academic assistance. If we make an exception for one person, then we would have to make exceptions for everyone. Should that be the case then there would be no point in having rules. Rules are rules and every one of us must follow them.

I wouldn't trust the site at all for judging password strength. !@#$%^&*() = 100% too.

Try the main SymNRT.

Compressing files will only slow things down, because Windows will then have to decompress the files every time they are used.

Really? That's odd. PM me your password and we can check on that, gamehead. Disclaimer: The contents of this message is a joke and no one should dare to take this seriously. Remember, forum staff will never ask you for your passwords under any circumstance. -------------- I tried this site and apparently I'd be best off changing my password to a123bB7890 as it scores 100%.

You only needed to post this once and the other duplicates have been removed. I've installed this update and it does not keep reappearing in Windows Update.

Removed some flaming that occurred in here. Keep this topic clean of flames and try to help the user figure out what happened. Remember that there is not one single piece of software in existence that is perfect with no flaws, bugs, exploits, etc. Forum Rules 7.b This community is built upon mutual respect. You are not allowed to flame other members. People who do not respect personal opinions and/or personal work will be warned in first instance. If you ignore the warning and keep on flaming, you will be banned without notice. -- forkprong, you will need to navigate to the directory of your NTOSKRNL.EX_ and do the expand command along with the path to where the file(s) should be expanded to.

There's a mod for IP.Board to allow a Sphinx search engine that may resolve these issues. http://mods.invisionize.com/db/index.php/f/7203

Educate him by literally showing him that it's a Norton problem. Tell him he can get a full refund for the crapware as well by calling Symantec and telling them that their products suck and are breaking his computer. Remember, SymNRT is your friend.

Very nice, thank you for showing the order these occur in. Going to give this a shot on my server pc.

I would recommend using Comodo over the Vista firewall, yes. More control of applications, etc.

Format and reinstall using your original Windows cd and then install SP1. Everything will work as intended and you'll have peace of mind knowing that if you buy any new games, hardware, software, etc. it will work straight out of the box. "Microsoft does not recommend using any tool to strip out applications from Windows Vista prior to installing it on your system, as it may affect your ability to download future Windows updates and service packs, and may cause your system to become unstable," the company said to CNet News after a recent story about vLite.

Reinstall Comodo Firewall Pro 3 and choose the Firewall only option. When it asks about another feature after that (sorry, I forget exactly what it was) you uncheck it and continue to install. After the firewall has learned everything it's quite silent. I even go to Firewall > Advanced > Firewall Behavior Settings and raise it up to Custom Policy and on Alerts I set it to Medium.

For an anti-virus, I would say use Avast or AVG, both have very high detection rates. I personally prefer avast as you can customize it a bit more. AVG is customizable as well, though finding some settings is a bit of a hassle for many users. I use Comodo Firewall Pro 3 but I only use the Firewall feature, none of that Defense+ stuff. Works great in my opinion. nLite is used to remove services and other necessary things from your Windows install. While people believe that this improves their performance, they are actually hurting their Windows install and reducing performance. People even go as far as to claim they are getting more RAM back. Idle RAM is wasted RAM, and when there are services that are idle, you're not losing any performance at all. Also, with the size of hard drives now you have plenty of disk space; even with notebook computers. Trimming off a few megabytes to get "better performance" doesn't really happen at all. These things have been debunked on many websites and forums, yet many users still believe in this myth. Microsoft has even said to CNet News, "Microsoft does not recommend using any tool to strip out applications from Windows prior to installing it on your system, as it may affect your ability to download future Windows updates and service packs, and may cause your system to become unstable." DownThemAll! is a Firefox extension that allows pausing, resuming and many more things. It's perfectly safe to use. You can find out more about it on http://downthemall.net They're items not needed to startup with your computer. While they are safe, you don't need them at startup and removing them will not cause any issues.

Odd, earlier I searched for a dll and it returned the results just fine. The dot and all.

I would not trust HijackThis.de. It's better to have an actual person analyze the results. I would definitely recommend getting rid of Comodo AntiVirus, switch to Avast or AVG. You mentioned your install has had nLite used on it. I would also highly recommend backing up everything, formatting and reinstalling with a normal Windows install. If you need a download manager, try using DownThemAll!, the Firefox extension instead of the free download manager program. Those kind of programs are often bundled with malware. Generated by Tarun of Lunarsoft's HijackThis Converter v0.53 Beta. Default-color items are optional, red are known to be malicious. Created registry value R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896 Changed registry value R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = about:blank Created registry value R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Page_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157 R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Search_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896 R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896 Changed registry value R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157 R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search,SearchAssistant = R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search,CustomizeSearch = Created registry value R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings,ProxyOverride = *.local Enumeration of existing IE's BHO's O2 - BHO: Adobe PDF Reader Link Helper - {06849E9F-C8D7-4D59-B87D-784B7D6BE0B3} - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEHelper.dll O2 - BHO: RealPlayer Download and Record Plugin for Internet Explorer - {3049C3E9-B461-4BC5-8870-4C09146192CA} - C:\Program Files\Real\RealPlayer\rpbrowserrecordplugin.dll O2 - BHO: (no name) - {7E853D72-626A-48EC-A868-BA8D5E23E045} - (no file) O2 - BHO: Adobe PDF Conversion Toolbar Helper - {AE7CD045-E861-484f-8273-0445EE161910} - C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 8.0\Acrobat\AcroIEFavClient.dll O2 - BHO: FDMIECookiesBHO Class - {CC59E0F9-7E43-44FA-9FAA-8377850BF205} - C:\Program Files\Free Download Manager\iefdm2.dll Enumeration of existing IE's toolbars O3 - Toolbar: Adobe PDF - {47833539-D0C5-4125-9FA8-0819E2EAAC93} - C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 8.0\Acrobat\AcroIEFavClient.dll Enumeration of suspicious auto-loading registry entries O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [PHIME2002ASync] C:\WINDOWS\system32\IME\TINTLGNT\TINTSETP.EXE /SYNC O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [PHIME2002A] C:\WINDOWS\system32\IME\TINTLGNT\TINTSETP.EXE /IMEName O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NvCplDaemon] RUNDLL32.EXE C:\WINDOWS\system32\NvCpl.dll,NvStartup O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [nwiz] nwiz.exe /install O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NvMediaCenter] RUNDLL32.EXE C:\WINDOWS\system32\NvMcTray.dll,NvTaskbarInit O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [cnfgCav] "C:\Program Files\Comodo\Comodo AntiVirus\CMain.exe" O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NeroFilterCheck] C:\Program Files\Common Files\Nero\Lib\NeroCheck.exe O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [ctfmon.exe] C:\WINDOWS\system32\ctfmon.exe O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-19\..\RunOnce: [nltide_2] regsvr32 /s /n /i:U shell32 (User 'LOCAL SERVICE') O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-19\..\RunOnce: [nltide_3] rundll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSectionEx nLite.inf,C,,4,N (User 'LOCAL SERVICE') O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-20\..\RunOnce: [nltide_2] regsvr32 /s /n /i:U shell32 (User 'NETWORK SERVICE') O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-18\..\RunOnce: [nltide_2] regsvr32 /s /n /i:U shell32 (User 'SYSTEM') O4 - HKUS\.DEFAULT\..\RunOnce: [nltide_2] regsvr32 /s /n /i:U shell32 (User 'Default user') Extra IE context menu items O8 - Extra context menu item: Download all with Free Download Manager - file://C:\Program Files\Free Download Manager\dlall.htm O8 - Extra context menu item: Download selected with Free Download Manager - file://C:\Program Files\Free Download Manager\dlselected.htm O8 - Extra context menu item: Download video with Free Download Manager - file://C:\Program Files\Free Download Manager\dlfvideo.htm O8 - Extra context menu item: Download with Free Download Manager - file://C:\Program Files\Free Download Manager\dllink.htm