CoffeeFiend

Like cluberti said, that's on a unpatched box only, it only affects versions that are like 10 years old, and that's also after bypassing firewalls. And that's hardly a NT-only thing. The same can be said for just about any software that uses the network in any way, like web browsers for example. Someone could use one of the (very common) flash exploits or anything along those lines (browser exploit, etc), and use that to pwn your box (view the wrong page, get infected). At least, with a modern OS, the default browser is sandboxed so it won't actually do anything, and even if it somehow got past that (highly unlikely), then you're still not running as admin so no system files or apps would get infected (no permissions) and so on. It just can't do very much. The same flash exploit used on an OS like Win9x means getting thoroughly PWNED (assuming the code can actually run on that old OS) -- there's absolutely NOTHING standing in its way: full access to memory, processes, files, registry, etc. So from there it can infect your system files, download some more malware, terminate processes of any "security" app, install rootkits and anything else it so pleases. There's absolutely nothing to stop it. When someone has that level of access to your box, it's game over. And it's definitely a LOT easier to accomplish such things against older OS'es like Win9x that don't have anything like DEP/NX bit support, where code can be executed inside data-only memory (zero buffer overflow protection). The real protection against these vulnerabilities is keeping updated, which you can't really do anymore in Win9x' case as extended support ended years ago. Win9x security is an oxymoron. Your only security is not being a target. Besides, all the people saying how XP is so insecure and such things... I haven't had a single virus in 5+ years, ~2/3 of that while running XP with local admin privileges. Running as a standard user used to be a pain circa 2000 too, but software has gotten a lot better in the last 10 years.

It's a technology made specifically for LCDs, so that's hardly surprising. CRTs don't have subpixels.

220 g3u0041.houston.hp.com FTP server (hp.com version whp02s) ready. USER anonymous 331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password. PASS IEUser@ 230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply. CWD /pub/softpaq/sp41501-42000/sp41762.exe 550 /pub/softpaq/sp41501-42000/sp41762.exe: Not a directory. TYPE A 200 Type set to A. PASV 227 Entering Passive Mode (15,200,30,21,160,101) LIST /pub/softpaq/sp41501-42000/sp41762.exe 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls. 226 Transfer complete. TYPE I 200 Type set to I. PASV 227 Entering Passive Mode (15,200,30,21,173,57) SIZE /pub/softpaq/sp41501-42000/sp41762.exe 213 5119088 RETR /pub/softpaq/sp41501-42000/sp41762.exe 150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for /pub/softpaq/sp41501-42000/sp41762.exe (5119088 bytes). 426 Data connection: Connection reset by peer. So we can see IE8 connecting, checking if it's a directory, checking if the file exists, switching to PASV mode, checking the file size and starting the download. So far so good. The problem is, you never actually receive any data. Then 30 seconds later, it terminates the data connection, gives you that 426 error (timed out), and terminates the command connection. Everything went over just fine, except that you didn't get the data itself. Why do the data packets never make it? Could be a firewall/security app blocking it (although it is using PASV, so it shouldn't) or a number of things along those lines. In mattffrost's case it was the proxy settings, so I'd definitely check those first. You could also try with a real ftp client like filezilla (freeware).

Well, there's some acceptable "bloat", but when your disc burning app has like 3 whole different interfaces, and has evolved into a burning app plus also: a packet burning app (which always sucked): InCD yet another separate app to copy discs: Disc Copy Gadget CD cover designer (I don't think I've ever even launched that app) Then the lightscribe stuff... a benchmark app (discspeed) a drive speed tweaking app (drivespeed) an app just for disc/drive info (infotool) Ok, this might be acceptable so far. It's all burning related. But unfortunately that's not where it ends: a photo editing suite (imagxpress) a photo album/viewer thingy (photosnap) a MCE replacement (live) with extra gadgets not one but two separate encoding apps (recode and vision) a WMP replacement (showtime) two separate sound editing & whatever apps (wave editor and soundtrax) My guess is, Nero 10 will also come with a full office suite, a database, and a CAD app. Nero 11 will build onto that, and add a GPS app, a MIDI sequencer and an encyclopedia. Nero 12 will bring new features such as a set of minesweeper/solitaire-style games, a translator and vector graphics editor. v13 will tackle on a large text editor, a disk defragmenter, and a network tracing tool. v14... Nero 6.6 (not that long ago) was like a 30MB download. Now Nero 9 comes on DVD and uses 1.5GB of disk space (that's about 750x more than imgburn) i.e. more than XP does -- just for a burning app! It's way past the "everything and the kitchen sink too" stage. Here it's not merely bloat, it's beyond morbidly obese. I wish they'd go back to what they do well: making Nero Burning ROM, and just that (basically what you get in Nero Micro or whatever). Make it work great, make format support better, make it integrate better with the Win7 taskbar (and other Win7-related improvements), etc. I would buy it. But right now, v8 is likely the last version I'll ever use. AFAIK, Nero 9 brings zero new features as far as disc burning goes (v8 added some, like DL DVD-RW support)

Whoa, that's crazy cheap. 8 games total (which all seem quite decent), for $42.50. Eight 360 games would run me about 10x that. And you're right. There's plenty more inexpensive games on there. Tons of them $15 and under. And plenty of decently priced packs too. Also, thinking about consoles being lots cheaper, it doesn't seem that way when I look at our Wii. It's cost us an arm and a leg so far: $300 Wii (actually, I paid someone $100 more because there were none in stock, and I wanted to get the kids one in time for xmas, but that's besides the point) $70 2nd controller & nunchuck $30 battery pack & charger for remotes $20 per sports kit, x2 $20 for one zapper $100 for the balance board (no charger yet) $110 for guitar hero world tour with guitar (and I'd much rather have the metallica one, another $60) Over $500 on extra games. Didn't count, too lazy (and scared) to do so. Then ~15% taxes on top of that And now we're looking at having to buy them motionplus things @ $25/ea, classic controllers @ $25/ea and a bunch more games so we're not quite done yet! We're close to $1500 spent so far, on a single console, with about a dozen games. Whereas $500 (still cheaper than one 360, and about 1/3 of what we spent on the Wii so far) would get me decent vid cards for the 2 PCs that don't, 3 wireless 360 controllers, so kind of like 3 consoles, along with the Valve Complete Pack which has 21 great games!

^^Exactly what he said! You shouldn't have problems like this in the first place. Removing viruses is a bit like fixing a flat tire. It's fine if it happens like once a year or something, but more than that there's a problem somewhere. We've haven't caught a single virus in YEARS, and we're not doing anything special to prevent them either. Right now, you're looking for what seems like the most super-duper bestest band-aid fix (which doesn't exist), instead of solving the problem. It's really not that hard: -Rule #1: don't run all those apps from shady sources (P2P downloads are often the main culprit -- lots of people are totally reckless and will download and run anything as admin), including strange email attachments like freepr0n.jpg.exe -Rule #2: keep your software updated And that's about it. Do that, and you'll quickly find out you have little use for any AV. Anyone who disregards that first rule will always be plagued with viruses forever. People are running malware on their own PCs as admin, and there's little that can be done against that (what they need protection against is themselves -- I'd yank their local admin rights instantly)

QFT. And that's only the beginning. Flat memory, no process or application isolation, no ACLs on anything (filesystem and otherwise), all processes effectively running as root (why does that sound bad?), no DEP (much more vulnerable to buffer overflows and such) or ASLR (ditto, for return to libc attacks), stuff like no security policies (admittedly not used by the vast majority of home users), no sandboxed browser (like protected mode IE), no UAC (it's quite effective), no firewall by default, no anti-malware included (e.g. windows defender), no kernel patch protection (patchguard) and much more. It looks very much like swiss cheese to me. Most of its security comes from its 0.1% market share: nobody bothers attacking something with basically no user base. Just like people don't write viruses for other outdated OS'es like MS-DOS anymore. Agreed. There are entire books written on hardening Windows too. RetroOS: I'm not exactly going to argue over 0.1% or less. Point is: nobody writes for BeOS either, as there are no users to target, and no systems to infect. That simple. Especially when they can target the large group of XP users logged in with admin rights, who'll gladly run any .exe from P2P or shady web sites (low-hanging fruit)

Thanks to everyone for all the replies I thought about that too. Consoles games for the most part seem to have fairly decent controls. With a lot of PC games, it can be a lot of fun trying to hit the right buttons (for weapons, different actions and so on). But then again with PCs you can fiddle with the settings and make it into what you want. With consoles, the OK settings (that most often can't be changed) differ quite a bit from one game to another, and that's always annoyed me a lot (e.g. a game where the button that changes weapon uses a medikit in another). So: Consoles -> easy, but not flexible, works out of the box PC -> lots of buttons, but flexible, but takes time to configure I'd call that a tie really. You just made me not ever want to buy a PS3 The one thing I always despised about the PS2 is the absolutely awful controller. It feels just wrong. Can't stand it. You're completely right. I mixed up the names. Well, I used to play on older computers (trs-80 and such), then PCs (286), then console (NES), then PCs up until the P1, then consoles again (mainly the old xbox, and now the Wii). Looks like I might go PC again Of course. I have to admit I love the simplycity of consoles (put the disc in, wait and play). I really, really don't care for video card benches and the like. I dunno about that! I'm looking at either upgrading 3 PCs for games or buying a console, and the one console costs more! Also, I went by Future Shop today (Canadian "Best" Buy) as I was going by today and wanted to see what PC games could be like. So I picked up Left 4 Dead. The PC version was $45, and the 360 version $60. I also looked at call of duty 4, which is also $10 more on the 360 than PC. And then again, there's those specials like the steam orange box thing. And the 360 costs $60/year for live on top of that. And pretty much any used game or bargain bin game out there we haven't played either, so more savings there. So far, consoles are looking anything but cheap to me. Well, we got good PCs already. New video cards (not top of the line) aren't that expensive, and the graphics are great. Then again, I don't need the absolute latest games, nor maxed out settings. That's another thing that worries me. The "once" part. Then you buy the next console "once" too. I don't see that as being any cheaper than new vid cards. I'm saying this also because I bought my original xbox kind of late, and like 2 years after, they stopped releasing games for it altogether. Old games are nowhere to be seen. Replacement controllers? Forget about it (only ebay seems to have any). I have that bad feeling that if I buy a 360 now, as it's been out since 2005, it'll be discontinued shortly after, and I'll be stuck buying the new console yet again. With the PC, it's not like they're going to discontinue replacement PC parts (like they did to the xbox hardware), or PC games altogether (like they long stopped making games for it). Zxian settled that one But then again, on the PC I have choice. I can get the 360's controllers, or get PS-like controllers, or whatever else from another company (e.g. Logitech). I was considering the 360's controllers mainly for the familiarity with the old xbox controllers' shape. Now, having played L4D on my Radeon 4670 for a few minutes, I'm totally amazed by the graphics (everything maxed out seemingly, and @ 1920x1200 no problem). I don't foresee needing better graphics than that anytime soon (no pricey vid card), and playing the latest games on medium settings is fine by me too. Next step, I'll buy a 360 controller to see how well that works. And if it's not too much of a pain to setup and use, we'll likely just play on our PCs.

I was just wondering... Like I said, I'm an absolute n00b when it comes to gaming. I've never tried a 360 either. And I haven't seen a single new game in the last 5 years (besides Wii games) so I'm definitely no expert. I was expecting I'd only get similar or better performance with a really expensive card, which I'd need to replace twice a year kind of thing. Not sure. Personally I prefer FPS games, but the kids like other stuff too. I used to think consoles were cheaper, and delivered kick-a** graphics on the cheap. Seemingly not. I just wanted to hear about others who prefer the 360 or vice-versa.

I've been considering buying a xbox360 for a while, and I'm starting to have serious doubts about it. Graphics: I found out it uses a 500 MHz ATI Xenos GPU, which is a precursor to the ATI R600 chip. Some people say it's on par with a X1900 or so. That doesn't sound like amazing graphics for mid-2009, even if it's optimized a lot. Sounds like a $60 Radeon 4670 would give me better graphics in the first place. Price: A xbox360 pro (not the crippled elite -- 256MB flash and no HDD, no ethernet, no old games, is this a joke?) is $300, a 2nd wireless controller is another $60 and a year of LIVE is $60. Total: $420 CAD + taxes, then recurring $60/year. Once obsolete, replace everything. And that's for one console only. vs a pair of Radeon HD4670's for the kids @ $70/ea, 3 wireless controllers (in case we all want to play at once -- I already got a decent vid card) @ $60. Total: $320 CAD so already $100 saved, and no recurring online fees. And that's for the equivalent of 3 "consoles"! Once obsolete, upgrade individual parts (e.g. keep controllers, get new video cards) so the savings are significant. And then I look at all the inexpensive games (basically anything that came out after warcraft 2/civ 2/sc 2000 and the like, we haven't played yet), special offers like this... So for a lot less money, the 3 of us can play a game at once, or 3 different games, each on our own 23"+ monitors (no annoying split TV thing), and with better graphics. We could play using the wireless 360 controllers, but also using the keyboard/mouse. Then again, I know price and graphics aren't everything. I'm quite happy with the graphics on my old xbox (not the 360). And while our Wii has craptastic graphics (seriously, I can't believe how incredibly bad they are) the games are still a hoot to play, and the kids are loving it. However, the xbox360 seems to be mostly like the old xbox, just with shinier graphics and some new titles (which look a lot like the old titles, but with better graphics and different maps). Is there any actual reason I'd want to get a 360 instead? Besides the 3 or so games that are exclusive, that is? It seems like I'm just not getting it. No risks of RRODs with the PC either. Oh yeah, and we get DirectX 11 on the PC too.

Yep.

Well, it's not like there's a perfect replacement from anyone... Then again, I had hoped for this to be kind of lite "nero lite" (nero without all the useless crap) but free. Too bad.

But, have you backed up your data first? *ducks* 7 is your best bet IMO. Either ways, a lot of PERCs won't even give you a choice. When they see the new drive in there at boot time, they'll make you wait while they rebuild it, and only after that it'll let you boot an OS.

I can't say I'm worried about Audio CDs in 2009 as I've moved on to mp3's 8 years ago. Those things are 100% obsolete as far as I'm concerned. What matters to me is "advanced" disc modes, like bootable/UDF and so on. Back then, this was usually the previous version or so, with a serial that tied it to that specific DVD writer, but it wasn't missing stuff as far as I remember. This is just a "try the absolute most basic features" version, where they hope you'll curse and swear enough, and then go spend $100 for the real thing instead.

That's what I'm thinking too. It's not like they're going to test it OC'ed, and being a couple degrees over average at stock clock/voltage won't make them replace it. That can be very annoying. I recall returning a defective Athlon XP years ago. Took 3 weeks to get a replacement part. That sucked hard, even though we had other PCs. If you replace the HSF, they might blame you if you try to RMA it later. Then again, waiting for it to die from the heat sucks too, if not just for the period while you wait for a replacement board (stores usually swap DOA boards, but after a few days you have to RMA it instead)

No. It needs a different laser to read those discs. 22x DVD writers are like $20 these days.

You can now get a basic version of Nero 9 for free! It only does burning and disc copying, none of the extra stuff, much like imgburn. imgburn is great too, but it always seems to have various issues when I use it (strange error messages, problems locking drives for exclusive use, sync issues and what not) Great for those of us who don't burn other stuff and don't want all the multimedia junk. Get it here 55 MB download. Edit: unfortunately, there's only the "user friendly" thing (start smart), not the regular interface. Oh well.

The current version of the installer for Wireshark (1.2.1) bundles a version of winpcap (4.1 beta5) that doesn't install on Win7 x64 -- even the 32 bit version! The current workaround is downloading a separate installer for winpcap, and running that in Vista compatibility mode... Annoying.

Exactly. It's better than a lot of pre-built NAS boxes, but that's all there is to it. It's one of those buy, plug it in, and use it things. It's just that most of us see what we could make with the same (or less) budget and a few minutes of work instead (WAY more space, WAY more speed, WAY more expansible and so on), and also don't have that much to spend on a fairly basic device (or at all, in my case).

What fiasco? Ancient video cards not getting WDDM drivers? Just like old hardware from the Win9x era (VXD drivers) that never got WDM drivers written for? Old hardware not getting x64 drivers? Which again has nothing to do with Vista, the exact same applies to XP x64, Win 2003 (R2 or not) x64, Win 2008 (R2 or not) x64 as well as Win7 x64. Vista x86 will use the vast majority of plain old XP drivers just fine, and so will Win 7 x86. Devices without 64 bit drivers that didn't work under Vista won't work under any other 64 bit version of Windows, Win 7 x64 included. There are real no changes, other than the new version 1.1 of WDDM for video drivers (won't help for ancient cards either) Basically, if it works under Win 7, it would also have worked under Vista. 100% of my old stuff worked just fine with Vista x86, including a DVB-S card from 2002 or so (whose XP drivers actually sucked), a BenQ scanner from 2001, a SCSI film scanner from the late 90's, and a HP Laserjet 4+ -- a 1994 vintage. So far, the scanner (slow as it's USB 1.1, so-so color matching, weak DMax and so on) and printer (rollers needed replacing again, paper jam-o-rama, token ring was the only option as far as jetdirect goes, B&W only, no more parts available, etc) were replaced by a networked $50 all-in-one printer/scanner/fax/copier combo that beats them both (very handy too, even has an ADF, plus it's space saving) and also has x64 drivers. But updating drivers is the OEM's job. Stop buying from companies who make buggy drivers or don't support newer versions of the OS (or 64 bit versions) coming out shortly after and so on. Vote with your wallet.

$1200 USD, without any drives! This better be god-like! For that much dough, you can build a half decent box, and also buy 12x 1.5TB drives, giving yourself a "slight" 18TB head start. Or make a REALLY high end Windows Home Server box (or even build a decent server with a Win 2008 Server license) Edit: looks like I already had said all that in post #2. That's what I get for only reading the previous post. The only thing that seems somewhat interesting here (IMO) is the auto-expansion. I'm afraid the asking price is a little steep for that feature alone (especially when you make a already maxed out box with more place for less $). And even at that price, they're still selling you a "lite" version... No iSCSI, no volume snapshots, etc. And it only has 1GB of RAM, which is a noticeable limitation, as the speeds drop a by as much as 2/3 once you have to actually hit the disk instead of in RAM cache -- a unimpressive 40MB/sec or so (less than half the advertised speed; yeah, writing to RAM over Gigabit isn't slow -- who would've thought?). Another $30 or so on a RAM upgrade. Their media server doesn't support DLNA either, you have to spend another $40 for Twonky. As for jumbo frames, forget about using 9014 bytes on your whole network, this only supports 7936 bytes, so you'll likely have to scale everything else back for compatibility. Maybe I'm just a whiny little little b****, but at $500/TB (in RAID5, taxes in) with average drives, I expect not to have to spend $30 here and $40 there afterwards, just to have 40MB/sec speeds (and that's RAID5 with 3 drives only -- expect it to be even slower with 6 as it has to XOR twice as much data first! Wimpy E2140 CPU too) This is why I don't buy NAS boxes. If I had this much money to blow on storage, I'd be getting one of these instead. Sustained 800MB+/sec writes in any RAID level no problem! Reads well over a Gigabyte/sec, sustained! It could max out a 10Gbit card! Up to 4GB DDR2 cache onboard, battery backup option, up to 24 drives with LBA64 support, adding capacity online (much like the X-RAID thing), "advanced" RAID modes e.g. 10/5/6/30/50/60, staggered spin up, the very best management/monitoring software, drivers for every platform out there and much, much more. Makes every single NAS out there look like a cheap dinky toy, and many low-medium end SANs as well.

Chances are that those tools would actually work, but that the key contains embedded nulls, causing them to fail (usually with a permission-related error message). Regedit can't touch those either. That's one of the tricks malware makers tend to use (you can't remove them using Windows API calls either! A malware maker's dream!) I'd give RegDelNull a try (yet another sysinternals gem) Then again, maybe it's just a plain old permission issue.

Using FF 3.5.1 here too, no problems whatsoever.

If your OS runs slow then use process explorer. You'll see precisely which process is using up all the CPU (then you can double click on the said process, and see which threads are doing that too). Some 3rd party gadgets are poorly written too.

What redundant files? Sounds like the installer crashes due to your damaged install. Have a look at the log file created by the installer. Not having a HP computer, it's hard to say what goes on here. Very well could be a bug in HP's software... Like what? Did you also delete more files that seemed redundant? (Could have been system files required, like the uninstallers for these) I've never encountered any of these so far with Vista, or heard of someone with those problems either...