CharlotteTheHarlot

Google donates 79 additional patents to open patent pledge ( TechSpot 2013-08-09 ) Your move Microsoft. Donate the patents for FAT, FAT32, exFAT and NTFS for the public good! Channel your inner Benjamin Franklin. I am totally serious here, I hope anybody reading this idea will make the effort to contact Microsoft and suggest they do exactly this! That would be a very impressive act of generosity indeed. NVIDIA CEO: 'We're working really hard on' second-gen Surface RT ( NeoWin 2013-08-09 ) Well Mr. Huang, you should have an easy time since it looks like you have this market all to yourself Oh, waitaminnit, you're competing with Microsoft! ( Just wait until you hear from your shareholders ). Microsoft: Office 365 had average of 99.965 percent uptime in last four quarters ( NeoWin 2013-08-09 ) Office 364.999 not counting leap years. What is interesting is that by no measure do any of the services have 100% uptime. Or better said, all of the Office cloud services had downtime. If you needed to authenticate during those short downtime periods you probably were not a happy camper.

An "old" PSU is not necessarily a bad thing and the inverse is also true - a new PSU can definitely be bad. Better to simply drop in another equivalent or better power supply and see if the problem still exists identically, then you can rule out the PSU completely. If it still exists you don't lose anything from the experiment, you merely gain an extra PSU for future use. However if the problem vanishes, you solved it all cheaply, in one shot without tampering with the myriad Windows settings. In this case ( PSU not a problem ) the next step for me would be to reflash the motherboard BIOS to rule out corrupt BIOS code and flaky CMOS parameters. I like to rule out hardware problems before messing with Windows. If these all fail to clear the problem the next thing I would do is try using this HDD in another computer as a slave drive and look for drop-out errors. Copy some really big files to and from the slave. If it works flawlessly then you are closing in on some likely corrupt Windows setting in the hardware tree in the registry ( of the original HDD of the original computer ). In that final case, I would then clone this flaky HDD bitwise in another computer to a new HDD ( to be able to safely work from a backup copy ) and then try a Windows repair install to the clone ( or the original ) while installed in the original problem system. If that doesn't do it, try a completely fresh install with format. All these extra steps ( cloning ) are for data loss avoidance obviously. It's what I would do, but others might not care to do the extra work.

Microsoft will absorb cost to add headset to Xbox One; no change in price ( NeoWin 2013-08-08 ) Wow, look what a little competition can do! Just imagine if all their products had competition. Acer to sell fewer Windows PCs in favor of more Android and Chromebook products ( NeoWin 2013-08-08 ) Acer to offer fewer Windows devices in favor of Android, Chromebooks ( TechSpot 2013-08-09 ) It's official: Asus will no longer make Windows RT products ( NeoWin 2013-08-09 ) One of the biggest OEM's dropping the hammer on Microsoft. HP is in serious trouble and Dell is also on the ropes. There's still Lenovo, but being Chinese and with precedents already set warning about some Chinese manufacturers for security reasons they could wind up being a problem also. Microsoft made two errors in this latest cycle, first they released a Windows that almost everyone despises, and secondly they chose to sucker punch "their OEMs" with the Surface and there are now visible consequences. It's a brand new ball game and anything could happen at anytime. Microsoft could wind up with almost no-one selling Windows devices. Snowden's Secure Email Service Mysteriously Shuts Down ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-08 ) This is one of the most troubling security items I've seen yet. A secure messaging company called Lavabit, whose: "... service offered strong end-to-end email encryption that would make it difficult for anyone other than an account holder to read messages." has been forced to close. I've said that governments everywhere are making their moves to tame the Internet and naturally they will all cooperate with each other since they all have the exact same goal: keeping themselves in power and thwarting citizen independence and potential insurrections. A service like the one Lavabit ran was a direct threat so expect every country to do this going forward. I'd say that's sure confirmation considering they normally say nothing in these cases. That's for sure! More verification for John Dvorak's hypothesis that the spying scandal will seriously damage American tech companies more than anything else. Seeing how the feds are going after these firms in secret and then taking their data ( Fourth Amendment ) and then prohibiting them from even talking about it ( First Amendment ), so the companies come out with carefully worded denials, does anyone really believe that Microsoft hasn't completely caved no matter what they say? Longhorn/Vista was completely written post-9/11, it's time to consider the likelihood that it is completely compromised. EDIT: added articles

From The Competition ... LG Intros New Flagship G2 Phone ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-07 ) It's about time! It took larger and larger phones for designers to finally figure out that buttons on the edges are stupid. Finally some common sense! Intel reveals 7- and 10-inch Android educational tablets ( TechSpot 2013-08-06 ) Intel Intros Two Atom-Based Tablets for Education ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-09 ) No pricing information but since they are Atoms they will be cheap. The really important keywords here are "Intel" and "Android". Meet Sol, the Solar-powered Ubuntu notebook with a 10-hour battery ( TechSpot 2013-08-06 ) Just had to show that cool picture with the unfolding solar array ( no mention of a retractable Canadian arm though ). It's another Atom running between $350 and $400. The really important keywords here are "Intel" and "Linux". I got an idea. If they ever make TV commercials for these new devices what they should do right after those little Intel ding tones have it end with: 'Brought to you by Microsoft and Windows 8' Miscellaneous Stuff ... Disabled Australian starts petition to kill CAPTCHA ( TechSpot 2013-08-05 ) CAPTCHA technology could become a thing of the past ( NeoWin 2013-08-07 ) Well I'm not blind but after using these captcha thingies I do want to gouge my eyes out. And I'm not deaf but after hearing some of the audio captchas I want to shove a pencil in my ears. No, I'm just kidding, those are things I would like to do to the authors of these captchas. Clearly they won't miss their eyes and ears since they are obviously not in working order. You can put me down as supporting the destruction of this captcha insanity. Poor design decision in Chrome makes it easy to steal passwords ( NeoWin 2013-08-07 ) Ah, the fanboys have a circle jerk whipping Chrome for a so-called security flaw. It's no flaw. It is by design. It is a feature that gives the owner of the computer the ability to check out his browser-stored passwords! Lots of commenters advocating some 3rd party password storage tool but that means it will need to have the ability to enter them into web pages as you browse or else you will be typing them in by hand. Ironically their favorite browser, MSIE, is the easiest one of all to collect stored passwords from. Furthermore, most of these commenters are advocates of Metro which prominently displays live tiles of personal information within eyeshot of anyone nearby and a single finger press for access. What dummies. Hackers demonstrate Toyota Prius hijacking on video ( TechSpot 2013-08-07 ) For now this a very local hack, meaning they need to be physically in the car with access to certain components. But just wait until everything is connected online ( because it can be, it will be ) and when you have an app for your phone that controls stuff in your car ( because it can be, it will be ). At this point things are going to get interesting indeed. EDIT: added article

The Coming Windows XP Apocalypse ( Thurrott 2013-08-06 ) Mega FUD! Well, unless he means a "disaster" for his beloved Microsoft which I highly doubt is the case. Okay, what the heck does "superglued" mean? And then he gives us two errors of fact in rapid succession: "XP has lived through three two-term US presidencies" Wait, what? That would be 24 years Paul. Continuing on: "the aging DOS-based Windows 9x codebase that dated back to 1985" Now he is just pulling dates out of a hat or it's a typo. That should be 1995 obviously. Yes they are complete opposite for one primary reason ... in Y2K there were countless unknowns, but with Windows XP there are none. Even though he is throwing around hyperbolic adjectives like "insidious" he does mention that computers will continue to work fine ( possibly better than ever because of the lack of pushed updates constantly altering the operating system code ). He still lies firmly on the FUD spreading side of the argument though, injecting fear, uncertainty and doubt where there is none if you have a functioning brain. More uber-FUD! "realization of the Y2K predictions" and "Don’t be a statistic" and "Migrate before the clock stops ticking". Absolutely pathetic! He's like a little girl. But that's what happens when someone goes off his bi-polar medication I guess. Either that or it is simply shilling for Microsoft who happen to be in a quest to reduce Windows XP usage to 10%. I guess he got the memo. Here's one of his sycophants ... God, I wish I had five minutes with this guy to make him explain a single scenario that qualifies as a disaster! The only disaster will be for Microsoft and her sycophants if the Sheeple ever discover that Microsoft doesn't really support anything, and that these computers will prosper without endless placebo security updates and .NET fixes tying up the system. Here's another ... It's NOT about Microsoft supporting a 12 year old operating system ( and it's more like 5 for WinXP SP3 which is younger than Vista and Vista SP1 ) they don't support crap anyway, it's about those drivers not being produced in the first place, most likely in collusion with the convicted monopolist Microsoft in order to manufacture new operating system and hardware sales. And comparing Microsoft to Apple is simply ridiculous since Apple is the opposite of Microsoft. They are a hardware company and have no more responsibility to "support" their hardware after the warranty period than the manufacturer of your car or refrigerator or microwave. Their operating system is designed only for their hardware and therefore is closer to a firmware than to the Windows platform. And that so-called "upgrade path" is almost non-existent unless you don't mind losing stuff along the way. Furthermore, as I demonstrated a while back, if you are using WinXP 32-bit as most people are, you will only receive the 32-bit version upgrade. So there is no successful path in WinXP in most circumstances. EDIT: spacing

Windows Phone takes third place in Q2 with 8.7 million units shipped ( NeoWin 2013-08-07 ) 2013 Q2 Shipping Units and Shipping Share Android ... 187.4 million ... 79.3 % iOS ........ 31.2 million ... 13.2 % Windows ..... 8.7 million .... 3.7 % Blackberry .. 6.8 million .... 2.9 % That is "shipped" units last quarter, and contrary to what many of the fanboys are saying those percentages are NOT "marketshare" as they describe it. They are in fact "shipping share" of the last quarter ( I checked the math ) a meaningless synthetic statistic. I wish Blackberry had gotten a little traction by now, but it is no longer looking good for them. Unless they have something up their sleeve it will be tough to recover. But on the bright side, they can't go too much lower and if they do manage a small gain while WP loses a little the headlines will be priceless entertainment over at NeoWin and The Verge What they both have to worry about now is another refresh from Apple which is in the pipeline as we speak. Nokia completes buyout of joint venture with Siemens; could start layoffs ( NeoWin 2013-08-08 ) Meanwhile back in the real world, Nokia is still hanging on by a thread. I don't see how they will survive as a pawn on Microsoft's game board for more than a few more quarters. Microsoft implements app searches on their website, lets you see inside the Windows Store ( NeoWin 2013-08-08 ) One year on and Microsoft finally puts a site search online, albeit a limited one. Stunning amateurism from the company that markets a search engine called Bing!

Did Microsoft make a mistake in listening to fan feedback for Xbox One? ( NeoWin 2013-08-05 ) How about that? I'd say that's the logical progression of the arrogant mind. He sounds like he is applying for a job at Microsoft ( or NeoWin, or The Verge, or EA, or ... ). Microsoft calls Windows 8.1 an 'update', not a 'upgrade', for the money ( NeoWin 2013-08-05 ) Uh huh. I cannot wait to see what happens when the browser stats are updated to include Windows 8.1 Blew. They will have no honest choice but to keep it separate from Windows 8.0 in the same manner that they sort the last few Mac OSX releases. Look for priceless entertainment at NeoWin and The Verge when the fanboys discover what has happened! Key Xbox One features limited to Xbox Live Gold subscribers ( TechSpot 2013-08-07 ) Xbox One to restrict Skype, OneGuide and Game DVR to Xbox Live Gold members ( NeoWin 2013-08-07 ) Xbox One DVR Features for Gold Members Only ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-08 ) Naturally there's a whole lotta defendin' goin' on in them thar comments. But these defenses ring hollow because when Microsoft and their sycophants kept throwing up bullet lists of features for NuXbox, they conveniently left off the fine print on the items that "require Live Gold subscriptions" didn't they? Sony scores another win. The Xbox now more than ever is the bait on a hook in a sea of sheeplefish. Microsoft discounts Surface Pro by $100 during August ( TechSpot 2013-08-04 ) Microsoft cuts price of Surface Pro by $100 for "limited time" ( NeoWin 2013-08-04 ) Microsoft Cuts the Price of the Surface Pro by $100 ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-05 ) Microsoft Trims $100 Off Surface Pro Following Surface RT Reduction ( Maximum PC 2013-08-05 ) It sure is getting harder to keep track of all the price cutting for Surfaces. But this one here is just plain dumb. It's only $100, not even enough to cover the keyboard. Want to see how overpriced the thing still is? Here is how I read it ... Surface with 10.6" screen and onboard graphics with 128 GB storage and 4 GB RAM and no keyboard is $900.Add keyboard for $129Or add keyboard and Office Home-Student and 2-year warranty for $309 to $478.So expect to pay $1200 to $1400 before tax for an almost functional laptop with a 10" screen. That is the cost of two good 17" laptops. I think I'll pass! EDIT: typo, added article

A page and graphic outlining these stupid little changes? Man. Why does this remind me of elementary schools awarding ribbons to kids for the little things. I used to think these were anomalies but it is clear now that all segments of the industry went out and hired "new blood" but without testing the potential hires for IQ. I'm picturing cubicles full of youngsters with pants sagging down below their @ss and with more piercings than brains. And then they think we're crazy when we call them out for blunder after blunder. Anyway, the new logo sucks. Notice that Mozilla locked comments on the announcement thread: http://blog.mozilla.org/creative/2013/06/27/a-new-firefox-logo-for-a-new-firefox-era/ I'm pretty sure they never would have heard the end of it. Cowards.

Still vague. Where in the computer? Primary or secondary channel? Where on cable? Just describe the whole thing ... "This drive is on secondary channel, middle position, the jumper is on xxx, the BIOS says xxx". Replace those examples with your own details!

I would like to see them also. Can you confirm that the 2nd and 4th screenshot that Jorge reposted above from Thurrott are from that build? I mean the Quasi-Metro "chrome" from the charms bar and bottom navigation that appears in the top of those shots ... ... It reminds of something else but I can't quite zero in on it. Maybe Encarta or Maps'n'Trips or something like that.

What version of Excel? I don't recall deleted "worksheets" (tabs within a workbook) ever appearing in the recycle bin. They appear to only exist in memory and when deleted are gone from that instance in memory and then from the currently open XLS file once you click save. In other words, you could delete a worksheet and then close Excel WITHOUT saving the file and that deleted sheet would still exist if you reopen that XLS. Once you save the XLS though, that sheet is gone for good, unless you have a lucky copy ( probably with a $ first character ) in the same folder from some special set of circumstances. Search the entire HDD for the filename WITHOUT extension and WITHOUT the first character. Example: for Workbook.xls search for orkbook

Make sure the jumper on the jumper block on the HDD is in the appropriate position. Make sure this slave HDD is on the middle position connector on the IDE ribbon cable, NOT the end connector. Make sure the blue connector on that cable is in the motherboard. Make sure the BIOS screen correctly identifies the model of that HDD, use Auto-Detect, do NOT adjust the CHS parameters in there. Remove and then re-connect the ribbon cable from both the motherboard and the HDD. As Jaclaz implies, you have not mentioned any details of substance. Especially, the HDD location, is it on the secondary channel and the system boot HDD on the primary, or are they both on the same channel and same cable? All these things listed above need to be squared away before you even think about changing anything Windows ( which is usually how these problems are incorrectly addressed ).

Forgot to mention the source thread ... Short Takes: August 2, 2013 ( Thurrott 2013-08-02 ) Paul believes that 1/3 of all Windows 8 licenses were downgraded. Wow! Sound like a lot. They must have sold very few OEM copies on OEM systems which I believe are not downgradeable. It also would explain why Windows 7 numbers are flat or sometimes increasing in the monthly browser stats.

You just got through saying you were not gonna appeal to authority and then you come back with this. Well IMHO these comments are now starting to sound like a typical astroturfing exercise. Coincidentally, right now there is now a worldwide Microsoft FUD push to frighten everybody on Windows XP to their idi0tic Microsoft Tiles. Are you connected with Baby Blue ( Microsoft ) ? No offense, but "security professional" means nothing these days. You might just be answering phones for Symantec, submitting virus reports to Sophos, working on the MSE/Defender team, or any number of things. But from the list after list of alleged improvements to the Windows "security" ( talk about an oxymoron ) you seem to have a huge appreciation for and vested interest in it. My understanding is that Softies are required to identify themselves on public forums. Are you connected to them or not? I'm sorry, but this right here is crazy talk. You mean that: "... the router isn't relevant to last-stand at-the-desktop software-based CPU-driven security anymore ..." It's not surprising though since earlier you proved you don't understand what a hardware firewall is. You said packets are not tossed, and then breezed right by the correction. Someone who is thorough, attentive to details and humble will own up to errors. You clearly are not familiar with what ports are needed for HTTP and other things because I think you really meant that since a web browser works all ports must be open ( I don't know how else to read that ). You need to brush up on this part badly. You talked about a compromised Linux website as somehow being in the context of what we are discussing here, and said someone "had control" for 6 days. But I went there and read no such thing. They had passwords and data copied, no hijacking, no driveby attacks, and the passwords were not plain text anyway. This happens every day unfortunately, but it is not an attack per se and no-one took control unless you think defaced websites and such are the same thing. Look, every version of Windows is "more secure" than the previous as long as something was fixed or patched along the way. But in the real world choosing an operating system to live with daily is more nuanced than that. When trade-offs are factored in many people will look at the Playskool operating system and say "screw that mess!" You are advocating the last-stand CPU driven security model where the local PC itself receives everything I/O and then burns up tons of processing cycles to remove malware from the local disk and try to keep threats out. No security professional would ever consider a software firewall and realtime AV anything but a last resort. It is CPU driven, easily disable-able, and packet filtering is done "at the desktop", which is way too close for comfort. Hardware security pushes the perimeter back "to the gateway" for most I/O. What happens on the relatively few forwarded ports is dealt with in layers, like a different browser than MSIE, script and ad-blocking, user attentiveness, etc. They can even use a realtime AV if they are a masochist. Now you say that an attacker trying to penetrate a system will "see" Windows XP or Windows 8 computers so they can select their preferred victim. Nonsense! They "see" nothing except what strings the browser and other utilities allow them to see. And "them" in this case is a compromised website for example. But no-one in realtime "sees" anything past the NAT / router / firewall because there is nothing beyond it by design. The computers on the network talk to the router, the router talks to the Internet. The Internet talks to the router, the router talks to the network. This concept is as old as dirt. It's fine to live in the software based security world, I wish you much luck. Now take some advice: your weakness is either having no understanding or experience in the physical hardware in the physical network. This concept comes before software. You need a clearer understanding of this. Then, it will hopefully become clear that the software based security that you are currently lecturing about, is the last leg, but not the most important leg, of the path. The analogy I would make is that if you were fighting disease you would be spending all your time studying antibiotic and antiviral drugs but completely unaware of the existence of hand wash, protective clothing, gloves, masks, etc. Keeping as much of it out in the first place is the first line of defense. You are only worried about the last stand IMHO.

TV Series ... Seasons 5 and 6 I think. P.S. Thanks for reminding me, I'll add the URLs to the unedited images to the above posts. I added the text and stuff.

Users keep reporting blurry text in Windows 8 and 8.1 ( NeoWin 2013-08-03 ) In other news: Users keep reporting crappy no-contrast eye-blinding themes on forums. #GetUsedToIt There could be 88.5 million Windows 8 users, but is that big enough? ( NeoWin 2013-08-03 ) No. That's still too many. Someone needs to delete the source code from the main server and end this nightmare. ( Original Photo Here )

As usual, nothing but creepy security news ... Microsoft took down Rustock botnet thanks to 67 year old counterfeit law ( NeoWin 2013-07-25 ) Oh isn't that just wonderful. Just imagine how that same law can be used to completely stifle the First Amendment, especially the meme graphics containing a Microsoft logo or something. Exclusive: NSA pays £100m in secret funding for GCHQ ( UK Guardian 2013-08-01 ) Use Britain as the black bag men, this let's them not get their hands dirty. Any two governments can use this theory, each having the other do the dirty work so they can say they are acting legally in their own country. The FBI can remotely activate laptop and Android microphones with spyware ( TechSpot 2013-08-02 ) The FBI uses the microphone and camera on phones to spy on people ( NeoWin 2013-08-03 ) Violating any and all computer tampering laws in the process. Our government now acts above the law and believes it is just peachy. FBI Taps Hacker Tactics to Spy on Suspects ( Wall Street Journal 2013-08-03 ) More examples, and remember that this is not even the black budget spook agencies. This is the Department of Justice! I'm gonna have to break out the "24" and "Alias" DVD's and watch them once gain. When they ran from about 2001 to 2008 or so we had no idea it might be real. In fact we doubted it would ever get to that point. Who doubts it now? ( Original Photo Here )

--JorgeA Exactly! Hooking everything online because you can. It's like we're living in crazy land. Check that, we are living in crazy land.

Definitely hang on to it if only for personal nostalgia. If it's retail or system builder however, and not OEM, then you CAN install it on another system if you retire that old one. New motherboards for XP are getting tough but these days the recycle centers are filling up with Core 2 era systems, using chips that used to be very expensive indeed. Get a couple of 2008 or later systems and frankenbuild a good one. If you keep that one running, just punch out the front bottom and put a nice big 120mm fan, also look into getting another power supply because in those days they had little ventilation and hot air stayed in the case. Newer power supplies have multiple fans. Or you could also add an exhaust fan yourself.

I've always taken that to mean that XP has less need of daily discussion because it works, is less controversial, and most of the bugs are solved and answer easily found. So I wouldn't base any conclusion on that metric. It's almost as bad as using CEIP telemetry to destroy the classic Windows interface!

Most passwords are stashed in the registry in a variety of ways. Most Nirsoft utilities take stuff out of the registry and make it presentable to the end user. There are exceptions though. I can't remember in this particular case but they can use separate files ( I think Outlook ). The help file for each of his utilities typically explains where the information comes from ( and he usually has command line switches allowing you to change it to other customized locations ). If not, you can just Google that case.

You know what, I've been seeing this idea kicked around in the some threads. Keyword bombing. Haven't really had the courage to test it out ;-) It would definitely work, but probably boomerang back anyway when they jack up our taxes even more to buy another mountain in Utah to build another data center to house more supercomputers and disks. ~sigh~ Just saw this... Search for a Pressure Cooker, Get a Visit From the Police ( John Dvorak PC Magazine 2013-08-01 ) Keywords have consequences! Anyway, now of they "Search for a Pressure Cooker" they will also find Dvorak and PC Magazine ( not to mention this thread at MSFN ). EDIT: at the bottom of this thread where it says "... users reading this topic" I see one called Bing (12) Any idea what that is? And what's next? ... Prism (87), Xkeyscore (163)

From what I read, both that site and the one at PC Gamer never mentioned any driveby attacks, just compromised stored data and credentials. I'll try to read more about it when I get a chance but it sounds like you are putting it forward as evidence for your security opinions. I don't recall browsers, or Windows itself for that matter being part of the story. Are you asserting that some people browsed to the site and got hosed? Were they attacked successfully without any affirmative user acceptance clicking? If this actually happened, what Browsers, OS, AntiVirus and Router were the victims using? These are significant details I have not heard. You wanna bet that they were much closer to the earlier mentioned scenario #1 than scenario #2? I can assure you that my router is anything but screwed up. In fact, "screwed up" is the absolute last description that comes to mind when discussing a hardware firewall that requires manual intervention to open ports 688x in order to use a torrent! That opt-in necessity of forwarding those ports is the whole point here. The alternative which you are describing is a "smarter" router ( I would call it dumber ) that does it automatically. We are clearly approaching the concept of "normal" from two different places. Packets are definitely tossed. Do you think they are stored somewhere instead? And of course not all packets are tossed. ~sigh~ You must know what ports are open, so I just can't understand this strange statement: "You're reading this webpage right now, aren't you?". Yep, I can see we're definitely coming at this from two entirely different places. There is often a huge error made, in fact most of the time, when people "compare" their new OS with a fresh new empty registry and profile against their previous OS dripping with Windows rot and come to the stunning conclusion that the new one runs faster. Unfortunately they are always misled. We have even seen the ludicrous bootup comparisons comparing a shutdown 7 versus a hybrid 8. Control for variables and it's an entirely different story. The only way that Windows XP, or for that matter any version of Windows is ever faster than it's predecessor is when the latter is new, tweaked and optimized by user configuration and the earlier one is left rotted with all the bells and whistles running, especially disk indexing and other CPU hogging tasks. Microsoft has never ever slimmed down an OS's realtime components going forwards ( pushing services into delay load does not count! ). Anyway, this is way off topic for this thread but I have to believe that between this comment about performance and some of the router comments that you are not particularly concerned with details, scientifically controlled experiments, and accurate comparisons. I'm sorry but that is pure evidence-free, wishful thinking. And there's that magic patch again. What is it that Windows update does to Windows XP that makes it secure instead of "trivial" to get in to? I think I know why you are not specifying that, it's because the likely answer is probably some of the MSIE buffer overflow and HTML flaws, and ActiveX registry shims. Sheeple food. Meanwhile I'll continue along happily in scenario #2. P.S. I always forget to mention this ( as I did above ), but if you want better to security, in addition to using a different browser than MSIE it is critically important to change the "default" to something else so that you "patch" a hugely stoopid bug / feature of Windows. The bug? Having Windows pop open MSIE because you hit F1 help and suddenly you get sent online to a non-existent webpage and then shuffled over to Bing or Google or your ISP's DNS resolution page already aiming at potentially dangerous links. MSIE, in my opinion should only be used for one thing - Windows Update, when you really need it. MSIE should only be used on purpose, never by accident.

You're right, I didn't mention it here, but I have been railing about it in some other comments with respect to the next wave of hip gadgets, cheap home consumer security devices. The way they are shaping up with automagic configuration to allow these cameras and mics to work will lead to a big problem with neutered security. uPnP, will rise from the grave again. But in these discussions I almost always mention a "properly configured router" when I bring this up. The user should immediately do some thorough research about the specific brand and firmware and look for forum discussions by sharp commenters that go through and explain all the settings and stuff. Routers I have seen are usually pretty good with defaults after a reset or flashing, but yes there always is some tweaking to be done. So again ... yes, by all means disable uPnP in the router and the service in Windows. Mine obviously is. EDIT: slimmed down the quote

Microsoft: 'No more cheats or jerks' online for Xbox One ( NeoWin 2013-07-31 ) Does anyone else feel incredibly creeped out by that? SuperSpeed USB 3.1 Specification is Now Official and Twice as Fast as USB 3.0 ( Maximum PC 2013-08-01 ) 10 Gbps USB specification finalized as USB 3.1 ( TechSpot 2013-08-01 ) USB SuperSpeed + specification approved as USB 3.1 ( NeoWin 2013-08-01 ) Well at least they came to their senses and incremented the number ( the original stories a few months ago said they were just going to use the name "SuperSpeed +" but keep USB 3.0 ! ). It seems very strange that it only merits a point increase though since it is a doubling of bandwidth. Maybe 3.5 would have been more logical. It apparently is staying mechanically backward compatible, meaning previous USB cables and devices will work in the new USB ports, but only back to USB 2.x. It is unclear to me what happens if a late 1990's USB 1.x device such as a hub is used on USB 3.1, or worse, if a new USB 3.x device is plugged into a 1990's USB 1.x motherboard. Dell's Board Rejects Michael Dell's Buyout Bid ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-01 ) Should have took the money. Windows 8 ain't gonna save them and the competition at all form factors is getting fierce. Expect a lurch to even lower quality crap to squeeze a few more pennies out of each sale. EDIT: typo